‘The Traitors’ Biggest Flop: Why Are the ‘Big Brother’ Vets So Bad?

When host Alan Cumming tapped Big Brother’s Danielle Reyes on the shoulder during the Season 3 premiere of The Traitors, fans of the long-running CBS show rejoiced. To have one of its greatest players—widely regarded as one of the best to never win—take on the role of a Traitor felt like a blessing. But now almost halfway into the new season of Peacock’s hit series that assembles a group of familiar faces for what is essentially a game of Mafia, Danielle’s performance has been a trainwreck to witness.

For the uninitiated: Danielle is an OG Big Brother legend, having been the Season 3 runner-up nearly 23 years ago before returning for the first All-Stars edition in 2006, and, most recently, the 2023 spin-off Big Brother Reindeer Games. One of the strongest social strategists the show has ever seen, Danielle played a cutthroat and ruthless game that served as the blueprint.

Known for manipulating her housemates, it makes sense why Danielle was picked to be a Traitor. But here, she’s playing so recklessly and emotionally that it’s impossible to grasp what’s going through her head. Sure, it’s fun to watch the chaos unfold, but the Big Brother superfan in me can’t help but scream at my TV every time she makes a bad decision.

And she’s not the first Big Brother vet on The Traitors to be this much, and this confusing of, a disaster.

From a strategic perspective, Danielle is doing too damn much! After the first few murders, she would fake cry and yap away at the breakfast table, the theatrics of which being a massive red flag. Her bad gameplay only continued in every episode so far.

Danielle’s game hit rock bottom last week with a string of terrible decisions. During the mission, in which contestants can nominate themselves or others for a shield if they successfully solve riddles, Danielle decides to make herself look more “Faithful” by choosing to nominate people for shields not once, but twice, rather than saving herself.

It’s such a bafflingly stupid decision that The Real Housewives of New Jersey starDolores Catania calls her out, and Danielle practically spirals in front of everyone once she realizes her massive mistake. Luckily for Danielle, people were so hung up on the previous episode’s events that she emerged unscathed.

Even more heinous is her decision to target all of her fellow Traitors following Survivor legend “Boston” Rob Mariano’s betrayal of Bob the Drag Queen. Several Faithfuls are already suspicious of Rob, while Traitor Carolyn Wiger, also from Survivor, expresses her annoyance with the move. Seeking vengeance, Danielle decides that, while she does eventually want to take Rob out, she doesn’t want to do it with Carolyn. Thus, she plans to get Carolyn banished first in order to recruit a new Traitor she hopes will be easier to sway.

Not only is it an over-confident assumption from Danielle that everything will go in her favor, but this super complicated approach to targeting someone can be described as very Big Brother-esque. The same can be said about the awful games of every Big Brother Traitor to grace the U.S. iteration thus far.

Time after time, the BB stars who don the Traitor cloak act as if they’re still living in isolation on the Paramount lot. The continuous struggle to adapt to the series and its group project vibe stems from the massive difference in format. Whereas Big Brother is played for up to three months—allowing for ample strategizing, socializing, and scheming—the Traitors castle is a different beast, with filming taking less than three weeks. Things in Scotland move at lightning speed, and you’re screwed if you can’t think on your feet.

In Season 2, Dan Gheesling—whose masterful games in Big Brother seasons 10 (which he won) and 14 (runner-up) earned him a spot on the BB Mount Rushmore—emerged from his 10-year reality TV retirement only to be banished at the halfway mark. In an interview with Vulture, Gheesling called it a “humbling” experience, especially since Big Brother is inherently built for the long-term.

Before that, there was Cody Calafiore, the two-time player who won Big Brother 22: All-Stars, who was in the first U.S. season of The Traitors. Like Dan and Danielle, Cody’s biggest flaw in Season 1 was his inability to pivot. Loyalty was a major aspect of Cody’s gameplay, and the role of a Traitor wasn’t one he was used to, so he struggled and, like Dan, got banished six episodes in. Cody arguably played a better game than the Big Brother Traitors that followed, but the bar is on the floor.

Big Brother stars may have yet to win the show. (That excludes Cirie Fields, the Survivor star who joined Big Brother Season 25 after winning the first season of The Traitors in 2023.) But they haven’t been total flops. The likes of Janelle Pierzina, Rachel Reilly, and, this season, Britney Haynes were cast for their larger-than-life personalities, and they’ve succeeded at bringing the entertainment as Faithfuls. Even Big Brother Season 16 winner Derrick Levasseur has a good shot at making it far if he avoids getting murdered this week.

In the preview for this week’s episode, the Traitors are in shambles as Danielle and Carolyn appear to be coming for each other’s throats. It’s possible that Danielle’s all-time bad gameplay has caught up to her, but there’s still a chance to recover. Regardless, The Traitors is ultimately a different competition series than Big Brother, so it wouldn’t be fair to devalue any player’s legacy because of their performance here. But if there’s anything Cody, Dan, and Danielle have proven, it’s that marathoners can’t always be great sprinters.