The Traitors US Writeups

S1:

Reza: N/A (Didn't see enough of him. I don't think he'd do that well, by the track record of Bravo contestants, but can't say for sure.)

Geraldine: N/A (First banishments are always pretty luck based, IMO.

Bam: N/A (Didn't see enough of him.)

Brandi: D (Was seemingly good at detecting Traitors, but I don't put much stock/weight into this personally, and she seemingly was socially disliked that she was such an early banishment despite her reads being correct. Ultimately I prioritize 'longevity skills' over 'Traitor hunting skills', so I considered a D, but I've decided to be nice.)

Azra: N/A (Didn't see enough of her.)

Michael: D (IIRC, the only real 'gamer superfan' of the newbie contestants. I've seen him do podcasts about the Traitors, indicating that he has some gaming ability, but his game did not give me much faith in him. TBH, I think he was mostly screwed since he had such a big target on him from the jump, but he did not help himself in making himself appear trustworthy to anyone else.)

Ryan: C (I also don't recall much about him, but he seems like an affable person who's good at challenges, and *usually* those people tend to make it far [ex. CT from S2]. I can't quite go to a C for him though, he showed no real gamer instincts.)

Kyle: B (Seemingly was one of the only players this season to try and use meta-gaming to detect the Traitors, which was a solid strategy. However, he was a pretty aggressive Traitor hunter from the jump, which isn't a path to success, and he got turned on pretty quickly despite him being correct on Cody.)

Amanda: B (Amanda got minimal screentime on the show, so I'm moreso basing this on a podcast interview I've heard with her. She seems very socially charismatic, and she claims that she basically figured out all the Traitors [according to her, she suspected Shelbe/Cirie/Cody/Christian, with Shelbe being her main suspicion]; I don't know that I believe that, though, that sounds too convenient to me. She also said she hadn't watched any social strategy shows beforehand and didn't strike me as a gamer, but I think she's good at the social game, though she'd probably be murdered if she wasn't forced to drop out due to COVID.)

Cody: C (This might be a hot take, but a player is going to play way more often as a Faithful than a Traitor, and most of Cody's weaknesses in the game came from him being a Traitor. He obviously was bad as a Traitor and could not handle it, but I think he'd do very well as a Faithful, he's shown in Big Brother that he has the social strategy chops and people liked him in the house.)

Anjelica: C (Similar to Anjelica, she had minimal screentime on the show and so I'm mostly basing this on her interview. She came off as likable, and given her being cousins with Tommy from BBUS, I assume she has slightly more game knowledge than the average Faithful here. She also claims to have figured out all the Traitors with her last suspicions before leaving the game, but I also am skeptical of that as well, I feel like the show would've shown that to build up suspense on showing the Traitors [especially Cirie] in danger. On the show she was super emotional, which I feel like isn't the most promising game.)

Shelbe: B (She seems socially very well liked to the point that people had a hard time voting her out, but didn't really seem to show any gamer instincts. Not much else to say, unfortunately, she didn't get much screentime.)

Rachel: D (Was doing fine for the first half of the game, until she started getting into a feud with Kate. Overall though, knowing Rachel from BB, I just don't think she's the type of player that makes it far in the game due to her OTT personality, I think she has a Janelle run on many seasons.)

Stephenie: C (Some points for figuring out Cody, but minus points for not seemingly figuring out Cirie, and her disapproving Cirie's game in the reunion makes me question her gamer instincts and whether she'd do anything to win.)

Christian: C (He's hard to rate. Made a lot of risky plays, but made it very far into the game without people voting for him. I do think most of his plays were not smart, him murdering his allies is bad gameplay IMO and his lie about being recruited was one of the worst plays we've seen on the show, but he seems socially well liked.)

Kate: F (A pretty terrible player with zero redeeming game qualities. Made everyone hate her socially, to the point where they would try to vote her out despite Kate clearly not being a Traitor. Had wrong reads constantly as well.)

Arie: B (Was playing a low-key Faithful game and then actually played a pretty solid Traitors game, IMO. However, him being a poor sport post-season makes me question his gaming mindset, and him giving up and quitting at F4 to begin with was a big blow in my estimations of him.)

Quentin: F (One of the worst Faithfuls at detecting Traitors, but TBH I don't really care about that for most of the game. What makes him solidly an F to me is his finale and his post-show. Willingly ending the game at F4 after only finding two Traitors [two cis white males at that] is crazy, especially when there ended up being two Traitors in the F4, and him still deciding to end the game at F3 with Cirie is insanity. His poor sportsmanship post-show is also a mark against him.)

Andie: C (Socially very well liked. I've heard the argument of 'they were so well liked and yet never murdered, that speaks to her gaming ability', but really I think it was just that Cirie knew she had Andie snowed. I also equally fault Andie at the endgame and post-show for reasons stated in the Quention writeup.)

Cirie: S (Cirie is complicated. She played a flawless Traitors game, but I don't think it's very repeatable and she was extremely lucky this was a first season of the Traitors; I think she gets into a lot more hot water if this was the 2nd/3rd season of the show, because 'Cirie is such a trusted person with everyone, why hasn't she been murdered yet?' and 'We've only banished cis white male Traitors, there should be a POC woman as a Traitor' would be brought up in future seasons and I didn't see anything in her game here to prepare for those possibilities. I don't really think she played that different from Dan, which may be a hot take, but in the end, the results don't lie; she was socially very well trusted, pretty much no one was shown suspecting her on the show, and she got the players she wanted in the endgame where the last Faithful were pretty much all loyal to her.)

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Season 2:

Bananas: N/A (I haven't watched Challenge or House of Villains, so I'm not very familiar with his playstyle, though from what I've heard, he's a very likely early banishment anyways. He didn't do anything in this game that caused him to be the first murder though, it was his track record.)

Peppermint: B (Maybe hot take since she's such an early elimination, but I feel like there's barely enough data to give her a rating. She seems to have decent strategic chops as she says she's a fan of these strategy shows, seems socially good by her patching up the Parvati/Sandra feud, and did a decent job defending herself. She just got unlucky by first-banishment-variance and potential 'demographic minority' discrimination, but if you put her in a cast with more Drag Race contestants, I have a lot of faith in her.)

Marcus: N/A (Was onto Dan, but made the dumb move of telling Dan he suspected him without other people hearing it, such that Dan could murder Marcus and get away with it scot-free.)

Maks: F (Pretty much did everything wrong, made zero connections with anyone in the cast and sketched everyone out, he really shouldn't have ever been banished but was so bad that he got banished quickly.)

Deontay: F (I 100% respect Deontay's decision to leave the game due to mental health reasons. However, I also do think this makes him the worst player of any English-speaking season; I grade players by how likely they are to win in 1000 random seasons, and he's likely going to quit every time for the same reasons, which gives him 0.0% chance to win.)

Ekin-Su: F (Incredibly clueless, not very intelligent, was so gullible that Parvati decided to murder her own ally simply because she was the easiest target.)

Larsa: D (She deserves credit for being one of the main spearheaders of the Traitors meta-gaming, being the one to lead the 'which one of the male contestants could it be? Probably only Dan/CT' theory, and I have to give some credit there. However, she makes herself an incredibly obvious target for both banishment and murder by so obviously leading the Bravo alliance, and from what I've heard on her House of Villains appearance, she doesn't understand the 'gaming mindset' at all.)

Tamra: B (Hot take, but I think Tamra played pretty-much an optimal Faithful game. She stayed low-key [especially relative to the other Housewives, who would have been banished over her] and also seemed to buddy up with Phaedra [albeit unintentionally maybe], which is how you should play the game as a Faithful. She got incredibly unlucky that Phaedra decides to make an out-of-character move by murdering a close ally, and really there was no way Tamra was gonna get closer to Phaedra than Sheree when Sheree has 16+ years of a connection with Phaedra. Do I think she was doing this all intentionally? Almost certainly not, so it's hard to analyze.)

Janelle: F (I've seen Janelle play Big Brother 4 times, and while I'm not high on any of her games on BB, her Traitors game is definitively her worst game. She pretty much did everything wrong, openly and obviously making herself such a big target by aggressively going out of shields and getting into fights, being super-vocal at roundtables and having numerous bad reads, etc.. Her turning on Dan was an atrocious move because Dan would've protected her from murder and would have tried to save her.)

Dan: D (He's tough to rank, because I'd normally have faith in him in any random social-strategy game and I do think he was partially screwed to reputation and metagaming, but while I don't think he's the worst Traitor ever, his game is pretty bad. Refusing to give names was bad, he barely made social connections in the house, and him falling for Peter's obvious-trap were all bad, in addition to him springing the Phaedra accusations only at the roundtable. I do think his game had some merits, namely getting Parvati to go after Phaedra and let Parvati take the heat for it, and I actually think his pitch against Phaedra was decent given he was targeting Phaedra [because what other arguments were there]. Really though, while I agree with Dan that targeting Parvati would've been a mistake, he really should've just targeted a Faithful and then act dumbfounded afterwards. What really sinks him for me though is that he didn't do much homework for the Traitors, IIRC he only watched US1 before coming on the show, which really disappoints me because Dan was a superfan before his BB seasons, and I'd expect Dan to do studying the way Neda did in Canada.)

Bergie: C (Was somewhat gullible/naive at first, but then seemed to gain footing in the game as well as better reads. However, I feel like he positioned himself as such an obvious Faithful in a way that would obviously lead the Traitors to murder him, and he seemed to view the game as a team game rather than an individual one.)

Parvati: C (She's also tough to grade. I think she was kinda screwed due to reputation and meta-gaming and the coffins and Dan believing Peter's obvious-trap, but she also didn't do herself many favors. Her being the one to bring up the housewives as suspects was poor play, she should have gotten someone else to do it and instead was the one to take all the heat from the housewives. She also seemingly spent way too much time with Dan 1-on-1, rather than branching out to form other connections with the Faithfuls, and the Faithfuls clearly clocked how close Parvati and Dan were, which was a big flaw of hers. I thought she did a great job on defense though, her charge against Peter was pretty solid and her defenses/pleas to players like John seemed strong.)

Kevin: D (Kinda similar to Bergie, except I think Kevin has a worse social game [ie. him being angry at Kate when Kate just entered the game and was trying to figure out who was who was baffling] and worse reads overall. I could see an F for him, but I'll give him a D.)

Peter: D (I do give him credit for trying some higher-level plays [ex. his fake feud with Kevin, him setting a 'trap', his Peter Pal's alliance of pure Faithfuls], it does show that he has some creative gaming ability. However, all of those plays were bad ideas, his trap was super obvious and should've/would've backfired in most scenarios, his feud with Kevin should result in one of them being murdered to frame the other person, and the alliance was so blatant [due to them literally locking themselves in a room and pushing others out] that they would literally be *all* of the Traitors' next few murders and caused peter to have an inescapable target. What cements him as a D, though, is his refusal to accept the Traitors offer, he could have very easily won if he accepted, but his 'moral superiority' of thinking Faithfuls are good and Traitors are bad was stupid.)

John: B (I hate to say this, but he may have been one of the best players of the season? He initially had a huge amount of suspicion on him, which usually is a doomed situation, but he managed to become a cleared Faithful by vehemently swearing on his kids to everyone that he was a Faithful, which really shouldn't mean anything but was so effective that production told the players that they could no longer use it as a strategy, so credit to him. He also didn't fall for Parvati's emotional pitch/appeal to him, which is pretty impressive given Parvati is notoriously one of the most charming players in all of social-strategy, and his roundtable arguments were very well-constructed and impactful. I do question his social game ability as I think the Peter Pals was a unique circumstance and he was disliked by many of the other cast members, but I don't think he was disliked enough to ever be banished. He also showed good sportsmanship at the reunion and recognized it was a game.)

Phaedra: C (Phaedra is tough to assess, because maybe hot take, I don't think she's much of a different player from MJ/Sheree, all three of them are Housewives who play the game extremely passively and aloof, it just looks better on Phaedra's end because she's a Traitor and she's avoiding suspicion by doing so, but MJ/Sheree also avoided suspicion with how passive they were. However, what puts her above MJ/Sheree is that she did an effective job at defending herself against the numerous onslaughts of accusations against her, which I haven't seen evidence that MJ or Sheree could do. I do think she has zero strategic ability, demonstrated by letting Dan recruit Parvati and letting them make all the decisions, as well as her trying to get Kate to make the game-plans for the both of them. I do fault her a little for giving up, but not too much since I can understand why she wanted to give up after constantly being accused again and gain.)

Sheree: C (Like I said in my Phaedra write-up, I don't think Sheree is that different of a player compared to Phaedra. Sheree was seemingly even more passive, but seemed to clock that Kate was a Traitor before she got murdered and recognized that Phaedra was one prior to Phaedra's banishment. While her gameplay is boring and probably unintentional, I do think it was probably the optimal way to play for her in terms of longevity, but I just don't have much faith in her as a player.)

Sandra: S (I'm someone on the side of the Sandra-is-overrated camp in Survivor, but I have to say she really impressed me in the Traitors, this was easily her best game ever IMO and significantly elevated my opinion of her as a player. It certainly wasn't flawless, but it's impossible for Faithfuls to play without some flaws, and Sandra played about as well as you could ask for. She spearheaded the Traitor Angel strategy, which was effective in allowing her to survive all the murders, and she correctly identified all the Traitors but also sat on her suspicions until the time was right. She also recognized the numbers game and was able to explain alliances to the Housewives, which probably caused them to protect Phaedra from banishment until the endgame. I did fault her for letting Parvati go, but I'm not sure how much she could've done to prevent it. She did get completely outplayed by Kate in the Final 5 round, but overall it was definitely the best game of the season.)

Kate: D (I do give her credit for outplaying Sandra in the Final 5 round, and I actually think her final murder of Sheree was a decent move, contrary to popular belief [she 100% needed to shake up the status quo since she 100% would have been banished if she did the obvious thing and murdered Trishelle]. However, the rest of her game was pretty bad, her openly giving up at F4 was obviously bad, and her exposing herself through her vote reasoning for Phaedra was mind-boggling, it should've been so easy for Kate to win as a late recruited Traitor and she had a real chance of winning if it wasn't for that complete fumble. Otherwise though, this is Kate, I don't have faith in her as a game player.)

MJ: D (I don't think MJ is that different of a player from Phaedra or Sheree, but I do think her F3 gameplay is a big mark against her, she obviously should've voted against CT [apparently Trishelle told her to do so prior to the Circle of Fire, so MJ really shouldn't have been shocked since Trishelle planned together with MJ, but MJ apparently forgot or something], her pitch at the end was bad, and her post-show reasoning for her F3 gameplay made no sense, in addition to her poor sportsmanship. MJ seemed more genuine in trying to find Traitors than Sheree based on her confessionals, which actually kinda lowers my opinion on MJ since to me that means it was less likely MJ was intentionally keeping Phaedra around, whereas I do think Sheree may have intentionally been keeping Phaedra around.)

Trishelle: C (This may be a hot take considering I see Trishelle frequently on Best Faithful lists, but I just don't have much faith in her on 1000 random seasons of the Traitors. To be clear, she became a pretty solid Traitor hunter after her Peppermint mess-up and presented a decent case against Phaedra, her idea of voting out Phaedra before Parvati made a lot of sense, and I give her some credit for being willing to suspect CT, but I think her cons outweigh her pros. I don't think Traitor hunting is that valuable in terms of your chances of winning as a Faithful, and I think her social game is pretty bad, she's very abrasive and not very well liked on her cast, and her whining on numerous occasions did not give me faith in her as a player. Her paranoid nonsense against Peppermint deserves some demerits, and IMO it seems to me that Trishelle only suspected CT because she was upset that CT didn't give her safety, which I found hypocritical because Trishelle excluded CT from the Peter Pals alliance. On many seasons she gets murdered as an obvious Traitor hunter and got extremely lucky that the Peter Pals existed so that they'd all be additional murder targets, and her being the last one of the Peter Pals seemed to be mostly based on luck.)

CT: B (Also may be a hot take considering CT gets ranked highly in best Faithful lists, but I don't think he's that great. I do give him credit for somehow managing to escape the hotseat after him/Dan/Parvati got singled out as *the* biggest suspects, and his social game seems pretty good. However, he openly rejected the idea of keeping Traitors in the game [which is bad because they'd just get replaced with new Traitors who he wouldn't know who they are], he got played by Kate at the F5 and didn't keep Trishelle in-the-loop in a way that almost caused Trishelle to get CT banished at F3, and his reasoning for Phaedra didn't make much sense [ie. challenge-related stuff] either.)

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Season 3 Thoughts:

Dorinda: F (Despite her being a first banishment, I feel like we saw enough of her in the first episode to know that she's likely an early banishment in most seasons, similar to a Larsa, she's way too prone to fighting other players and drawing heat on herself.)

Wells: N/A (The only S3 player that I'm going N/A for. He got targetted for nonsense reasons, as per most first banishments. I liked his strategy of "teaming up with Ayan because Ayan talks non-stop and so he doesn't have to say anything and thus can't risk saying anything wrong", but while I like him generally, I do think he was more in the wrong of the Robyn/Wells feud; Wells acted like Robyn was upset at him for saying the murder was stupid, but from my POV Robyn was just disagreeing, I didn't see Robyn get emotionally stirred up or anything, so I do fault Wells for that, but that had little to do with his banishment anyways.)

Ayan: D (While I do think she's playing up her dumbness a little bit and that she's self-aware about her naivety, which is definitely a plus compared to many Faithful who are gullible AND self-unaware, I've become convinced now that she is one of the more gullible/naive players on the cast, didn't really know anyone else on the cast and seemingly gets persuaded pretty easily. I think she could've been used as a Traitor's pet very easily.)

Tony: S (One of my hottest takes, but I'll stand by it. I think Tony easily played the best of any of the gamers, and at the very least definitively showed the least flaws despite having such an early exit. He was one of the *only* gamers who recognized "we should all stick together no matter what, doesn't matter which one of us are the Traitors", and he ended up being correct on 3/4 of the Traitors but clearly had no interest in targetting them anytime soon, which is how you should play the game. I've seen viewers/players criticize him for playing too aggressively here, but I've also seen other viewers/players criticize him for playing too passively here, which to me just means that people had preconceived notions abotu Tony and he was a dead man walking no matter what he did.)

Jeremy: C (I'm a huge fan of Jeremy's winning game in Survivor and thought that the Traitors was very suited to his playstyle, but unfortunately, I heavily considered a D for him. While he did end up suspecting Bob TDQ and Danielle as Traitors, meaning he's technically correct, it's still baffling to me that he would openly suspect players he has a close connection to, you should just let Bob TDQ & Danielle protect you from murder, getting them banished will only make you a prime suspect for murder and leave you with less allies in the endgame. He did bring up the 'gamers should stick together' post-murder, but I really don't think he followed this mantra in-game.)

Bob TDQ: D (I loved Bob TDQ on the show, but he consistently had poor reads and made poor strategic decisions at every decision-making point. Him also being very vocal at roundtables would have likely resulted in him being an early banishment/murder, regardless of whether he was playing as a Faithful or a Traitor. He did have numerous people who refused to vote him out though, and he apparently was effective in defending himself against Dylan, so I'll give him some credit there.)

Robyn: D (I do think Robyn actually had some good reads at points in the game, though she obviously had numerous bad reads and would constantly fall for whatever easy traps the Traitors would lay out through their murders.)

Nikki: B (Wavering between a B and a C for her. She got screwed by the coffins and Chrishell/Gabby randomly turning on her and Chrishell's 'vibes' reasoning when Nikki didn't even show that strong of a reaction in the scene Chrishell was referencing. I thought she defended herself well against Wes, and I didn't see her make any real mistakes, so I'll give her a B.)

Bob H: D (Completely clocked Boston Rob such that Rob felt the need to murder him right after. However, I don't like him singling out Tony during that one clowns/doors mission, to me that shows that he has a tendency of doing behavior that makes him stand out for little benefit, and he shouldn't have clocked Boston Rob at that roundtable if he didn't think Boston Rob was gonna get banished there.)

Wes: B (I liked his early game, where he gave Jeremy a shield to get in with the gamers, as well as clocking that Boston Rob was the Traitor but seemingly intend to hide it, as well as him acknowledging that "there's no real evidence in the game". I do think he wasn't intending to target Boston Rob after Bob TDQ's banishment that soon and was just trying to plant seeds, but he did so too obviously in a way that caused Boston Rob to learn about it, which was his undoing. He did a decent job at presenting a case against Boston Rob and defending himself initially, but then completely fumbled by inadvertently threatening the other players. I was considering an A, but I do think he wasn't socially well-liked on the cast and came off as sketchy to the other players due to scheming too much.)

Derrick: A (I was considering an S for him, tbh. I like his decision to give the shield to Dylan, I liked how he clocked Boston Rob but tried to keep it under wraps for some time, and I do believe he would have avoided targeting Boston Rob for much longer had Boston Rob not eliminated so many of the other gamer threats, and I believe Derrick was [rightfully] concerned that Boston Rob would murder him soon to get rid of any threats and because Rob may suspect that Derrick was a part of Wes's schemes against him. His roundtable case against Rob was perfect, even though he did get outplayed. Ultimately though, I can't give him an S because of his fumbling of his relationship with Britney, including believing Britney was a Traitor over Danielle [Derrick of all people should have realized how differently Danielle was behaving on the Traitors compared to BB, while Britney was behaving the same] and openly telling Britney that he thought she was a Traitor.)

Rob: C (He's tough to assess, both because he was never winning this game [especially due to him being the first twist of the season + cage boys], and because his game had obvious highs and obvious lows. I really don't like him getting rid of a lot of the gamers, that made it so he was the obvious most likely Traitor pick remaining and ultimately what doomed him. He also did not need to go after Bob TDQ soon. However, I have to give him credit for his masterclass deflection onto Wes when Derrick's case against Rob was perfect, and he does a great job at deflecting/defending. I still think he has more faults in the game than pros, but the fact remains that he had quite a few contestants who were loyal to him and were his puppets in the game [ie. Chrishell])

Chrishell: D (At the start of the game, I genuinely thought she was a player to look out for as someone who was secretly playing a masterful game, which was mainly due to me hearing that Chrishell was a big Big Brother & Survivor fan. However, as the season went on, it became clear that Chrishell really didn't know what she was doing, being the person most easily mainpulated by Rob as well as manipulated by the coffins. Her reasoning for turning on Nikki was some of the worst reasoning I've ever seen on the Traitors [which is saying a lot], and she was too obvious of a Faithful such that she was a likely murder.)

Ciara: C (Mostly got screwed by the coffins. However, I don't think her social game seemed that strong prior to the coffins theory, and she did get manipulated by Rob a fair amount, which only added to the reasons that Ciara should get banished. I thought her pitch in the coffins was just her asking to be murdered, and I don't think she has many gamer instincts, but I didn't see enough big flaws for me to go to a D for her.)

Sam: B (Was considering an A for him. As much as he was boring and contributed nothing for the majority of the show, that's kinda how you're supposed to play the Traitors, and his "Alan outfit" metagaming theory was one of the best ideas for detecting Traitors we've seen on the show. However, he was too obvious of a Faithful and was always a likely murder candidate, and he got lucky he wasn't murdered earlier; I actually think he should have been more vocal and done more to attract suspicion on himself.)

Carolyn: B (On the plus side, I think people will always think she's a Faithful no matter what role she has in the game, and thus she's unlikely to be banished. I do think she did a good job at remaining under-the-radar and her murder targets were generally the better ideas. However, her main flaw is being too honest/open, namely constantly telling Danielle that she didn't trust her despite Danielle trying numerous times to make amends, which would obviously result in Danielle going after Carolyn, but Carolyn seemed surprised when Danielle did target Carolyn. She was ineffective at getting what she wanted to happen in the turret, and she's not very good with her words. I've heard that Carolyn was being uncooperative in the turret even in the early episodes before any mistrust was brewed, constantly saying no to every murder candidate, and Carolyn has said that she thought things were going well, so I think she lacks awareness on how to get people to trust her.)

Tom: D (He led the charge against Boston Rob in Rob's banishment, with the correct reasoning as well, so that's the only reason he's getting a D, because he'd be an easy F otherwise. Hated with his cast members, constantly suspecting everyone and being wrong, appearing shifty and untrustworthy to everyone and being a banishment target despite the fact that he should be an obvious Faithful.)

Danielle: C (I genuinely think "Danielle in contention for worst Traitor of all time" is a baffling take. Most players of the cast clearly didn't suspect Danielle, or at least she wasn't high enough on their lists to be a target at roundtable or to be named in the Postmortems. People complain about her 'overacting', but I don't think you can say she's a bad actor if you don't know what she's usually like [most of her critics have not seen her gameplay outside of this show], and there have been PLENTY of Faithfuls in other seasons of the show who cry a ton and have breakdowns and panic attacks on numerous occasions, so the idea that 'no Faithful would be that emotional' is objectively false, and clearly served her well in the game once she was stuck with people who weren't familiar with her BB game. She deserves credit for basically being a coinflip away at winning the game. However, while she was socially great, strategically she was very poor, most of her murder ideas were bad, her giving up shields at that one mission was bad, and her deciding to target Carolyn to target Rob made no sense.)

Britney: D (This may be harsh, but the more I think about Britney's game, the less I like it. Britney is known as a very social player on BB, and on-paper I was convinced that she'd be able to get in with these Bravoverse contestants and other miscellaneous celebrities, but we didn't see any evidence that she made a single connection with any non-gamer outside of Dylan, and she socially seemed pretty poor as her only real allies were her BB alum and Dylan. I still think she was one of the main contributors for the gamers being decimated early on, suspecting and voting for Jeremy at the first vote and seemingly being fine with other gamers leaving. While Derrick and Rob pointing fingers at her are big factors in why Britney ended up having a lot of heat on her, ultimately I believe the real problem is that she let too many of the other gamers leave, to the point that she was the only faithful gamer left and was an easy scapegoat for the Traitors to use. Her seemingly not suspecting Rob after Derrick's case was baffling, and I don't like her handling of her relationship with Derrick in that round either [although I do fault Derrick more]. If she suspected Danielle/Carolyn were Traitors, she also was responsible for Carolyn turning on Danielle, which also inadvertently doomed Britney's game as well. I thought she mostly played well as a Traitor outside of her revote mishap, but her revote mishap was easily the worst move of the season to me IMO, when she'd be a coinflip away from winning the game otherwise.)

Ivar: A (I know people don't like him and he wasn't the best TV, but Ivar played the game well. He had a lot of heat on him initially but somehow was able to escape that to the point of becoming one of the clearest Faithfuls, he laid low when he had to and when he spoke about his suspicions, he was almost-always right and had the right reads, including the use of gender metagaming [as much as people hated it] and was clearly onto Carolyn and Danielle and eventually Britney. His defense at the final roundtables was also decent, him once again using metagaming by saying "I'd be a terrible Traitor pick because I don't do drama as I'm a royal celebrity", which is realistically the best case he could make. I do think he's a little bit aloof at times [ie. Derrick trying to get Ivar to target Rob and Ivar seemingly having no idea what he's talking about])

Gabby: B (I do personally think she's been overrated by the viewers and got a very favorable edit; she was fooled by Bob TDQ early on, clearly was equally of suspicious of Nikki as Chrishelle was after the coffins, and of the Bambis I faulted her the most for making the alliance too obvious, since she kept bringing up (paraphrasing) 'obviously us Bambis are an alliance' in group conversations. However, her game did improve towards the second half, with her realizing Rob was probably a Traitor as well as clocking the Traitor-in-Traitor between Danielle and Carolyn, and her defense against Danielle was pretty solid. However, I think she's socially pretty poor, which prevents me from going to an A for her; she clearly isolated herself with the Bambis early on in the game, and even in the second-to-last episode she spent so much time in rooms by herself, which ran a big risk in allowing everyone else to gang up on her, and she seemingly only brought up her suspicions of Danielle at the roundtable.)

Dylan: S (At the start of the season, I thought there's no way I'd give Dylan an S, because being a 'smart' Traitor hunter from the start would be a surefire way to get yourself murdered. However, I do think over the course of the season, he pivoted away from this and began adopting the Traitor Angel strategy, cozying up to Rob and then Carolyn/Danielle/Britney to avoid being murdered, which worked to perfection. However, I don't think he realized Rob/Carolyn/Danielle were Traitors until later on in the season, so I think he got massively lucky because he *would* have been murdered if there were less gamers as Traitors. If the initial Traitors weren't 3 gamers to start with, I fully believe Dylan gets murdered early in the season, and he lucked out that he wanted to work with the gamers and the gamers happened to all be Traitors this season. That being said, I quite liked most of his reads and observations in the game, he usually came off as a voice of reason, and his navigation of the endgame was masterful. Apparently he's said that he banished Carolyn over Danielle because he knew Danielle would recruit him or Britney while Carolyn would be tougher to predict; I'm not sure that I believe he thought of this in-game, as that would be ten-steps-ahead gameplay, but I'll give him partial credit at least. While I do think he has some flaws in his game, every Faithful is gonna have flaws in their game, and Dylan has so many pros in his game that I'll give him an S.)

Dolores: D (I think Dolores genuinely deserves credit for making it to the endgame, because after 3 housewives were murdered, it should have been *obvious* that Dolores wasn't a Traitor and she should have been an obvious murder target that most people would not be able to escape, but she seemingly was barely even a consideration for murder for the rest of the game. Now, was most of this unintentional on Dolores's part? Almost certainly. I've heard in interviews with other players that Dolores was also kinda over the game and started isolating by herself and not playing the game, which lines up with what we saw in the edit, and her genuinely thinking Tom was a Traitor made no sense.)