Alan Cumming is back as the host of The Traitors US where a smattering of D-Z list reality stars and public figures gather in Scotland to play an extravagant game of Mafia. The show continues its trend of on point casting, explosive drama, and entertaining but ultimately take-it-or-leave-it challenges. Despite being a social strategy game, the overwhelming amount of luck involved can make the show a bit frustrating from a strategic point of view. However, The Traitors remains a cut above the rest in terms of production value, and at the end of the day, it’s hard to beat seeing a world where favorites from the Bravo world like Phaedra Parks end up in the same room as all-time reality competition greats like Boston Rob. Season 4 of the US franchise continues to deliver.

The Black Banquet roughly marks the midway point of the season, so I thought it would be fun to take a look at the season so far. I’m not really aware if there’s an established Edgic for The Traitors but I thought it would be fun to give the remaining players an overall rating based on their edit so far, and make some predictions about who might win this treacherous game. First though, let’s talk a bit about what’s happened so far before getting into the remaining players.

Alan selected Candiace Dillard-Bassett (Real Housewives of Potomac), Lisa Rinna (Real Housewives of Beverly Hills), and Rob Rasuch (Love Island) as Season 4’s Traitors. Additionally, the game began with the selection of a new Secret Traitor role. This player ended up being Donna Kelce (Travis and Jason Kelce’s mom). I think it’s great that there were no gamers selected to be Traitors. This has never happened before in the US franchise, and I think was an important production choice to perhaps “break” the meta-game to some degree.

I did have a problem with the implementation of the Secret Traitor. The main group of Traitors did not know the identity of the Secret Traitor, and vice versa. I think in this setup, it would have been more appropriate to make a gamer the Secret Traitor, or at the very least, someone who had been on reality TV before. It seemed pretty obvious to everyone immediately that Donna was a Traitor, including the other three Traitors. I think it was a tough position for her to operate from when she had no prior relationships going into the game, and little experience in front of the cameras in this capacity. If production really wanted her to be a Traitor, she may have done better if she had been among the primary three Traitors so she had some people to work with directly, but alas she was quickly discovered and taken out. The boot list so far is as follows:

One of the tough parts about The Traitors in the US is that around the midpoint of the game, a lot of the more entertaining players or known quantities pre-game have been eliminated. As a Faithful, there is so little to go off of at the beginning of the game. People are grasping at straws to determine who to banish, thus more boisterous, eccentric, or direct players tend to get kicked out first. On top of that, the Traitors tend to pick off smarter, threatening players at the beginning when there are still a lot of numbers left in the game, and more players who have established themselves as “100% Faithfuls” in the eyes of the group during the end game so they can hide among other players whose role may also be ambiguous.

So yes, we’ve hit the point in the season quieter personalities mostly outweigh big ones. However, in my opinion there’s a few things that have kept this season a little more entertaining and interesting by this point compared to the previous three:

The back half of this season looks to be gearing up for a showdown between the remaining original Traitors Candiace and Rob. Let’s take a look at where all of the remaining players have been and where they might be headed:

Natalie Anderson (Survivor San Juan Del Sur, Survivor: Winners at War; The Amazing Race 21 & 24, The Challenge: Double Agents)

Rating: CPM3

Natalie Anderson. Last gamer standing. I think if she makes it to the end, she could win but I’m not sure if that’s the outcome that’s being set up. I have a feeling that we would have been getting a little bit more of her throughout the game if she was going to come out on top, but perhaps the edit turns hard into a hard-fought comeback for Natalie. She is clearly very smart and helpful in the challenges, but she is direct. Unfortunately, that can be a tough quality on The Traitors, especially when you’re a woman of color. On a personal level, I love it. Natalie will be forever iconic for verbally jabbing at John Rocker and rallying his tribe to “get together and vote him out” during Survivor San Juan Del Sur. Sound familiar? I don’t envy her position though after garnering suspicion for demanding the antidote at the Black Banquet and being the last gamer. The recent spotlight makes her probably one of the only people both Candiace and Rob might agree to recruit, but I don’t think that would help her much. Whether she stays a Faithful or ends up a Traitor, sadly, I think Natalie will be banished from the game in the next couple of rounds.

Mark Ballas (Dancing With The Stars)

Rating: UTR2

Mark Ballas has been posting a lot of behind the scenes content about his time on The Traitors on his Instagram. We are getting almost nothing from him on the show. His content has increased slightly in the past couple of episodes, but we rarely hear anything of much substance from him. We know that he’s working with players like Kristen and Johnny, but we hear much more from them than we do him. My guess is that he gets murdered before reaching the Fire of Truth.

Stephen Colletti (Laguna Beach, One Tree Hill)

Rating: INV

This guy is just a warm body at this point. Perhaps the first time he talked was in this most recent episode when he started catching heat for serving the turkey at the banquet. Perhaps the Faithful will set their sights on him in the next couple of rounds, or maybe he’ll just get murdered. I honestly have no clue because he feels like such a non-factor.

Candiace Dillard-Bassett (Real Housewives of Potomac)

Rating: CPP5

This game is called “The Traitors” and Candiace is here to play. On the Real Housewives of Potomac Candiace was known for her cutting reads and going for the jugular so I was interested to see how she would do on this show. After a bit of a messy start, I’ve actually been pleased with how Candiace has played this game. I think she’s playing really well. She seems socially well connected, she’s speaking up, but not too much, and she is doing the things that Housewives do when they go on this show; sucking at the challenges, defending other Housewives, voting in the interests of the Housewives as a group, and having wrong reads. Out of pettiness, Candiace does something interesting at the end of this most recent episode by voting for Rob. I say it’s interesting because she’s “throwing away her vote” onto someone who seems to be perceived as a “100% Faithful” as another player who is widely considered to be Faithful. To Rob and the audience it looks like she’s throwing him under the bus, but in the castle, it really might seem like a true throw away vote. Even though Lisa was a sinking ship, she wasn’t supposed to vote for her. That would be suspicious within the context of this game. Dorinda also did not vote for Lisa, so I don’t think Candiace’s Round Table shenanigans are really going to stick out to anyone. However, she’s threatening Rob. Both of them are still in positions of relative social insulation and low suspicion. Between her “throw away” vote and his Dagger, the two of them are essentially strong arming the other into keeping them in the game. I think Candiace is still in a decent position to win this game, but as someone familiar with her from RHOP, I also know she can really run her mouth when she’s pissed. Candiace may end up getting too ahead of herself and getting banished, or may end up allowing herself to get socially isolated by the end of the game and get ousted at the Fire of Truth.

`Maura Higgins (Love Island UK)

Rating: MORP3

Maura has been serving some of the best fashion all season. Her thick Irish accent makes most things she says seem pretty entertaining. I love it when she tells us what she’s “tinkin’” and it killed me when she said she couldn’t remember what was going on. In terms of the game, we don’t know as much about her thought process. For the most part she seems more like a number for the Faithfuls rather than someone who’s trying to break down who could be a Traitor. We know she has a close relationship with Rob, so I think if he makes it to the end with her she may end up handing him the win.

Kristen Kish (Top Chef)

Rating: CPP2

As a Top Chef fan, I’ve been bummed that we haven’t seen more of Kristen. However, as the season has progressed, she’s gotten somewhat more content. She is working closely with the other 100% Faithfuls and is repeatedly referred to as a smart player who could end up finding a Traitor. Whenever she is featured, she is often talking about strategy or the game, even if it’s not a lot of content. Unfortunately, I think that she’s maybe one of the only remaining targets at this time that both Candiace and Rob could agree on murdering.

Tara Lipinski (Olympic Figure Skater)

Rating: UTRP2

Tara has been pretty low key in the edit. We don’t hear much from her but we know that she’s close with Johnny and Candiace, but we hear more about these relationships from the perspective of the other person. It feels like if Candiace can keep her and Johnny in the game and bring them to the end, she could come away with the win.

Dorinda Medley (Real Housewives of New York)

Rating: UTR1

This is an odd one… Dorinda is the returning player from Season 3 of The Traitors US. Production brought her back because the audience was so bummed that they didn’t get much of her since she was the first player murdered last season… Only to be barely featured on the show… Before Season 4 premiered there were some rumors online that Dorinda and Donna Kelce threw hands, but we never saw any evidence of this in the final product. This still may not have been true, but off the show it’s been confirmed that Dorinda got into a pretty big fight with Caroline Stanbury. Ron Funches also alluded to Dorinda being really nasty toward him while he was in the game. It seems like whatever Housewifery Dorinda was bringing to The Traitors may have crossed the line… Hard to say what her edit means for her. Perhaps she makes it to the end and hands Candiace the win.

Eric Nam (K-Pop artist)

Rating: MORP3

I wish Eric was getting the Golden Boy Traitor Hunter edit instead of Colton. I can guarantee I would be enjoying his journey much more. We don’t get a ton of strategy talk from him, but we see him engaging with the game. They’ve given us a peek into his emotional state at times as well. Most significantly, the “Golden Ears” situation. His evidence against Tiffany sent her packing, and he seemed genuinely remorseful about it. Overall he seems well liked and of the 100% Faithfuls, one of the ones I could see actually making it to the end game. If he does indeed reach the Fire of Truth, will the ghost of “the laugh” haunt him yet again? Will he successfully catch a Traitor in his midst, or will he hand them the prize pot?

Rob Rausch (Love Island US)

Rating: CPP5

Robby Bobby, I was not familiar with your game. I don’t watch Love Island for mental health reasons so I don’t know if the snake guy is the kind of TV character I’d typically go for, but admittedly, he has a charm about him. Clearly. Everyone in the castle loves Rob! He’s pretty adept socially, a major contributor in challenges, and has a mind for the game. I understand Lisa being a sinking ship, but I do think there’s a difference between just voting for Lisa because it makes the most sense for his Faithful persona and rallying votes against her and striking the final nail in her coffin at the Round Table. Candiace may have written his name down, but he also acutely positioned himself against Candiace by going so hard for Lisa and not telling Candiace ahead of time. They teased people starting to look at him due to his proximity to Colton, similar to how they teased people starting to look at Candiace due to her defending Lisa but I think both are red herrings, at least for now. There are bigger targets than either of them right now, and at some point everyone is looked at due to dwindling numbers. Rob may think he has the upper hand over Candiace because he has the Dagger, and teased that he would use it to save himself. However, she blows up his game for real if she writes his name down again on her way out. Especially if they get into it at the Round Table, and Robby Bobby, if that does happen, I will be praying for you. He is extremely socially insulated though, and I do think that he may have a slight edge over Candiace right now in terms of his position in the game.

Colton Underwood (The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise, The Bachelor)

Rating: CPN5

Sigh— It seems like there’s always one of these on The Traitors US; a conventionally attractive white man who finds they have a knack for strategy and is going in playing hard. Due to my personal biases, I almost never like this player. Think Arie Luyendyk Jr., Peter Weber, and Dylan Efron. Actually not just think. It’s them. This is the archetype. I’m not sure if the general public is supposed to like this player or not. In my opinion, Dylan Efron was far and away the best iteration of this archetype. Probably because he has something called humility, which appears to be a foreign concept to all of these former Bachelors. Colton is the capital T, Traitor, capital H, Hunter of Season 4. He’s got some heat on him and it appears as though his aggro former football player approach rubs people the wrong way, but at the same time he appears to be friends with everyone and has a decent amount of social capital. Ultimately, I feel like he’s in a similar position as Natalie for completely different reasons. Perhaps recruitable as someone to throw out in front of Rob and Candiace, however, I don’t think Candiace would agree to allowing Colton into the turret with Rob. Otherwise, just someone who I can’t see other Faithfuls keeping all the way to the end because there will always be a nagging “what if?” associated with him. I think Colton will be banished in the next couple of rounds.

Johnny Weir (Olympic Figure Skater)

Rating: CPP3

Johnny is in a similar position to Eric, a more prominent Faithful without being totally out in front. Compared to Eric, though, I’d say he has been steadily getting more and more strategic content throughout the season. Johnny appears to be the more level-headed leader of the Faithful compared to Colton. He also seems to have a good relationship with both Candiace and Rob, which may keep him safe. We also keep getting mentions of his “secret” relationship with Tara, but it hasn’t really made much of an impact so far. I could see him making it to the end game, or at least the finale.

I think this next episode will be a turning point in terms of perhaps elevating one of these quieter players to a position to where they might be able to win. However, I think for the most part we are about to dive into a showdown between Candiace and Rob for control of the castle and who ultimately gets to throw colored bags into the Fire of Truth. The Traitors obviously always focuses much more on the Traitors, however, I just don’t know if there are any Faithfuls remaining who we both know well and are playing well enough who will also make it to the end game. In Season 3, even if you were rooting for the Traitors, Gabby and Dylan were compelling Faithfuls with interesting storylines going into the finale. In Season 2, both CT and Trishelle were fairly prominent Faithfuls throughout the season. In Season 1, the audience was invested in whether Cirie would betray Andie. I’m just not sure if the audience cares about any of the remaining Faithfuls like that right now, and if we are going to the editors need to start investing a lot into players like Johnny, Eric, and Tara quickly in the next couple of episodes (assuming players like Natalie, Kristen, and Colton are indeed on their way out).

Overall it just feels like Candiace and Rob are the main characters of this season; they always have been and will continue to be until the end. Compared to the two of them, Lisa f*ckin’ Rinna didn’t even get much screen time! We have gotten humor, strategy, and emotion from both Candiace and Rob consistently throughout the season. Both have been shown pretty positively, in my opinion, with both getting their hands a bit dirty in the last couple of episodes. I doubt that they would agree on someone to recruit as a Traitor to replace Lisa. If they can agree, I think it would be on someone like a Mark or Kristen, but I’m just not sure I see it. I think one of our two remaining original Traitors likely win this game, but I do not think they will win together. It could go to either of them, but I think I’m leaning toward a Rob Rausch win with Candiace going out at the Fire of Truth as my midseason prediction for Season 4’s outcome.

**Images from The Traitors US