The Irish adaptation of the hit reality show is a surprisingly authentic and entertaining social experiment.
Sadie Loughman
Last month, The Traitors Ireland offered us a beacon of hope in reality television, filled with drama, betrayal, tactics and alliances. Aside from being an entertaining watch, it displays a microcosm of society, where no one is safe from exile or accusation.
The Traitors Ireland hit our screens on August 31st, reaching an average of 550,000 viewers each episode. For those who have yet to watch the show, beware of spoilers ahead.
If you are out of the loop, The Traitors is a reality show in which contestants are split into two groups – murderous Traitors and loyal Faithfuls. As the Traitors choose one person each night to ‘kill’, Faithfuls must scramble to figure out who among them is a traitor and vote them off before they strike again.
Alongside the challenge of eliminating Traitors, contestants must also complete various tasks to add more money to the prize pot, and Traitors may also try to recruit Faithfuls to their team. The Faithfuls must vote out all Traitors by the end of the show to split the money among themselves. If any Traitor remains by the finale, they win the entire prize while the Faithfuls leave with nothing.
The Traitors was originally a Dutch reality series called De Verraders, which has been adapted in 36 different countries around the world. You may have seen the UK version with Claudia Winkelman as the host, with its new season of The Celebrity Traitors airing last week.
It’s no surprise that transplanting an already successful show to Ireland has made for successful television. But what is surprising is that the Irish version is equally, if not more, enjoyable than its counterparts. Irish television often fails in appropriating other shows. Take, for example, The Great Irish Bake Off and Ireland’s Got Talent, two shows which ended after only a few seasons. Our small population and limited broadcaster funding tend to restrict the possibilities for reality television in Ireland.
Despite this, The Traitors Ireland has bandied together a somewhat lovable cast, full of faces and personalities you feel as though you already know. Paudie, a Traitor out of his depth and secret father of contestant Andrew, has been lovingly named as the ‘father figure’ of the show. Nick and Ben, later turning into a powerful team of traitors, had their bromance solidified throughout the season. The contestants feel like people you’d see in your local shop or on the side of a GAA pitch, and this only makes for better television.
Adding to this likeability element, the contestants of traitors are not grifting for social media fame, unlike Love Island and Big Brother contestants. Instead, be it a Faithful or a Traitor, they come in without any false personas and try their hardest to win.
The Irish Faithfuls were successful this season, with trio Kelley, Oyin and Vanessa realising that Nick and Ben had been playing innocent all along. In a satisfying finale, the girls stood firm in their trust for one another, voting off Nick and then Ben, to win the prize money. But their success was not without some low points, as many fellow faithfuls were picked off and eliminated by the group in a panicked effort to root out the traitors.
The Traitors Ireland offered us a glance into a microcosm of society, where a kind of tribal psyche takes over. As contestants do not know who to trust, a growing paranoia led them to some unfortunate outcomes, the most obvious being Joanna’s departure.
In the final week of the season, with original traitor Paudie voted out, the Faithfuls began to turn on one another. Joanna’s departure was precipitated by a misunderstanding between her and her fellow Faithfuls, Faye, Vanessa and Oyin. Conversation at the round table, where contestants deliberate and vote, devolved into a pointing of fingers and claims of “he said, she said”. Meanwhile, Traitors Nick and Ben sat back and watched chaos unfold. As Joanna was voted out on suspicion that she was trying to turn the girls against one another, things took a personal turn. Joanna exited the game in tears, proclaiming the group to be “mean girls”. She later stated that she felt that her character had been attacked by suggestions that she was not truthful, but that she harboured no ill will toward the group.
Although The Traitors is “just a game”, the set is kitschy and the challenges over the top (take the funeral episode, for example, which followed an entire funeral procession of singing mourners and placed contestants in coffins), the stakes still feel high. High enough to lead to outrage and tears, and high enough to make for a thoroughly entertaining watch.
While The Traitors doesn’t follow the 24/7 surveillance format of shows like Big Brother and Love Island, the intensity remains. Contestants cannot talk to one another until cameras are rolling, and when the cameras are off, they are shuttled back to their hotel rooms, cut off from contact with family and the rest of the world. It’s an extreme process that would make anyone feel immersed in the game.
Joanna’s departure seemed inevitable as she struggled to find her place within the social dynamics of the group. She claimed herself as an independent player, not wanting to be in alliance with anyone. Her lack of allies only made her more vulnerable, and even when she extended a helping hand by giving Kelley a shield, her generosity went unreturned as Kelley later voted her out.
The same could be said for Wilkin, a Faithful who breezed through to the final week without much action and was killed by Traitors Nick and Ben for being an inoffensive and “clueless” player.
In The Traitors, any aspect of a contestant’s personality is up for attack, as people who are ‘too quiet’ or ‘too loud’ are immediately deemed suspicious. The Faithfuls must grasp at straws to try to weed out the Traitors, and this sometimes results in absurd accusations.
In the most recent episode of The Celebrity Traitors in the UK, Tom Daly became suspicious of Kate Garraway for her use of the word “flabbergasted”. Daly’s reasoning was indeed bizarre, as Alan Carr responded: “You can’t just call someone a Traitor because they have a better vocabulary than you”. It seems anything goes in The Traitors, and one wrong move – or word – could have you voted off. It’s a wicked game.
