(Warning: Spoiler ahead.)
I’d like to play a game: Who here do you trust the least?
That’s the question The Real Housewives of Miami star Marysol Patton once asked her fellow castmates, so it’s really no surprise a Real Housewife has finally emerged from The Traitors victorious—even if you all doubted her.
Yep, Dolores Catania—the most faithful of the faithful—not only went home with $50,000, but with something even better: the friendship of her fellow winners, the incomparable Dylan Efron and Gabby Windey (oh, and Lord Ivar, somehow). Isn’t that what it’s all about?
After the most chaotic season in Traitors history, with episodes constantly ending in hair-pulling frustration, it’s simply cathartic that the finale is wonderful fan service. It all begins with a moment that was destined in the stars the second Danielle turned on her fellow Traitors (or, certainly by the time she donned that Monopoly man hat).
Ding dong, the witch is dead. Danielle Reyes, the best, most psychologically disturbing Traitor in the show’s three seasons, has gone out in a blaze of glory. It’s the only way she knows how.
That means last week’s annoying cliffhanger actually paid off. I never thought Britney had it in her to be so callous, and gosh, am I proud. It’s a low-down, dirty move: the exact kind a Traitor should make.
By that measure, I hope people recognize that, while Danielle played the game annoyingly and was a true disaster, her love-to-hate villainy is the kind of treachery this show is built on. It’s not only a game, it’s a show—and boy did she give us one. If you’re stewing and brewing at home, angry and upset each week, go watch Selling Sunset. Nothing ever happens there.
Of course, Danielle leaves the game with another knife-twist into her fellow Traitors, complimenting each remaining player except Britney. That’s just suspicious enough to put the final nail in Britney’s already closing coffin.
Truly, Britney gives it her all that final day in the castle. She instantly pulls the remaining women in with her gorgeous lies and beautiful bravado, attempting to frame Dylan while sugaring up Gabby. It’s a smart strategy, given she and Dylan shared the same Traitor angel until Britney scored the recruit, a promotion that was ultimately doomed from the get-go, and he and Gabby have feuded under the surface all season.
Britney may be the most competent Traitor that turret has ever seen, but it ultimately doesn’t matter. The faithful smell blood in the water, and that’s the kiss of death in this castle. Even if Britney had managed to survive the contentious round table, she would’ve had her head chopped off at the ring of fire.
Still, she shows up to that final roundtable in angel white, rocking a Parvati Shallow headband as she hopes to do some black widow bidding. Unfortunately for Britney, rocking the Parvati may be iconic from a “yessss queen” perspective, but it’s not how you win The Traitors.
Really, the look is so “I’m a Traitor, but I want you to think I’m a faithful!” that it’s funny. As is Britney’s choice to use her new ability as the Seer to ask Gabby if she’s a faithful. Here, the two have a one-on-one date commonly seen on The Bachelor, except it’s a bit less fake and phony.
Britney just went all-in on accusing Gabby, before turning her vote to Ivar in a last-ditch effort to save Danielle, and finally turning on Danielle when all the cards seemed to fall, so it’s certainly bold that she talks to Gabby like she’s always known she was a faithful. Like, sure. That’s still the most coherent Traitor strategy we’ve seen all season.
For a moment, it does seem as though Britney has a fighting chance—and then the roundtable begins. Instantly, Dylan starts to make his case against her, pointing out Danielle’s feelings of betrayal casting suspicion on Britney. And, try as she might to turn it around, her fate is sealed.
Dylan was quite daring, making a name for himself from the start, which is a smart move for screen time, but one that can make for a late-stage offing. Just as the faithful have to be careful letting the obvious Traitors stick along for the ride, acting as a Traitor angel to a faithful has its downsides. Once Dylan made it far, it was clear he had winner written all over him.
“There’s a chance that you guys were in that turret together, planning to win this together and kind of have a storybook ending,” Dylan says to Britney, clocking the exact reason she was living on borrowed time from the second Danielle recruited her.
It’s a convincing argument, one that simply lives off the question: Do you really trust Britney? Do you want to enter the ring of fire with her? The answer for everyone remaining is a resounding no.
The single most shocking words ever uttered come out of Dolores’ mouth in a confessional: “I’ve finally come to the realization in this castle that I’m going to have to vote this time with my brain, and not just my heart.”
Was Dolores playing the long game this whole time, staying close to the Traitors so they never kill her, while feigning loyalty until the very last moment? Eh, maybe. Maybe not. Who’s to say?
But I believe women, and I believe in the power of Housewives. If Phaedra Parks’ performance last season couldn’t convince you to not mess with the Housewives, honey, then I hope Dolores did. As she said in her Season 14 tagline, “I’m a girl from Paterson, playing Switzerland, dating an Irishman.” No one’s better suited to navigate the social dynamics of this Scottish castle.
Thus, the four remaining hit the ring of fire, where they must decide once and for all who here is a faithful, and who’s a Traitor. Of course, we the viewers know who the faithful are (even if my mom, who had never previously seen an episode, suggested they vote out Ivar, a clear Traitor in her eyes), but it’s quite the final four.
All season, Dylan had gunned for Gabby, while Dolores made a late-stage switch from her Tom Sandoval hatred to cast doubt on Ivar in the eleventh hour. The edit sets up huge suspense as we wonder if Dolores or Gabby will vote to banish once again, something that would surely send this already traumatized fanbase into actual anarchy.
One by one, Alan Cumming reveals Dylan, Ivar, and Gabby have voted to end the game, leaving the game’s fate in Dolores’ hands.
Luckily, Dolores is all about loyalty—so saving her vote for last is quite the symbolic feat. The teary-eyed look she and Dylan share as it’s revealed the game has ended truly pulls at the heartstrings. This rag-tag team of misfits did it, damn it. They won.
A British aristocrat no one previously knew. A mousy-voiced Bachelorette turned late-in-life-lesbian. A tough-as-nails, trusting Real Housewife of New Jersey. Zac Efron’s hot brother. Individually quite unassuming, but together, they make the winning team. They are fam-bi-ly, and you don’t mess with that.
It’s an ending right out of a feel-good movie. I half expected Dylan to throw his arm up in victory, freeze-framing as “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” kicks in.
Notably, none of the winners are career gamers, nor did they spend all season hyping up their ill-fated strategies. It’s so funny to think of all Boston Rob and Danielle’s self-congratulatory confessionals, knowing they doomed themselves early on, while everyone forgot Ivar even existed, and Gabby flew under the radar as a non-threat. At some point people will have to learn to stop underestimating pretty girls with fun voices.
And so ends another amazing season of TV’s most seductive mystery. It really did have everything: the rise-and-fall of quirky Carolyn; an increasingly erratic performance from our Best Lead Actress winner, Danielle; and the surprise redemption of everyone’s favorite doofus, Tom Sandoval.
It’s not about winning $50,000, chump change for some of these reality TV elites. The Traitors is a chance to rewrite your story, cheesy as that may be, and just as risky (see: Dan Gheesling). Sure, Danielle didn’t win and probably scored herself a few new enemies, but everyone’s going to want TV’s most hated villain on their platform. What else does House of Villains exist for?
Carolyn is rumored for a Survivor 50 return, Tom has finally crawled his way out of the “Scandoval,” and Dylan Efron will surely score at least one guest role in a The Other Two-esque sitcom. Ivar could very well land some show about British royalty that no one watches, and Dolores got to have a fun sidequest as she awaits news of her fate on The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
We the viewers are the biggest winners of all, soaking up 11 episodes (and a cute little reunion!) before we return to our dystopian lives. Everyone’s favorite aristocrat noted that “good triumphs evil every time,” and maybe that’s just the message we all need right now.
