Cut The Head Off The Snake

When last we met, four Faithfuls were blindfolded and tied to trees in the middle of the Scottish forest. Real Housewives star Caroline Stanbury, Kristen Kish, Ron Funches and Eric Nam had all pleaded their case to the three Traitors, fellow Housewives Lisa Rinna and Candiace Dillard Bassett plus Rob Rausch. This week on The Traitors, one of these unlucky tree-huggers meets their maker.

Last week’s challenge put the fates of half the competitors in the hands of a partner, someone they trusted. Dorinda Medley failed the challenge, putting her partner Lisa up for murder, but Dorinda is obviously unaware that Lisa is a Traitor who is immune to murder. Poor Dorinda has been a nervous wreck that she could be the cause of Lisa’s demise. Colton Underwood is also nervous that his partner, Caroline, might not make it back from the forest and unfortunately, he’s correct. When we cut back to scenes from the night before, Caroline, who is the victim of a face-to-face murder, sees Lisa, Candiace and Rob in front of her as they commit their heinous crime, and all Caroline can do is curse out her sister from another mister (by that I mean Andy Cohen), saying, “Rinna, you bitch.”

Lisa and Candiace are both cold as ice as they send off one of their own, with Lisa telling Caroline, “Too bad, Caroline. Back to Dubai you go.” This is most definitely a departure from the Housewives Sisterhood Pact of seasons past. “I’ll see you out of this, I’m sure. Somewhere like Bravo-Con,” Caroline tells Lisa, and Lisa, committing so hard to her bit, flatly tells her, “No you won’t.” This ferocity from Lisa is in stark contrast to her behavior at the breakfast table the next day when she’s asked what it was like being tied to a tree. Since she herself was never tied up, she invents her own wild tale, telling the Faithfuls about the leather-masked henchman with an axe, but also praying her details will be corroborated by Ron who actually was tied up. (When Candiace watches Lisa’s over-the-top breakfast performance, she worries that Lisa’s doing too much, but then adds, “Housewives are dramatic people. I mean, hello. Have you met me?”)

After breakfast, two ringleaders emerge with theories and candidates for banishment. Tiffany Mitchell is convinced that the remaining Traitors are Ron, Yam Yam Arocho, and Michael Rapaport. But Colton is convinced that it’s Tiffany who’s the Traitor. They both start to make their case to the others as they set out for the day’s challenge, where host Alan Cumming explains that they will be broken into groups of three or four, and are tasked with finding spears that are hidden in the woods. Once they find and retrieve the spears, they’ve got to light them on fire and plunge them into a large wooden effigy, Wicker Man-style, while saying the name of a competitor that they do NOT want to get a shield that day. Poor Ron, who deserves better than what he’s getting from his fellow Faithfuls, is the first person to be stripped of a shield. Also stripped of their shields are Monet X Change, Tiffany, Michael, Tara Lipinski, Stephen Coletti, Maura Higgins, Johnny Weir, Yam Yam (who cries when he learns he’s unshielded) and, once again, Lisa who will be safe regardless.

After we’re forced to suffer through another meal where Michael sucks food into his mouth like he’s a cartoon cat who lives on a trash heap, we head to the round table where Colton readies himself to take Tiffany down. “You’re the most dangerous and you’re the puppetmaster,” Colton says, addressing Tiffany directly about her tendency to want to control the narrative around who’s a Traitor. To that, Tiffany replies, “No, I’m the smartest. Definitely smarter than you.” But then, in a kind of dumb move, Tiffany starts to challenge anyone who disagrees with her to write her name down for banishment. (Hilariously, she spells her name out so people get it right on their little chalkboards, something that’s more necessary than you’d think on this show. I will truly never forget back in season one when there were at least dozen spelling variations on the name “Geraldine.”)

While Colton and Tiffany trade accusations (and Ron suggests that Maura might be a Traitor based on the light footsteps he heard in the forest the night before), a new bomb is dropped: Eric, also tied to a tree the night before, reveals that while he was begging the Traitors for his life, he heard one of them laugh, and he is 99% sure the laughter came from Tiffany. (Eric claims that as a musician, his ears are highly attuned to sound, to which Tiffany responds, “You might need another career.”)

Candiace comes to Tiffany’s defense to turn eyes back toward Ron, and Tiffany cries when she thinks about just how much she needs the prize money. (Candiace also cries out of sympathy for Tiffany. Candiace is starting to rival Phaedra Parks for being the most unsuspecting Traitor of all time.) As an aside, while this batch of Traitors seems to relish the game and are really not being precious about who they kill, the Faithfuls in this game are some of the more delicate competitors we’ve ever seen, everyone seems to be taking this game very personally, forgetting that it is, in fact, a game.

Ultimately, Tiffany is banished in what is yet another almost unanimous vote, and when she steps into the Circle of Truth, she tells them all, “You get what you deserve and you all didn’t deserve me because I am a Faithful.” No one is more surprised by this than Eric’s ears, which have deceived him.

Michael, who has been especially reserved all episode (if Tiffany’s departing legacy is that she got him to shut up a little, her time in the castle will have been worth it!) finally speaks up after the banishment when he tells Kristen something that might just swing the game in a new direction. “One of those three hunks is a Traitor. Colton, Rob, and Stephen. I don’t know which one, but one of them has to be.”

He ain’t wrong.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.