If You’re Gonna Come For Me, I’ll Finish You

I know two things to be true about this group of contestants on season 4 of The Traitors: one is that they are a sensitive bunch who take accusations of Traitor-hood very seriously and very personally, and the other is that there is not enough smoked salmon for all of them at breakfast. At the start of Episode 5, we begin at the breakfast table where only the earliest to arrive are privileged enough to claim the lox (by the loch).

Salmon aside, Eric Nam still feels terrible that he ultimately drove the nail into Tiffany Mitchell‘s coffin when he claims to have heard her laugh from beneath a Traitor robe, resulting in her banishment. As they wait for the rest of their competitors to arrive to see which of them got murdered, Colton Underwood shocks Dorinda Medley when he reveals that he was on The Bachelor, competing for the affection of 30 women, back when he thought he was straight. “I didn’t know that you went as a heterosexual!” Dorinda says, to which Colton responds, “At that time, I was convinced I was a heterosexual.”

“God, I missed the window! I would have liked to have been involved with you at that time,” Dorinda jokes.

“You dodged a bullet, congrats,” Colton fires back. This is the delightful banter I need more of this season. It seems like a jovial aside, but this conversation also sets up some of what’s to come at the night’s dramatic round table.

The last group to arrive to breakfast is our Traitors Skaters, Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinksi, which means that Monet X Change was sacrificed. This show literally cannot hold on to a drag queen for more than five episodes and it is so annoying. The only reason Monet was chosen by the Traitors is because he hinted to Candiace that Lisa could be one. He trusted the wrong person with his right theory, and thus, he was forced to sashay away. Boo.

“I was a fierce faithful for as long as I was living, but now that I’m a little faithful ghost, I’m going to haunt these hallways, mark my words. Ectoplasm all over these hoes, ohhkay?” Monet says. This is the Circle of Truth speech I wish he could have given. But like, in episode 10, not this early in the game.

After breakfast, everyone begins a new day of Traitor speculation, and on this day, there seems to be a thirst for Colton’s blood. It’s a familiar pattern: A Faithful suggests a name at the round table, the group latches on and votes to banish that person, and when they realize they were wrong, the person spearheading the charge immediately becomes a target. It happened to Ron Funches when he got Porsha banished, and now it’s happening to Colton.

For the day’s mission, the gang is tasked with locating a group of hidden statues which they need to find and set around a fountain. There’s a twist to the mission though; while there are a bunch of shields up for grabs, Alan Cumming explains that if no one elects to take one, there will be no murder tonight. Considering just how desperate this group is for shields, it’ll be interesting to see if they’ll collectively avoid the shields, or if certain individuals will look out for themselves. (You know who would absolutely take a shield? Boston Rob. I’ll be listening to The Traitors Podcast to see if he admits this or not.)

They all need to search in the mucky, murky fountain for a coin that will reveal the location of each statue, a job most of them do not enjoy. Candiace especially seems to hate it, which prompts Alan to declare with glee, “I will never tire of a soggy housewife.”

As the group, who is broken up into teams of four, hunts for statues, Colton explains that he’s tempted to snag a shield for himself. “All it takes is one person to screw the entire group over. It’s a lot of faith to put in these people,” he says. The first couple of groups find one single shield hidden at their statues and decide not to take them, but when the final two statues are discovered, we see that they’re each concealing four shields, which means two entire groups could stealthily take them all and protect themselves.

Back at the castle after the mission, things turn explosive when the group starts sharing their suspicions and Colton tries to catch Michael in a trap, asking Michael what Alan wears when he meets the Traitors in the turret. While he initially laughs it off, Michael realizes that Colton and others are truly suspicious of him, which causes him to once again forget that this is a game and not anything personal, and he starts screaming that Colton is actually the ringleader of the Traitors. It’s classic Michael, which is to say… he’s doing way too much. It’s more heated than even a round table conversation, which is crazy because we haven’t even had a round table conversation yet and it gets somehow even worse when they do have one.

At the real round table, Michael begins his opening argument with some alliteration, saying “conniving, colluding, commiserating, Colton” was responsible for banishing Tiffany and now is trying to banish Michael with a bunch of lies. (God bless Rob R. for pointing out to Michael that “commiserate” doesn’t mean what he thinks it means, that it actually means to feel sorry for someone.)

Michael is so sure that Colton is a good liar and a good Traitor because,”Nobody in this room would be better at holding a secret than you.” Colton takes that as a reference to the fact that he was in the closet for most of his life up until now. “There it is,” Colton says. “You think it was fun for 29 years of my life?” the implication being that Colton had practice deceiving others by not coming out for all that time. Michael denies that his accusation had anything to do with Colton’s sexuality but many at the table took it as such, which shifted the entire room against him, even those who seemed to think Colton was a Traitor. “If you’re a Faithful, you’re the most distracting Faithful. If you’re a Traitor, you’re playing a great game,” Eric tells Michael, and pretty soon, everyone starts to pile on Michael and the thing we’ve been hoping for this whole season seems like it could really happen: a Faithful could get banished just for being annoying.

At this point, Maura, and all of the others, have had it with Michael and don’t care what he says in the Circle of Truth, they just want him gone.

Though there were many votes for Ron (who defended himself aggressively… maybe too aggressively), there was a majority vote for Michael, and, perhaps in a castle first, when he revealed in the Circle of Truth that his cast mates “just voted out the best-looking, smartest, dopest Faithful,” there was no shock or dismay that they lost one of their own, instead, there was a moment of stunned silence where everyone in the room seemed to be thinking in unison, “Good riddance.”

When the Traitors meet in the turret that night, Rob R., who has been completely pulling off his Dexy’s Midnight Runners look all day (overalls, no shirt, for those of you born after 1985) tells Lisa that Colton was just blabbing about how he thinks she’s a Traitor. Colton is a true Faithful, but damn, his downfall is going to be talking too much. At this point, the Traitors still don’t know whether or not anyone actually took a shield during the challenge, but Candiace explains, “If we can murder tonight, clearly we’ve got to take out Colton’s ass.” But we won’t find out what happens till these salmon-gobblers head to breakfast the next morning.

As we end this episodic recap, I have just one question to ask: Can I buy Alan’s sequined “MURRRDER” shirt in the NBC store or what?

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.