The Traitors Cinematic Universe
HOV. Vol 40. Oh Lord, Not Ekin-Su
HIII. Let’s get right to it.
I can’t think of any other place to start than with The Traitors (U.S.) Season 2. Are you all watching this?! If you’re not, here is the log line provided by Wikipedia: “the show features a group of contestants participating in a game similar to the party game ‘Mafia’— in which a small group of contestants become the titular ‘Traitors’ and must work together to eliminate the other contestants in order to win the grand prize. The remaining contestants are ‘Faithfuls’ and are tasked to discover and banish the Traitors by voting them out in order to win the grand prize.”
And here’s the log line provided by my brain: the show features a group of notable reality stars and public figures who claim to be the smartest, most capable game players in all of history but in actuality are largely the least intelligent, most incapable people you’ve ever seen on television. Together in one castle nestled in the picturesque Scottish highlands, our friendly neighborhood narcissists compete as traitors and faithfuls, playing an adult-sleep-away-camp version of the theater kid game Mafia.
Never has a group of people been so wrong about how capable they are at something. I’ve got news for this group: just because you won Big Brother or The Challenge or Survivor, or you get transported around on yachts and private jets on Bravo’s dime, doesn’t mean you will be good at this game! That being said, they all came CLOCKED IN to make television.
I can’t even explain to you all how insane and stupid and addicting this television program is. It’s truly all that I think about. Every Thursday night I absolutely foam at the mouth as another episode begins and during every other day of the week I have to consciously remind myself to listen when people are talking to me about anything other than who I think will ultimately win The Traitors (US) Season 2 (we’re like 8 episodes into the season as I write this). For more context, here is a list of just a few of the contestants:
Larsa Pippen— The Real Housewives of Miami— ex-wife of Scotty Pippen, current fiancé (maybe? who’s to know and who could possibly find out) of Marcus Jordan (yes, the son of Scotty Pippen’s ex-team mate, Michael Jordan). Larsa is perfect for this show because she’s literally the only one that’s been right about one of the traitors but the faithfuls don’t trust her because she’s the most alpha housewife (has the biggest lips) and brought her romantic partner with her to the show.
Parvati Shallow— Winner of Survivor: Fans vs Favorites and loser of several other seasons— icon, legend star. Largely considered one of the greatest Survivor players of all time, known black widow game player Parvati Shallow has entered the chat. People often comment on how skilled Parvati is at game shows and yet they continue to let her walk around that swanky ass castle in her ridiculous little headbands like she didn’t crush the dreams (and boners) of several Survivor contestants of the past.
Peppermint— RuPaul’s Drag Race season 9— famed trans icon, finalist on arguably the biggest reality show of our time, and apparent fumbler of words. I would think Peppermint was a traitor from day one because I’ve literally never trusted anyone with a tongue ring.
Not only is this lineup extremely funny, this Wikipedia collage of their current profile photos is just *chefs kiss* on the mouth. Like why are the photos of Phaedra, Peppermint and Parvati so bad? Why is Larsa’s a zoom screenshot? Ekin-Su is barely visible? Like her photo could be any brunette with a strong jaw? I have to laugh at how unhinged these Wikipedia editors have become!!!
And the list goes on and on and on. There are more Housewives (Tamra Judge, famed opinion-haver), contestants from The Challenge, Survivor (double-winner and current braces wearer Sandra Diaz-Twine), Dancing with the Stars, Love Island (the name Ekin-Su has become a huge part of my life), and Big Brother, along with cast members from The Real World, Married to Medicine (Phaedra Parks is currently the greatest, most effortless creator of memes on television), and Below Deck, and in a shocking turn of events, even John Bercow, the ex-Speaker of the British House of Commons, is on the damn show, running through fields and swimming through Scottish lochs with these reality clowns. Sounds like chaos, no? Trust me, it is. Oh, and giving an Emmy-worthy camp-performance as host is none other than Alan Cumming (lookout RuPaul, he’s coming for that hosting trophy). It’s truly a feast my friends. Get into it.
And if you are watching The Traitors: US, I can’t even begin to tell how much it pales in comparison to The Traitors: Australia. I can even get into it too much because I will literally get emotional. What I will say is, I promise you, whatever you love about The Traitors US, multiply it by 15 and that’s what you get from its Australian counterpart. The cast is literally full of (normal non-famous people) superstars born for television and they're *actually* good at the game, unlike these reality star clowns on the US version who think they're running the room but are actually so bad (I wanna be clear once again: I'm addicted to the US version too but wow they are not doing it like the girls down under). Like, I can't overstate how made for tv this cast is— I don't know where the producers found them but thank god they did. Ugh, the pure joy this program brings me! Perfect. 10/10 no notes.
And the winner of S1?! A new supreme rises. Okay’s moving on.
These tracksuits?! Are we kidding?! Adidas really hooked them UP. I hope they got to keep them… And like—what came first with the tracksuit of it all, the chicken or the egg? Traitors: Australia or Squid Game?
Now that I’ve spent an immense amount of time on a reality show I’m sure only six of you watch, let me move on! I saw Mean Girls (2024). Aka, Mean Girls: The Musical The Movie. Aka Mean Girls with a twist. Aka TikTok Mean Girls. I have to say, I had fun! It is far from perfect and it wont have even a sixteenth of the cutlural impact the original had, but it’s a perfectly fine additional to the Mean Girls pop culture canon. I think the things that were good, were really good (Renee Rapp’s voice, the sequences they made work way better onscreen than onstage— the song Someone Gets Hurt comes to mind,— Auli’i Cravalho) and the things that were not good were really not good (I know how hard it is to make a movie so I try to be sooooo nice, but wow it was so brave of them to cast some folks who could neither sing nor act in a musical, I’m so sorry…). I think my main problem with the Mean Girls musical, in both iterations on stage and screen, has been that, though Tina Fey is truly one of the best writers of our time, the lyrics in this score are at times painfully bad/on the nose. Like what happened to metaphor in musicals? A lot of the lyrics here are so basic, so forgettable, so unpoetic, that it’s like “why even sing them?” There is often no heightened emotion so just speak! Anyway, let me not breakout the BFA snobbery.
The main gripe I had with the performances is that there was a lot of playing at being funny instead of just being funny. It felt like everyone was so scared of not being as iconic as the original. But to be as iconic as the original would be a truly impossible task so I wish they had just, like, relaxed a bit into their authentic takes on these characters? I don’t know, I wish everyone well!!!
Let’s round things out with The Curse. I would typically stray away from a Nathan Fielder show because I cannot handle cringe humor. But Emma Stone was enough of a draw here to tip my gorgeous little toes into the NFCU (Nathan Fielder Cinematic Universe). I just finished it and ... hmm. All season I was sooo intrigued by the all of the interesting things it had to say about toxic altruism and gentrification and artifice and then that finale made me scratch my head. The wild swing from realism to something resembling science fiction really threw me/made me less interested in connecting the dots. Idk, a lot to think about.
But all of the thematic things don't take away from the wildly impressive performance from Emma Stone. I can't quite explain what she's nailing. But she's perfectly embodying this desperate-to-seem-well-meaning white woman thing where she's trying to be chill while being so wound up. It's so familiar and so cringey and such a perfect reflection of modern performative "woke"ness. Again, much to consider here.
The cringe factor is set to 5000 the entire season, which typically I would hate, but I was weirdly into this (and weirdly into Nathan and Emma as a couple? Hear me out…)
Okay that’s all for now. Next time, we’re getting into Fargo because reader…I’m obsessed!
Bye! Xoxo Dill