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There’s a specter haunting The Traitors Season 4.
It’s not a cast member who is murdered or banished from the wildly popular Peacock reality competition series in the first three episodes, which are now available to stream. No, it’s the person whose spirit is, for better or worse, essentially omnipresent in our lives, the shadow trailing any 2026 existence.
Taylor Swift, naturally, is the breakout star of The Traitors—and that’s without even setting foot in its Scottish castle.
That may be a bit of a cheeky bait-and-switch, which is fitting for a series in which host Alan Cumming deviously changes the rules on a dime. It’s Donna Kelce, aka Travis Kelce’s mom and Swift’s future in-law, who is really the captivating central figure of the (delicious and addicting-as-ever) new season’s start.
As the cast of reality stars and random personalities ascend into the breathtaking Scottish Highlands, they’re giddy to meet the matriarchal figure reigning over the two most famous people on earth.
The show delineates the Faithfuls, who must sniff out the secret identities of the Traitors and evade “murder” and “banishment” throughout the season of mind games to win a share of a jackpot in the finale. It’s not an arena you’d expect Donna Kelce to be playing in; a far cry from Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium.
Everyone just sort of talks around the Taylor of it all until about halfway through the episode, when Olympic figure skater and commentator Johnny Weir cheers that, during the premiere’s first challenge, he’s excited to be in a rowboat with “Taylor Swift’s soon-to-be mother-in-law.”
That sort opens the floodgates—or maybe, like, the drizzlegates—as the players whisper in corners about Donna. They fear that she may be the perfect Traitor, but that voting for her would subject them to the wrath of the Swifties. Being “murdered” on a reality show is one thing. Being the target of the Swifties is a whole other ballgame.
The presence of Mama Kelce and the discussion she sparks is just one piece of the fabulously ridiculous puzzle that drips with the excessiveness that, after four seasons, is the norm that Traitors fans have come to expect, from Cumming’s birdcage-exploded-in-a-tartan-factory outfits to the cartoonish, Shakespearean seriousness of his narration.
There’s a delightful randomness to the show’s players, like the casting directors got drunk and lost a bet with the casting people from Dancing With the Stars and The Masked Singer.
Weir is joined by his ice skating BFF, Tara Lipinski, a duo that is far more interesting for gameplay than a romantic couple. There are gamers from shows like Big Brother (Ian Terry and Tiffany Mitchell) and Survivor (Yamil “Yam Yam” Arocho and Rob Cesternino.
Breakout stars like Top Chef’s Kristen Kish, Dancing With the Stars’ Mark Ballas, The Bachelor’s Colton Underwood, and RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Monet X Change are there, as well as seemingly random celebrities like comedian Ron Funches, Laguna Beach actor Stephen Colletti, and K-pop star Eric Nam.
Rob Rausch from Love Island is making a hard play for the Dylan Efron Memorial Traitors Hunk of the Season title. “I’m just used to Love Island. It’s weird to be wearing clothes. I haven’t made out with anybody yet. It’s pretty crazy.” (To wit, his introduction in the cast montage had him lying on the floor shirtless like he was shooting the cover for a romance novel.)
It’s such a bizarre, thrilling collection of people. Watching them together on The Traitors is like what I imagine watching The Avengers is like for straight people. And that’s without mentioning the lights of my life, the Real Housewives: Dorinda Medley, Porsha Williams, Caroline Stanbury, Candiace Dillard-Bassett, and self-proclaimed Lisa “F---ing” Rinna, dressed like a yassified Inspector Gadget with a leopard print fedora and matching top and delivering an early contender for most entertaining TV performance of the year.
As they’re all introduced, with Cumming’s ludicrously loquacious introductions—Medley “rose from the bogs of Scotland” for her return trip to the castle—it’s thrilling and, if you’re a fan of these shows, almost heartwarming. Rinna and Medley running towards each other, excited when they see each other, like that scene with Christian the Lion, made me emotional.
And then actor Michael Rappaport, truly one of the most insufferable and unpleasant TV presences there is, arrives, and your flittering heart belly flops to the floor. (If it’s any consolation, the entire castle immediately hates him.)
These first episodes are great because the show zhuzhes up the gameplay with a few new twists without Frankensteining the show into an unrecognizable monster of unnecessary, reinvented stakes.
And the things that you love from the first three seasons are still a constant.
I would love to tell you what the first episodes’ money challenges were, but I have an unbreakable habit—an affliction, really, given how much annoyance it’s caused me over the years—that when the host of a reality TV competition starts outlining the rules of a challenge, I will absolutely not be paying attention. If it is the part of the episode where rules are starting to be explained, I absolutely will be looking at my phone, or in the bathroom, or refilling my glass of wine at that exact moment.
I have never once understood what is happening in a reality TV challenge. It makes for quite the interesting viewership experience. I’ve learned it doesn’t matter for The Traitors, because whatever nonsense these reality stars are getting up to while on a boat in a chilly Scottish loch or while traipsing through the mud of a forest is endlessly entertaining at face value.
There are other delights. Cumming is so great at hosting this, striking the balance between intense and campy, while clearly being so tickled by these celebrities running amok in the Highlands. The recurring theme of the stars’ being incapable of spelling each other’s names correctly at the roundtable is back. So is the diabolical (complimentary) pattern of every episode ending on a final-second cliffhanger that has been responsible for far too many nights of me staying up until 1, 2, 3 in the morning.
I hope you appreciate the restraint I’ve taken in not spoiling what happens in these episodes, but do know that several times, I found myself involuntarily leaping up from my seat and cheering, like a reality-TV-obsessed Jack-in-the-box. Dare I say, this is shaping up to be the best Traitors season yet?
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