HE WAS A DEAD MAN WALKING TO HIS FATE, VENGEANCE WAS SWEET ON MY TONGUE, FOLLOW ME DOWN INTO THE VALLEY NIGHT—oh hi, sorry, didn’t see you there, was busy singing The Traitors theme song to myself.
Anyway, we’re here to discuss season 4’s merry band of Traitors, a chaotic assemblage of devious minds. These folks are usually chosen by host Alan Cumming via shoulder tap, but quick question:
Does Alan Cumming *Actually* Pick the Traitors?
Or do producers decide who to crown Traitors and Faithfuls based on which castmembers will make the best television? Here’s what we know.
The Cast Is Blindfolded for a Full 40 Minutes
“They have those blindfolds on for a long time, like 40 minutes or something,” Alan recently told Entertainment Weekly. “And I go around, around, around.”
Every Single Person Gets a Shoulder Tap
“First of all, we film them all. I touched them all so that’s on camera, so we’ve got it clean for everybody to have been touched just in case,” he said. “And then I start, you know, stopping....”
Alan Tries to Fake People Out
Remember in season 2, when the cast accused each other of being Traitors based on Alan pausing next to various people during the shoulder-tapping ceremony? Apparently Alan leaned into that this time around, telling EW, “We do it on purpose! You see me doing stuff that you didn’t before, doing the clever checks of just [ruffling my sleeve fabric] and stopping ever so slightly and pausing and squeaks on the floor and stuff. You know, when you’re blindfolded, your hearing becomes much more diligent and refined, and so everyone’s listening so intently, and so I have to be even more naughty and like an old trickster than ever. I love when I hear them say, ‘I heard him stop! I heard him stop!’”
He Has an Ear Piece in the Entire Time
According to Today, Alan “can hear discussion from the control room in his earpiece” the entire time he’s doing his room circles, which only increases the tension.
Alan Picks the Traitors WITH Producers
On top of being the show’s host, Alan is a producer on the show and consults with his production team on who gets to be a Traitor. Thanks to intel from our season 2 set visit, we know Alan interviews the cast to find out who wants to be a Traitor, and then he and producers work from that list to pick their team. In other words, you likely won’t be a Traitor if you’ve asked to be a Faithful.
During an interview with Variety, one of the show’s executive producers, Mike Cotton, revealed that each contestant must take a personality test, specifically for the Traitor-choosing process.
“All of the contestants that take part in our show, we’ve done personality tests on them. We see attributes that might make someone a good liar or particularly deceptive,” he explained, later adding that Alan’s chats with each cast member “has a really big bearing” on the final decisions.
Vulture also doubled down on this, writing, “The producers decided on their Traitors shortly after the interviews, a couple of hours before the tapping-on-the-shoulder ceremony.”
Alan also told Vulture the tapping ceremony is “my least favorite part of the whole show” and “I’m always worried that I could fuck it up if I bash the wrong person. There’s 21 of them squashed in at that table.”
Kay, that’s that on that!
