Ever since one-time Bachelor — and famed “Kissing Bandit” — Arie Luyendyk, Jr. appeared on the first season of the Peacock reality series “The Traitors,” the show has been on our radar. We heard about it on social media and from friends; we heard that Arie showed a different side of himself in the strategy competition setting, and that the show itself was wildly entertaining.

Nevertheless, we resisted.

We are not competition reality fans, but relationship reality fans. We watch dating shows by the bushel and dabble in narrative shows rooted in the power struggles within friend groups. “The Traitors,” a classic competition game show, was uninspiring to our romantic souls.

This season, another former Bachelor, Pete Weber (aka Pilot Pete), joined the cast, but we stood strong. For about five episodes, at which point our friend informed us that Pete was in the midst of executing a dazzling strategic gambit. Now this, we had to see.

So this week on the pod, we discuss the first six episodes of season two of “The Traitors.” Hosted by Alan Cumming and his Scottish sparklecore wardrobe — a seemingly endless array of kilts in bold colors, structural sleeves, and rhinestone-studded ensembles — “The Traitors” takes 22 reality show contestants, athletes, and a former member of the English Parliament, and throws them into a gussied-up game of Mafia. Every day, they awake in their rambling Scottish castle to find that the small group of Traitors chosen from within their ranks have killed one of the Faithful overnight. Then they work together to complete a convoluted challenge in order to win money for the prize pot. The day ends with a round table deliberation to choose one player to banish — the goal, of course, being to banish all the Traitors.

It’s an ornately produced show in many ways: the sets, Cumming’s costumes, the prop-heavy challenges (in one they have to build and fire a giant catapult). In others, it’s stripped down. Murders are almost always done simply through the sending of an anonymous letter — there’s no trail of evidence for the Faithful to use to find the perpetrators. Instead, they have to rely on vibes. This tends to highlight people’s biases and vulnerabilities, their preconceptions about what normal behavior is, and how gender roles manifest in the game.

We discuss all this, along with Pete’s bold strategic move, the gameplay of the Traitors thus far, and the divide between gamers and relationship show veterans within the castle. Hope you enjoy! xo

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