SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the two-hour series premiere of NBC’s “The Traitors: New Blood,” now streaming on Peacock.
“The Traitors” castle isn’t just for the rich and famous anymore. Peacock’s Emmy-winning franchise has arrived on NBC, with “The Traitors: New Blood,” a new season composed entirely of civilian players in the game of murder, mayhem and more money than ever before.
In the show’s two-hour series premiere, host Alan Cumming welcomed 22 appropriately bloodthirsty competitors to his Scottish castle and immediately threw them into the deep end of the loch. Because of the show’s international popularity, the players walked into the castle knowing exactly where to go and what to investigate. Feeling right at home with the game is exactly what the creative team wanted.
“To have a sense of familiarity meant they felt comfortable in their surroundings and they played hard straight away,” executive producer Sam Rees-Jones tells Variety of the premiere.
At the first roundtable, with a sly tap on the shoulder, Cumming chose Tomica Adams (a pilot from Boston, MA) and Joe Vanella (a funeral director from Wantagh, New York) as his first Traitors of the season. But during their midnight confab in the turret, he informed them a third Traitor was incoming, and that they had to pick the person. In addition to their first murder (RIP faux college basketball coach and real lawyer Kim Daily), the Traitors chose two “accomplices” to audition to become their fellow chaos agent.
Courtesy of Euan Cherry/NBC
Katie Fites (a marketing manager from Jacksonville, Florida, and the youngest player at 23) and Xavier Scruggs (former MLB player turned analyst) got to work scheming and stirring the pot against each other to claw their way to the turret. But the ultimate test came in the second hour when they were directed to deceive the Faithfuls in plain sight by stealing a cleverly titled book on crime and punishment and delivering it to the Traitors. The premiere leaves audiences hanging on whether they manage to smuggle the book out without the Faithful seeing it..
What is for sure is that the blood of the Faithfuls has already been spilled. In addition to Daily’s murder, a tense first roundtable saw Mississippi realtor Kriste Lewis go for the jugular on San Diego construction manager Madeline Kostopulos over a throwaway comment she believed proved she was one of the cloaked killers. Caught in the crossfire was Kostopulos’ ally and resident eye candy, New York business executive Victor Vollbrechthausen, who took heat for immediately snagging a shield of protection in the first challenge. The pair nearly split the vote evenly.
Below, “The Traitors: New Blood” executive producers Rosie Franks, Mike Cotton and Rees-Jones go deep on slimming down their hit for broadcast, why they incentivized identifying Traitors for the first time and how including an all-civilian cast makes the game so much more personal.
Being on broadcast means these episodes run for about 41-42 minutes, along with the commercial breaks. That’s very different from the Peacock episodes, which often exceed an hour. How does the time constraint change the storytelling and the rhythm of the show?
Mike Cotton: I would say that was one of our biggest challenges. In truth, the game is the game. We call it a game, but there’s always a cycle. It’s a day in the castle. There’s always breakfast, someone gets murdered, there’s the mission, there’s a roundtable, and the Traitors meet in the turret. We haven’t changed that, in terms of how they played the game. But we had to look at different places where we could create cliffhangers, and so we put quite a lot of thought and work into that before we started shooting to make sure that the audiences still got what “The Traitors” was. We always say we’re like a murder mystery, but we treated it a bit like a drama. Where’s a good place for a cliffhanger? We actually put quite a lot of planning in our pre-production to work out those different points that could cliffhanger the episodes. One thing we didn’t want to do is cut it like it’s a drama. We didn’t want to make the episodes faster or fit everything into a short amount of time. We still wanted to breathe and be able to explore the characters, and I feel like we’ve achieved it.
Courtesy of Euan Cherry/NBC
You’re at a disadvantage this season where you don’t have the backstory of celebrities to help you prep. In the premiere, we see one of the competitors holding a card that asks their preference to play as a Traitor or Faithful. Is that something you’ve always done, or is that new reconnaissance this season?
Sam Rees-Jones: No, that was something new for the civilians. What we loved about this version was Alan inviting these players. He sent out these invitations, so it should feel like these players are actually being invited to this crazy experience in the Highlands of Scotland. And within that invitation was whether they wanted to be a Traitor or a Faithful.
Rosie Franks: Alan always asks them in the “gold chats” by the fire in the premiere what role they want to play in the game. But this just felt like a really nice throughline from the opening of the raven flying across America, dropping the invitations, and this is like their RSVP.
Rees-Jones: We pick Traitors only if they want to become a Traitor, because it’s a hard job. There’s a lot to do, so they should want to become a Traitor. But what we always say to everyone is that once you enter the game, you could be made a Traitor at any point. As you can see at the end of Episode 1, we picked our original two Traitors, and then we left it in their hands who they were going to pick as the third one and that was Katie and Xavier.
Cotton: You’re right, though. It’s more difficult working out who those initial Traitors should be when they’re a cast of regular people who we don’t have a history with on a reality show or on television. That then comes down to casting, and really digging into who these people are and the characters that they are. We don’t decide who the Traitors are until everyone’s arrived at the castle. So they’ve been on the train, and we’ve seen them interact. They’ve all sat down with Alan and had quite in-depth chats with him about whether they want to be a Traitor or not.
That uncertainty extends to the cast’s hunt for Traitors as well. The celebrities often have pre-existing relationships and feuds that can guide accusations. But in this premiere, the cast is largely at a loss on who to target at the first roundtable.
Franks: What’s so exciting is that they all come in with a completely clean slate. It’s a game about identity, and they can basically be whoever they want. But we’re watching them get to know each other, and we’re getting to know them at the same time. So it’s a level playing field for the viewers and the players, which is really exciting to watch. You feel very much like you’re part of the process.
One of the biggest differences between the celebrity and civilian editions is the impact of the money. Watching celebrities play challenges for money doesn’t quite have the same thrill because, depending on their personal wealth and situation, $250,000 may be life changing or it may be a drop in the bucket. But for the “New Blood” cast, it is different. Mark Zgoda makes a comment after the first challenge, where they add $50,000 to the prize pot: “That’s a full person’s salary already added to the pot.” This money will simply mean more for these players. How does that change the game play?
Rees-Jones: We love that moment, and I’m glad you mentioned it. That perfectly summarized all of their approaches to the game, to the challenges, to the missions, and yeah, the money means so much to them. As far as the game is concerned, what it means is that they all have to work together really hard to build that prize pot. But ultimately, that also means that betrayal cuts even deeper. Because the whole game is built around the Faithfuls and the Traitors coming together to put up that prize pot, which in one mission can be as much as the person’s yearly salary, then when treachery happens, it hurts even more. But to see the missions play out and to see them throw themselves into it, whatever their age or physical ability, was amazing. You see what it meant to them at the end of Episode 1 when they win a huge amount of money.
Alan also reveals in the premiere that, for the first time, each Traitor banished from the castle will earn a $15,000 bonus for the prize pot. Is that in addition to the possible $250,000 they can raise?
Rees-Jones: It’s in addition to the $250,000. We’ve talked about it for a while. Obviously, the most important thing is to get a Traitor out. But we felt there was something really interesting in that added incentive.
That could make the difference between speaking up or staying quiet at the roundtable if you know there is more money on the line.
Franks: Exactly!
In the premiere, as soon as they arrive in the castle, you let them roam free. But after several seasons of this show, this cast has been watching at home and they clearly know the place. A few even knew which book to pull to open the secret room in the library. Does that much familiarity with the castle pose any issues?
Cotton: I love that they knew the castle! The castle is a real place. It’s not like it’s a “Big Brother” house that’s reconstructed every year. So I think we all love the fact they felt at home immediately in there, and that they knew the game and they knew the rhythm of it. Every year is a different murder mystery, so we put a lot of plans in place to keep the players on their toes. But we never change the core game of Traitors versus Faithfuls. It will never change the overall rhythm of the game, but we always, every season, put in new twists and turns just to keep them guessing even if they think they know it and the castle.
Rees-Jones: I think it actually really helped this cast. To have a sense of familiarity meant they felt comfortable in their surroundings and they played hard straight away.
James and Oliver Phelps are here! Fred and George Weasley from the “Harry Potter” movies are seen being mischievous in the premiere. What can you tease about their role this season?
Rees-Jones: That is their role! They’re mischievous, mysterious castle creepers.
What a job title to have.
Rees-Jones: Yeah, it was just a fun tongue-in-cheek extension of the murder mystery world. You have Alan’s castle, and you would imagine in that world there would be people that are keepers of the castle. So there’s some fun to be had with little scenes that can be peppered throughout the season.
Cotton: One of the things I’m most excited about with the NBC version is that we have a chance to expand this world to a broader audience. In the U.K., the show has become a massive shared viewing experience, like a family hit. People gather with their children to watch the show. Although it’s about betrayal and murder, there’s also elements of “Harry Potter” and magical fantasy within the show as well. So I feel like who [James and Oliver] are, and that world they’re from, sort of ties in neatly with the world of “The Traitors” too.
In the first challenge, there is a decoy crate filled with salmon. Was this an acknowledgement that there is apparently not enough salmon in Scotland for your previous casts, who protested the lack of smoked salmon at breakfast before?
Franks: It’s always about the salmon!
It’s hard not to make that connection given how much your last celebrities talked about it!
Franks: Yes, we do like putting in little Easter eggs like that for the fans.
In previous seasons, the music in the show has been appropriately moody but generic. “New Blood” has covers of real songs, including Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River” at a particularly sinister moment. Was this something new available to you on broadcast?
Franks: That was one of the things we were so excited about in terms of making the show feel familiar but also fresh, that we were going to be able to use some commercial music in this version. I don’t know how you felt watching it, but I feel like there’s tonally a shift in the way that it feels and I think the commercial music definitely helps with that.
You don’t often speak about why you chose the Traitors, but you did let them choose two accomplices to audition for the third Traitor slot. We don’t yet see who wins, but what did you think about their two choices, Katie and Xavier?
Cotton: I love that the Traitors chose Katie and Xavier, because they chose almost completely opposite people.
The height difference alone! You can barely get them both in the same camera frame.
Cotton: Right! They are so different that it was surprising and really thrilling for us when it happened.
Should we be worried that, physically, the book they have to steal is almost as big as Katie? Seems like it might be hard for her to sneak away with it!
Cotton:You’ll have to wait and see what happens!
This interview has been edited and condensed.