New twists keep players and viewers on their toes
The basic rules of The Traitors are always present: Players compete in missions to add money to a prize pool, meanwhile traitors murder faithfuls while the faithfuls try to banish the traitors. However, Season 2 presented several updates, including making missions and shields, which protect players from being murdered by the traitors, “more meaningful,” according to Ireland.
“Season 1, you could win a shield within the Armory, and that didn’t lead to great story for us. Sometimes it just meant that they keep it quiet and anyone who went into the Armory was protected from murder,” Ireland said. “It was a bit of a dead end.”
Rather than using the Armory, Season 2 placed the shields throughout missions, so it wasn’t always clear who actually won a shield in the end. This led to drama throughout the season, including the traitors falling into a trap set by former Bachelor Peter Weber, which tricked the traitors into wasting their murder on a faithful who was protected by a shield.
“We’ve always dreamt of a murder to a shielded player, and, obviously, we don’t get involved at all,” Ireland said. “And they did [try to murder a shielded player] this time, which is incredible.”
Keeping the atmosphere murderous behind the scenes
Though producers strictly stay out of the way to let the game play out, they do tricks behind the scenes to ramp up the drama. For instance, Ireland confirmed that they play “The Hanging Tree” song from The Hunger Games before roundtable ceremonies, where the faithfuls have a chance to banish the traitors.
“That’s something again that we learned from the Dutch,” Ireland said. “We went over on a trip before we even started making these, to go and see how they did it. And we watched the roundtable, and it was electric.”
Most episodes are shot in a day, according to Ireland, keeping an overall pressure cooker feeling on set. However, despite this pressure, the series makes having a good relationship with the cast a top priority—which also buys goodwill and helps keep some secrets, like where the cast really sleeps at night, staying secret.
“They are in a fantasy world and playing this amazing game in this magical castle in the middle of the Scottish Highlands,” Ireland said. “There are elements of it you want to protect because it could ruin future series, and no one wants to do that.”
Continuing to make casting a priority
Season 1’s cast mixed reality stars with regular people, but Season 2 focused on TV celebs and well-known personalities, including Real Housewives star Phaedra Parks, former Bachelor Peter Weber, Chris “C.T.” Tamburello from The Challenge and even former U.K. Parliamentarian John Bercow.
For Ireland, whether they’re celebrities or not, having a cast from different walks of life is essential, as is “warmth and comedy.”
“What we’ve loved about this year is having such a diverse, mixed cast, and I think that’s where we have to go down that route again,” Ireland said. “The Housewives have been brilliant for us this time. Would we love some [Vanderpump Rules]? I’m sure we would.”
