Traitor or faithful? Fan favorites share the stories behind the season’s biggest moments

A breakout streaming success for Peacock, “The Traitors” became a social media sensation in its second season. That is partially thanks to the inherent drama in the game, a twist on the role-playing game Mafia in which participants try to outwit one another as “traitors” or “faithfuls.” Contestants are “murdered” (sent home) by the former or “vanquished” as the latter try to weed out their nemeses. An all-star cast of reality competition veterans included fan favorites from “Survivor,” “Big Brother” and “The Challenge” who went up against celebrities from “Real Housewives,” “Below Deck” and “Love Island,” among other franchises. Five contestants shared their biggest moment from a season that had viewers buzzing from start to finish.

Kate Chastain

In a surprise to the competitors and viewers, the Season 1 star returned in Season 2‘s fifth episode. She was recruited as a traitor toward the end of her run.

“I think when I became a traitor, that was a huge pivot in the game for everyone, whether they knew it or not,” Chastain says. Before she was a traitor, she had wondered what that might be like. And when she actually became one, she found it more difficult than she imagined. She thinks she was “a stronger faithful than traitor for sure.”

Season 1 cast members liked one another more, “which I think made it less fun because every accusation felt like more of a betrayal,” she says. “The second season it felt more like people were having fun, but they also were playing the game. Nobody was taking anything too personally for the most part.”

Dan Gheesling

The winner of “Big Brother” Season 10 and a runner-up in Season 14, Gheesling was selected as a traitor, along with Parvati Shallow and Phaedra Parks.

“It’s me going after Phaedra that’ll be the most memorable thing I got involved in for sure,” Gheesling says. “From a public standpoint, I think that was a huge moment in the show.” Seeing Parks take him down — someone who’s “never ever been voted out of a game or really even had a vote against him” — was hugely entertaining, he says.

Parvati Shallow

Shallow is a legendary “Survivor” contestant, appearing on the program five times and coming in second on “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains.”

For her, the biggest “Traitors” moment was the Bergie Bergersen failed murder. “I was with Dan at that point, and Bergie was in the group of people that could possibly have a shield [to protect them in the game]. And Peter [Weber] lied to me and Dan, saying that he had the shield, and it was like a little trap.” Shallow thought Weber was lying, and she told Gheesling and Parks that they should murder someone who wasn’t in that group of people who had the shield. Gheesling, however, was committed to murdering Bergersen. “I knew it was going to be a battle to get him off of that idea and to get him to change his mind,” Shallow said. “And I gave in. And in the morning, when Bergie walked in the door at breakfast, my heart sank because I knew that was going to be a really hard thing for me to talk my way out of.”

Peter Weber

An airline pilot, Weber appeared on Season 15 of “The Bachelorette” and then graduated to “The Bachelor” in 2019.

“It was my coming-out party for just proving that I deserve to be there with all these gamers,” Weber says. He recalls doing the shield block play with Bergersen. “We kind of got Parvati and Dan into a little bit of a trap, and there was a lot of luck there,” he says, adding: “Seeing that kind of play out exactly the way I hoped it would play out and give us evidence essentially put a lot of heat on the traitors. I think for me that was probably my biggest part point in the game, and I just did so much for me.”

Trishelle Cannatella

After appearing on “The Real World: Las Vegas,” the Louisiana native has been on five seasons of MTV competition series “The Challenge.”

Her biggest moment: “When I finally looked around and every person in my alliance that I was working with was gone and I was still there, and I had to completely pivot and adapt my game,” Cannatella says. “I found that I was kind of able to do that. I was like really proud of myself. And also, I think being confident in a room full of people who are extremely just intelligent and poised, I think all of that helped me a lot too, because I knew when I first went to the castle, I was one of the least famous people there or well known. But I didn’t wanna let anyone intimidate me.”