A Return to Form #1: Thoughts on "The Traitors", "Hunting Party", and "People We Meet on Vacation."

Hello there! 

I did have different expectations for my next blog post, but, as usual, I got intimidated and drafted it. I wasn't sure what to call this, so I'll keep it simple and post about what I've been watching this week. Last week's post reintroduced this space as a platform to discuss my interests, and as this title suggests, I am now focusing on TV. When I first started this blog, I did weekly recaps of shows like Pretty Little Liars and American Horror Story. I also wrote about my thoughts on Taylor Swift appearing on New Girl and did a character analysis on all of the girls on HBO's Girls. I am currently in grad school and work full-time, so I think I will be returning to that format. However, I do feel pretty good about hopping on a few times a month to chat about a few things that don't require regular posts.

 The Traitors (Season 4): *Streaming on Peacock* Spoilers for Episodes 1-5 

I have been a very big fan of this show for such a long time. I am not only happy to see it on my screen again, but I am happy to be able to finally watch a season LIVE! This season is a lot of fun, but there is something to say about how people are playing the game this time around. The Traitors has always been a social game that requires some strategy on everyone's end. Whether you are a Traitor or a Faithful, you have to make alliances, remember everything everyone says, call out nonsense, challenge other players, and, in the end, watch out for yourself.

The Traitors is a lot like the childhood game Mafia. On the show, there are two teams of people: Faithfuls are innocent people just trying to stay alive, win challenges, and make money. Traitors are people who also want to win challenges and make money, but they have a secret goal of killing off Faithfuls to steal the money they've earned. After each challenge, all the players meet at the Roundtable to discuss their findings and banish the person that they think is a Traitor. After each banishment, the Traitors secretly meet and vote to murder a Faithful. We know who they are; everyone else does not. There are other opportunities for shields and exemptions from murder, but I won't get into all that. What I will say is that this season has been better than ever because we were introduced to a new twist that I found so fascinating: the Secret Traitor!!! 

The Secret Traitor was someone unknown to both the audience and the other traitors. They were also chosen in plain sight, which I think wasn't the best option for introducing this new twist. I think so many players were focused on reading everyone's reactions to the twist that they started building up assumptions about other players before they even entered the house. This is where the Faithfuls are starting to lose the plot a bit. There are so many assumptions being made. There is so much emotion behind their decisions at the Roundtable. However, there is so little evidence pointing towards the people being called out. Every week, there is one player leading a brigade against another player and every week, another Faithful is voted. In Episode 2, Ron led the charge against Porsha. In Episode 3, Candiace and Colton got out Donna (who was the Secret Traitor). Episode 4, they got out Tiffany. Episode 5, they got out Michael (for completely different reasons, so that's completely fine!). 

However, at this point, they've voted out three Faithfuls, all while the Traitors have already murdered 4 other people. Such a waste, in my opinion, but I am fully rooting for the Traitors. Secret Traitor aside, I usually side with the Traitors. Donna was not very good at being the Secret Traitor, but I don't know if it was her lack of game or if the show had to edit so much of her confessionals out because we couldn't know it was her. I do like the idea of a Secret Traitor because usually the Traitors have too much power, and this levels it out, but I don't think they need to hide them from us. It does create too much distance between us (the viewers) and whoever this player is. I think it would have had us relate to Donna more and understand why she moved the way that she did this season. I will say that the other Traitors are working really well together, and I cannot wait to see them take home that cash!

The Traitors this season are Lisa Rinna (Housewife), Candiace Dillard Bassett (Housewife), and Rob Rausch (Hot Snake Man from Love Island). In the latest episode, Colton is growing suspicious of Lisa based on what he knows about her from reality TV. She's loud, a little extra, and very vocal about her own interests - yet she's quiet at the Roundtable. This is strange. This is a fine assumption to make, but he asks other Housewives about it, who also say the same thing. Now, everyone is on her case. I worry that Rob and Candiace may turn against her because they will just have to if they want to stay in the game. If Colton and others are going for a single person, as we've seen, they usually go. The only thing going in her favor is if they're able to successfully murder Colton or if Kristen can turn the Faithfuls against him before he gets to them about Lisa. I hope they do get Colton out because he is usually so loud and so wrong. Then he's super apologetic about it, but does it again in the next episode.

Then there is the Ron of it all. Now I adore Ron Funches, and I do think he's being done dirty. I also think he is a really funny comedian and actor, but I think he's a little out of his element. Much like Michael Rappaport, he doesn't come from reality television, so bringing him to a social game like this is going to be much harder. Ron, however, is making it much harder on himself by not playing into the social aspect of the game. He's not making friends, he's not really trying to put himself out there again since accidentally getting Porsha, and he's just overall given up. The other players could (and should) be nicer to him, I will say that, but Ron is not making it easier by purposefully isolating himself. I also think he really used all his social capital too early in the season. You cannot make such big swings on your first game, UNLESS you're knocking it out of the park kid. Otherwise, you're a liability for the entire team. 

My predictions for the next episode are either A: Colton has a shield, and the Traitors murder someone close to him like either Eric or Mark to shake things up. B: No one gets murdered because no one took a shield, and the teams fully diverge into Team Colton vs. Team Lisa (which is not very many people besides the Traitors and the one Housewife left) or Team Kristen vs. Team Colton. Both Kristen and Colton hold a lot of social power in the game, so it is hard to say who will sway the next vote. 

I do wish I could see more from the other Faithfuls. Everyone is playing is safe and voting with the group. Colton, Candiace, Ron, and Michael areit such strong voices that they take up so much space at the Roundtable and leave very little for others to comment on. I don't know if that's intentional on the editor's part or if they don't have much to say, but as their numbers dwindle, they will have to come out of the woodwork and make some tough decisions. 

 The Hunting Party (Season One) *streaming on Peacock*

 

 

The plot of NBC's The Hunting Party is just ridiculous enough for me to stay along for the ride - in small doses, which I will get into! If you know anything about me, you know that I love a procedural drama. I love Law and Order universe, I love the Chicago franchise, I love medical dramas. I love them all. They all do similar things, but there's always one element or twist in each that sets it aside, so I am locked in even though they, again, all do the same thing. 

It's like how NBC's Found is about a former kidnapping survivor solving missing person cases. That's a pretty basic formula, right? Then BOOM - the twist is that she has actually captured her captor and uses his knowledge as a kidnapper to help solve those cases. 

HBO's The Pitt is like your everyday hospital drama, but the twist is that it follows a hospital during a 12-15 hour shift, and each episode is an hour into that shift, which is just genius! 

 

The Hunting Party follows a task force of specialists (Melissa Roxburgh, Nick Wechsler, Patrick Sabongui Josh McKenzie and Sara Garcia) looking to find all the world's worst serial killers after they've escaped from this underground prison named The Pit. Now, jokes aside, because I think it is very funny that his serial killer prison called the Pit exists while I am watching another hospital drama where the characters call the ER by the same name, this show surprised me a lot. It is currently airing its second season, so I have a lot to catch up on. I am about six episodes into the first season, and I'm impressed with how much I like it. However, you really have to suspend some level of disbelief with some of the tracking methods they use to find each serial killer. These characters are "experts" and working with the US government, so there that, but sometimes it all feels too easy. To them, finding escaped serial killers feels eerily similar to working on a really tough crossword puzzle. There are other mysteries within the show, which are also what keep me watching, but I worry that those will also become tired of the "criminal-of-the-week" format if those are solved relatively soon.

 

As they're tracking killers, there is the question of how they escaped and who was involved. Was this an inside job? There's also the question of what actually happened in the Pit? The concept of the government faking the deaths of notorious serial killers to lock them up in an underground prison and use them as guinea pigs for experimental treatments to help rehabilitate them is crazy. Each episode brings you closer and closer to the truth about what the government was doing to these people, but I do wonder if I am supposed to feel bad for them?

 

They're serial killers. Granted, the show does treat them like they're lost children at the mall until they start behaving like serial killers. The lead specialist has so much empathy for the killers, and there are often other people offering help to the killers after they escape, so there is something there that feels like we should be on their side. And to some extent, yes, I am because the government is conducting experiments on them, but am I upset when they get locked back up? No, not really!

 

It's a strange little show that honestly shouldn't work, but it does. It also makes me want to start watching ABC's High Potential again, which I do miss. 

 

People We Meet on Vacation (2026) *Streaming on Netflix*

 

 

This was one of my first at-home watches of 2026. As a fan of Emily Henry, I already knew that I was going to like this movie. It was actually one of the first books of hers that I read, and out of the 5 that I've read, this is probably my second or third favorite. I don't have much to say about the film that hasn't been stated online, so I'll keep it brief.

The leads, Alex (Tom Blyth) and Poppy (Emily Bader) are excellent. Poppy is beautiful, charismatic, over-the-top, but it feels so natural. She's sweet and confident, but her fears about being "too much" are so real. Alex is grumpy, strict, and grounded in his beliefs. However, he's so sweet that you really can't be mad at him. His firmness is not directly harmful, but it does make his relationships struggle. He seeks comfort, and that comfort is always Poppy, even though her unpredictability scares me. The humor was well executed. If the rom-com revival is expected to happen this year, I really need romantic comedies to remember that they're supposed to be funny. This movie was actually really funny at times. Anyone But You (2023) was the last romantic comedy that I really laughed at, so I'd love more of those.

 

The film omitted a significant amount of content from the book, likely due to time constraints. However, some of the content that was removed is precisely what would have elevated this movie into the "Love" category. The first being: Alex's vasectomy and the death of his mother. In the book, Alex gets a vasectomy after Poppy has a pregnancy scare because he worries about her dying like his mother did during childbirth. However, Alex does not consult his on-and-off again girlfriend, Sarah, about this decision, resulting in the end of their relationship. For Sarah, Alex, and Poppy's friendship is a nightmare. They are the "friends to lovers," and all she can do is watch. Some people really hate this kind of trope. I, however, am not one of these people. Bring on the mess!

 

I think the movie also does an excellent job of exploring the unintended consequences of this trope. Sarah is a real person living in a nightmare. She is not some evil, magnetic force keeping the two friends from being together. In both the movie and the book, Sarah talks to Poppy about why her relationship with Alex ended. In the book, Sarah just comments that she's happy that they got together. In the movie, Poppy apologizes for not respecting her relationship with Alex. Sarah accepts this, but also tells Poppy that it wasn't necessarily her friendship that ruined her relationship, as much as she wasn't happy with the life she thought she wanted with Alex. She becomes a flight attendant instead of staying in town to take over her father's business, proving that she never wanted stability and settling with Alex. She wanted more, and seeing Poppy go for what she wanted motivated that. 

 

There are a few other differences, but I think that I do prefer the book. The movie was solid, but I don't find myself revisiting as much as I would the book. There feels like there's more life in the book. I felt a lot more connected to Poppy, Alex, and even more of the side characters like Buck, Daisy, and the two other newlyweds they encounter! The movie feels like it isolates Poppy and Alex, which doesn't work when it is a movie about people going on vacation. 

 

I'll see you this weekend after the Traitors comes out. Happy Movie Watching!