Exclusive Chat with the Winner (or Winners?) of Peacock's 'The Traitors'

There is one reality series that has captivated the attention of America, and that show is Peacock's The Traitors. Hosted by Alan Cumming, the competition reality series follows a group of reality TV stars in a game of treachery and deceit where they are forced to figure out who among them is a traitor. It's like a real-life game of Clue set in a Scottish castle, what's not to love? Well, apparently nothing, because viewers have been tuning in so much that they have catapulted it to the most streamed reality competition show. And guess what? We've got an exclusive chat with the winner—or winners?—of the second season.

But before we get to that, be mindful of spoilers, so stop reading now if you haven't watched the finale. Also, make sure you're subscribed to the Parting Shot podcast and my newsletter, For the Culture.

OK, before we get to the winner(s), let's break down what made the second season of The Traitors so thrilling.

Simply put, the cast! It mixed icons from so many different genres of reality TV. We're talking Parvati Shallow and Sandra Diaz-Twine from Survivor, Dan Gheesling from Big Brother, Peter Weber from The Bachelor, Phaedra Parks and Shereé Whitfield from The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Kate Chastain from Below Deck, among many, many others. And because they're all so different, it was a perfect combination of drama, confusion, shady game play, and some seriously funny moments.

Then you've got the host, Alan Cumming, who's colorful delivery and honest reactions to some of the absurdity make the extra weird moments even more entertaining. I spoke with Alan Cumming about The Traitors last year; it's definitely worth a listen.

All of those things created a perfect recipe for an amazing second season. And the memes? The memes from this season, just everything.

So what happened? Well, a lot. But in a nutshell, over the course of the season there was dissent among the traitors and the faithfuls, with everybody turning against everybody at one point. This resulted in four traitors being discovered, with some particularly delicious exit episodes. (I'm intentionally being vague about who is who and who did what because, well, if you haven't watched, let this be your official invitation. And once you do, go through back episodes of the Parting Shot podcast to listen to some of my exit interviews with the discovered traitors.)

So now that we're at the finale, who won The Traitors? Consider yourself warned, because I'm about to reveal to you the winner...

And the Winner(s) Is...

In the end, the remaining cast: CT Tamburello, Kate Chastain, MJ Javid, Trishelle Cannatella, Shereé Whitfield and Sandra Diaz-Twine had to figure out who the traitor was among them. They were torn between Sandra and Kate. Trishelle was campaigning for Kate to be exposed as a traitor, but CT had suspicions about Sandra. MJ joined CT's campaign and got everyone else to vote Sandra as a traitor, even though she made a vigorous argument against her being a traitor.

As she exited, she revealed herself to be... a faithful. (This one hurt, because for me, Sandra is a queen, and as she said on Survivor about herself, "the queen stays the queen.")

That left Kate, the actual traitor, to murder somebody. She wanted to murder Trishelle, but that would be too obvious considering Trishelle went hard for Kate. She decided to murder her fellow Bravo sister, Shereé.

This left only four: CT, Kate, MJ and Trishelle. The crew could have stopped the game then and there, which would have given all the prize money to Kate. But CT, Trishelle and MJ suspected Kate to be a traitor. In the end Kate was forced to reveal she was a traitor and leave. Bye Kate!

Now, you would think the trio of CT, MJ and Trishelle would be fine with ending it there. MJ knew she was with faithfuls. But Trishelle and CT weren't so sure. Trishelle thought CT was a traitor, and CT thought MJ was, and MJ voted for Trishelle. Because they all voted for somebody else, they had to make their case and vote again. This time, CT and Trishelle voted for MJ. Hurt, she admitted she was indeed a faithful.

And with that, the last two faithfuls, CT and Trishelle, were left standing victorious as the winners to split all the prize money, up to $250,000.

Now that you're all caught up, you can listen to my exclusive interview with Trishelle and CT about this season of Traitors and how they made it all the way to the end. You can listen to our chat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.