Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive show news, updates, and more!
"Furious": The Traitors Cast Reacts to First Season 2 Murders and Banishments
The new cast of The Traitors give their reactions to the first murders and banishments.
This article contains spoilers for the first three episodes of The Traitors Season 2.
The hit reality competition The Traitors is back with an all-new cast and all-new betrayals for Season 2.
From Bravo’s Real Housewives to Survivor or Big Brother, Alan Cumming plays host to a slate of reality TV stars ready to compete for a growing cash prize. Split between the Faithful and the Traitors, the players are trying to compete and stay in the game long enough to reap the spoils.
The latest cast to be whisked away to a Scottish castle spoke to NBC Insider about the first murders and banishments to rock the latest season.
Who were the First Players to be Murdered on The Traitors Season 2?
The titular Traitors have the ability to "murder" a player and take them out of the game. And the first to go this season was none other than reality TV personality and host Johnny Bananas, who received a letter informing him he was the target of the Traitors' first kill.
“It stings and not to toot my own horn but the house is gonna be a lot less fun now that I’m not around,” Bananas said in his confessional after finding out he was murdered. “They definitely made a mistake. This game is like a jar of jalapeños: What you do today is gonna burn your ass tomorrow.”
Bananas, whose real name is John Devenanzio, is known for his time competing on MTV’s The Challenge. Although his time on The Traitors was short lived, he found his experiences on both shows to be “very similar.”
“This feels like such a familiar you know just kind of environment to be placed in,” Bananas told NBC Insider of his time being on the Peacock competition series. “I was hoping that their desire to earn money and to win would at least in the short term overshadow their desire to want to get ride of me ‘cause they’re like, 'All right, well, obviously … he might be a threat to our game, but he’s going to help us win.'"
However, Bananas thinks the Traitors had other plans in mind when it came to strategy.
“They wanted to get rid of anyone who brought any sort of entertainment or fun to the show,” Bananas said.
The Traitors Phaedra Parks (Married to Medicine), Dan Gheesling (Big Brother), and Parvati Shallow (Survivor) wasted no time in picking off another Faithful.
Michael Jordan’s son Marcus joined his girlfriend, the Real Housewives of Miami star Larsa Pippen, on the competition show. The pair are the first couple to compete on The Traitors together.
“People think I’m [a] big, friendly giant, but in all honesty, I’m a cutthroat player,” Marcus said. “I’ve got Jordan blood in my DNA and we like to win at all costs.”
But Marcus didn’t get his wish. The fashion entrepreneur was murdered in Episode 3 by the traitors.
“I was f-cking furious,” Jordan told NBC Insider. “I went fairly early and you know, I wanted to compete.”
Larsa didn’t understand the Traitors' strategy when it came to taking out Marcus and Johnny, as she found them to be helpful during the physical challenges.
“If I were a Traitor, I would not get rid of the smart, athletic guys,” Larsa told NBC Insider. “To me, that made no sense because I felt like all the guys that really contributed to the money aspect of the game, they were just dropping like flies.”
Who was the first to be Banished on The Traitors Season 2?
The Traitors aren’t the only ones with the power to kick someone off the show. Each episode brings players together in a daunting roundtable where the Faithfuls and the Traitors vote off someone to banish.
After Trishelle Cannatella (The Real World: Las Vegas) pointed to Peppermint (RuPaul’s Drag Race) as a possible traitor, she was banished by a majority vote. Only for Peppermint to reveal she was a Faithful the entire time.
“I probably wouldn’t say anything to Trishelle right now,” Peppermint told NBC Insider. “I kind of saw it coming, like I wasn’t surprised when the first person wrote my name, you know it was really…the blood was in the water and the sharks were a-circling.”
Peppermint’s banishment rocked some of the cast members, including boxer Deontay Wilder.
“Everyone to accuse her and to find out that she wasn’t a Traitor, it like really hit me,” Deontay said.
Trishelle, who first voiced her incorrect suspicions about Peppermint, said she felt guilty about the way Peppermint was banished.
“I think that people knew it came from a place of me trying to find the Traitors, not that I was a Traitor,” Trishelle said. “I was really bummed that it happened that way and the way that Peppermint left.”
New episodes of The Traitors Season 2 premiere every Thursday. Episodes are available to stream on Peacock alongside The Traitors: Postmortem after show.
