The Traitors did something no Traitor has done before ...Middle East

And just like that, Rachel and Stephen took the crown. This is the first time two Traitors have won together – the first time two Traitors have stuck by one another, and kept to their word. It was a victory all the sweeter for its deviance – because while I always watch The Traitors hoping for its titular villains to emerge victorious (talk to my therapist), this was the series that made the nation agree with me. 

As Rachel proved from the moment Claudia anointed her at the first roundtable, being a Traitor doesn’t have to mean being a rotter. Throughout, she behaved with more decency than most of this season’s Faithfuls – let alone her treacherous predecessors from years past, historically throwing each other under any and all buses at a moment’s notice. 

Sure, the show’s inter-Traitor warfare has always been one of its most thrilling aspects – Shakespeare could barely have bettered Harry’s mutiny against his Traitor King, Paul, back in 2024 – but the mutual respect between Rachel and her fellow turret-dweller Stephen was edifying in a different way; honour amongst thieves/traitors, even when it looked like Stephen might go rogue: “I’m saying the right things but I don’t know what to do tomorrow,” he said on the eve of the final. “At this point I have to think of myself as an individual”.  

Rachel, meanwhile, held fast: “We’ve played as a team this whole time and it’s helped our game,” she noted – and eventually, was proven right. Her loyalty was a pleasing rebuttal to the error Faithfuls have reliably made since the show’s inception – namely, suspecting their fellow players based on whether they like them or not, or whether they consider their behaviour kind or cruel. After all, a Traitor’s identity is not self-determined – on the contrary, it is decreed by the show’s ingenious producers for maximum dramatic irony. 

That might feel patently obvious, watching at home – yet players frequently confuse their personal negative feelings for proof that someone is a Traitor. Think of Roxy’s reaction when poor James snuck a shield back in episode 8 (“I feel I can’t not look at you now because that was deceptive behaviour,” she said, despite his actions clearly being those of a panicky Faithful), or Harriet’s righteous breakfast table attack of her prime Traitor suspects. 

Presenting as calmly and sweetly as possible, both Rachel and Stephen have wielded this recurring cognitive blip in their favour – all while capitalising on its inverse, wherein acting confrontationally is a surefire way to get yourself banished. For just as being a Traitor doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, neither is being a Faithful any guarantee of behaving properly. 

Matty’s defensiveness at his final roundtable verged on brattiness, and saw him banished; Harriet didn’t just come swinging for Rachel but Roxy too, only to be voted out immediately in a mad kamikaze daze. And who could forget Reece’s devastating diss to James: “I don’t think you’re a Traitor; I think you’re a bad Faithful”, before getting murdered? Speaking of James – too pure for this world – he was an obvious exception to this series’ crop of aggy Faithfuls; nonetheless, his blithe lack of machinations led him to be eliminated at the beginning of the finale. 

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GOAT Rachel, on the other hand, spent the series delivering a masterclass in poker faces and measured arguments, without ever stooping to sniping. Although she did turn on a fellow traitor in Fiona, it was only after Fiona’s own attempt to assassinate her; and, although they questioned each other during later roundtables, Rachel and Stephen stuck to their promises in never writing the other’s name on their boards.

“Like my mummy always said, treat people with respect and kindness,” Rachel explained to the camera a couple of episodes back. “And if I can take an ounce of that into this game as I murder and lie and deceive, I’ll do it – because it’s the right thing to do.” 

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Quite right too. With players split into opposing camps, the show inevitably descends into a supposed match of good versus evil – the truth, of course, is that all the contestants are driven by the same motivation, ie, the prize pot; what’s more, winning as a Traitor is no more morally ‘bad’ than doing so as a Faithful is ‘good’. After all, The Traitors is a game, not an ethics exam. 

Nonetheless, there is a way of playing it decently, kindly and with integrity, Faithful or Traitor as the case may be – something Rachel understood from the off, Stephen came around to (“I decided I was going to play a fair and honest game”, he said at the eleventh hour), and which ultimately saw them sweep the top prize. 

Capitalising on the Faithfuls’ all-too-human muddling of who they like the most with who’s trustworthy, Rachel’s unmistakable brand of honourable rogue meant there has never been a more deserving (or satisfying) winner. As for Stephen, he couldn’t have done it without her.

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