Very Quickly... The Great Ron Reset
[Warning, Spoilers!] Let's Recap Traitors Season 4 Episode 6
Oh, I’m fully committing to this season of The Traitors. I heard the companion podcast is tea, though haven’t had a chance to listen. Will have it queued up this weekend!
Here we go.
Breakfast begins with a race to the smoked salmon (naturally) and the looming threat that at any moment Michael Rapaport might walk back in through the door.
Rob from Love Island has been kidnapped and replaced with a sensible young father/part-time youth pastor named Robert. It’s not just a change of clothing, Rob enters the episode with a change of personality. A noticeable, more serious shift of tone that follows him through this episode, all the way to a very questionable roundtable vote. More on that in a few.
Colton takes an audience with the only person desperate enough to still listen to him… Dorinda. Technically, she’s trapped next to him at breakfast, but she’s listening! She’s clearly struggling to find both her confidence and footing this go around, especially when it comes to anything other than piling on Ron. If you remember, her first attempt at The Traitors happened on Season 3, and she was the first person sent packing. She’s obviously reeling from that departure and struggling to come to terms with this second chance not being as easy as she thought it would be.
Colton announces his grand scheme to target Lisa Rinna, and Dorinda has to honestly be last person left in Scotland willing to entertain his delusions of command. Colton seems to enjoy randomly pinning two near senior citizens against each other and seeding doubt in the value of their very real off-channel friendship.
Whatever works for you, bro.
Cummings comes in dressed as Tilda Swindon (dressed as Elizabeth I), and bearing good news: No murder, and no Michael.
It’s Ron’s name at the top of Stephen Colletti’s mouth as he convenes a post-breakfast kiki around the kitchen island. Less than 10 minutes in and it’s clear, like all episodes before us this season, this too will be another Great Ron Witch Hunt.
Comedian Ron lets his breakfast digest away from the drama, opting for chess with Rob. It’s clear he’s resigned to simply enjoy the time he has left:
Comedian Ron: “So, who do you going after the next roundtable?”
Rob: “What do you mean?”
Comedian Ron: “Not tonight… because I know what’s happening tonight.”
Rob: “You think you’re gonna go?”
Comedian Ron: “Yeah, for sure.”
Rob: “I think so, too.”
Comedian Ron: “Yeah.”
In a clubroom a few doors down, a more sensible group led by Johnny Weir and Kristen Kish gets down to the business of Colton:
Colton keeps his campaign against Lisa going on the drive to today’s mission. His obvious goal being to have someone besides himself to blame for his eventual exit. They’re off to Cummings’ Captivating Cabin In The Woods, the escape room from hell deep, deep in the shire. Finally, something a little more cerebral and less physical that can force some bonding across the collective, even if it’s temporary.
Back at the castle, Johnny, Kristen, and the collective start building their mutiny squad, slowly organizing a campaign to make tonight’s roundtable Colton’s last.
Sensing that conversations are intentionally happening without him, a menacing Colton smirks out his plan to track down Lisa Rinna and hold the Housewife “hostage.” His words, not mine:
Colton: “Instead of trying to banish traitor, I’m gonna try to hold one hostage.”
What does he mean by that? Maybe he wants to isolate her away from the other contestants and effectively stop her ability to plot her case against him? Maybe he might really fucking hold her hostage? Anything is possible, and he’s got the experience…
For real though, I don’t know how he was allowed to be on the show. There’s something so unsettling about him being alone in a room with a woman.
Rinna’s poker face, as expected, holds firm as a flushed Colton tries to play-bargain his way to either a Rinna alliance or a Rinna slip up. He gets neither.
At the roundtable, Ron is required to defend himself once again. Unlike previous Rons from previous roundtables, this version of Ron is rehearsed, composed, and simply out of fucks:
We’ve all made mistakes here. I don’t think there’s a single one of us here who’s voted correctly every time. Yet, I’m the one who’s put in the position to defend myself. I’ve been very consistent about everything I’ve said. If I like you, you’d know it. If I don’t, you’d know it so —
Before he can finish his words, he’s interrupted by a combatitive Dorinda, who of course is using the single crumb of confidence that only pops when she can menace Ron. In her mind, she’s still holding a grudge against him from when he didn’t go out of his way to seek her out, or ask her where her family is from, or something, a few episodes ago. Mad that she’s not getting the same dance she gets from the doorman, bell hops, and elevator operators, or something.
She sucks up his air with her own speech loaded with complaints before Ron very matter-of-factly lets her know he’s no longer entertaining it.
Colton — never able to read the fucking room — jumps in to speak for the group:
“Banishing you tonight gives us more answers than you’ve been able to provide at this table.”
Ron puts a stop to that as well.
Colton: “With who?”
At this point, Colton needs to be reminded of his own voting record from just the last four days. Some being campaigns he led himself! Those 17 years of football have turned that brain to mush.
Porsha.
Tiffany.
Michael.
Ron: “But because with Michael we don’t count it. Right? But, because we love Porsha, we’re still on me. And, I don’t feel that’s fair.”
Somewhere in there Candiace agrees that banishing Ron would indeed provide the necessary clarity the group needs, though she seems to not be aware his absence would leave her as the last Black person on set, and, given this group, the next target.
Ron takes a moment to proactively say goodbye to each and every person at the table. Despite his eagerness to get the fuck out of there, and despite just how clear the collective has been about wanting him gone, there’s inexplicably still some debate as to whether he should go or not.
But enough about Ron. It’s Kristen who chimes in to keep the plan to rid the castle of Colton on track. Colton turns from orange to pink as support for his banishment comes in from across the table. Oddly enough, it’s Rob who steps into support Colton, and I, for the life of me, can’t recall when the hell those two suddenly bonded.
Colton pivots, as expected, to offer up Rinna for banishment. You and I know he’s correct in that she is indeed a traitor, but he hasn’t fully built a case for this hyper-fixation other than, and I’m not joking, that she voted for Porsha.
Colton: “I don’t know much about Housewives, but I know one thing, you don’t go against a Housewife”
Has he ever watched the show? What would Caroline Stanbury say about that?
Also, Dorinda opened the episode eagerly conspiring with Colton to take down Lisa! Does that not break the Housewife code?!
Alan steps in finally to draw the vote. A vote that honestly came down so close that Ron almost had to suffer through another day with these people!
Ron (6)
Colton (4)
Lisa (4)
One of those votes against Lisa came from her fellow traitor with the snake tattoos. I told y’all Rob is changing…
The game is finally getting messy.
Ron, it’s been a pleasure!
Post-roundtable, Colton continues to press Rinna to the point where she has to loudly remind him that she’s Lisa-fucking-Rinna. Not just a Housewife, and frankly not just another woman you can corner and control. Colton, of course, couldn’t just let that moment just be, and had to end it with a broad threat to the entire room (full of mostly women, of course).
Anyway, there’s no rest for the cast tonight, they’re immediately sent off to a banquet that we won’t see ‘til next episode. Murder in plain sight is on the menu.
I hope Lisa just murders Colton for the sake of all humanity! I need him off my screen immediately.
Your observation of Colton turning from orange to pink really got me, so true