The Traitors S2 - THE AFTERMATH

[MaggieFS]

Discuss!

Good Lord, read the whole post and you might not be so easily flummoxed.

I'll say it again, although all you have to do is scroll up, it's on the same page. I dislike Harry and I think he's a slimy fuckboy. Something about seeing him reducing a young disabled woman to tears on television doesn't sit right with me. I realise this is the game and so that, coupled with a few things that have started to annoy me in the gameplay, mean that I might not watch the game again.

If you take from this that I don't want disabled people on TV or I think all winners must be disabled then it is no good you trying to understand because I can't make it plainer.

I see what you did there.

I've read your whole post and I still don't understand what her being disabled has to do with anything. You say that will have shaped her life experiences, but then so will everyone else's experiences. What about Andrew and his car accident, or Jaz and his dad?

The fact that a contestant was crying because she lost the game isn't unusual in game shows where emotions run high.

I guess if you don't like a game where contestants are lied to then yes, you should avoid Traitors. But it's not like the contestants didn't know it was going to happen to them because that's literally the point of the game.

I think it’s an unfortunate coincidence - and I’m not implying anything sinister or calculated here - that the only young, physically disabled women on both S1 & S2 were too trusting & naive. Because both have been trolled and called stupid and worse, with ableist slurs and comments.

I imagine that the production company will be making sure they do what they can under their control (and they can’t control it all) to ensure that scenario doesn’t occur for a third time.

It's something that, in some respects, makes her more vulnerable than Harry and intensifies my feelings of distaste at seeing him make her cry and smirk over it.

Ever heard of poker?

They need to have a word with the show producers and editors then. I suspect a lot of us as a public perceived these individuals to be dumb because that's what we are fed by the programme.

There also needs to be rigorous checks of applicants to these shows to see that they are resilient enough to withstand severe trolling. If they can sense a youngster is naive or a contestant holds some offensive views perhaps warn them the public may take exception to them and offer extensive support.

I've thought of that and I compared them a lot in the first season. But actually I don't think they are comparable now. Bluffing in poker isn't the same as getting people to trust you and build alliances. It's a straightforwardly adversarial game in all respects. Nobody was ever hurt that someone bluffed in poker. It's much less personal.

Mollie made such an effort over the course of the show to not be defined by her disability and yet here it is being used to diminish her as a person.

She was probably vulnerable to Harry because he's a charming young man. Not because she only has one hand. I mean, she's very attractive herself and I don't think the attraction only went one way. Harry was just able to compartmentalise.

Not sure this poster knows what she wrote originally! Only one person 'trying' here.

She cut off half my post and the context with it.

She's vulnerable only in the way every 21 year old is when they get a crush and hasn't the life experience behind them to read people properly. None of this is related to her disability, it's purely an age and life experience issue.

That said she wasn't the daftest in there, they all were rubbish at spotting the traitors!

i think some people across social media need to step back a bit. It was great tv and it got people really engaged, but some of the stuff I’ve read has started to sound a bit unhinged. The vast majority of us know nothing about these people except for the fact that they all wanted to go on tv for a chance to win some money, there is no need for any of us to dig much deeper than that.

I’m sure it was all very intense at the time (just like Squid Game was by the end of that series on Netflix), but once they all stepped outside the bubble and took a deep breath I’m pretty sure they all remembered they were just playing a game. It would have been lovely to win, but none of them look to be in terrible circumstances, they will have all gone home to their real friends and loved ones and got on with their real lives.

i think there is a lot of projecting going on as viewers expect the contestants to be feeling the same intensity of emotions that they are feeling now the series has just ended. The contestants literally finished this months ago, they have had loads of time to move on. Weirdly it is the audience who are feeling all the raw emotions of having just seen it play out.

One thing we can be sure of, loads of people who watched that, joy and disappointment and all, will be applying for the next season and the chance to be in Molly, Jaz, Harry and Andrew’s shoes. Most of them will be thinking that they will play it better.

If it turns out that they are wrong, do we need to turn ourselves inside out about it, or should we just enjoy watching the game play out?

Absolutely, some of the stuff being said is awful. Equally some people seem to be able to bat trolling and banter off better than others. Look at the backlash against Paul, yet he's shrugging his shoulders and moving on with life. Publicly anyway.

I didn’t think she had a crush. I’m sure she said on the programme she had a boyfriend. I thought at one point maybe Harry and Mollie liked each other, but I saw it going both ways.

And their being best friends during the experience made sense. They were the youngest, a fair bit younger than most of the others. She’s a model and so will be on Instagram and doing campaigns, and he had a girlfriend that’s a tv presenter. So they’ll both be in that Instagram world. They had things in common with each other they didn’t with others. (They had other things in common with others.)

Well if it helps, I'm also using the facts that she's young, and a woman, and Harry is a slimy fuckboy, and the game is getting formulaic and I'm also getting annoyed at just how unfair it is, plus one or two of the tasks made me uneasy. I've said it about three times now.

It's one part of a wider context, but I'm starting to see that wider contexts are a tricky concept. The most reductive way I can put it is: the show, for various reasons, is starting to make me uncomfortable and so I might stop watching it. I hope that's ok.

However what was presented to us by the producers was an unrequited crush.

I can see why. It's a step beyond pantomime villains that we can jeer at in jest and move on with life. Social media now means these attributes are how the public see the contestants and the makers of shows like this need to tread carefully, especially with very young contestants.

I disagree that was categorically the case. That wasn’t my impression but I get that it was a lot of people’s.

Funnily enough I’m sure we had more talking heads from Harry talking about how he was best friends with Mollie and cared about her, then vice versa.

i imagine though as so many people do think she had an unrequited crush, that’s part of the reason Mollie didn’t look particularly comfortable with him on Uncloaked. She was probably worried & embarrassed the audience would misinterpret, or properly interpret…

I think it's also the nature of this particular game. You do need to form some degree of trust, it's almost impossible not to form bonds and it's designed to mess with your head through things like team missions to encourage bonding but then all the inevitable backstabbing. And when you have to be "in character" all the time, it blurs the lines of player and person.

I know, this is all very obvious. And I loved Series 1 and mostly enjoyed this one too. But I don't know, I know it's a game but I'm just starting to wonder about the real life cost of this one and whether it's something I want to participate in any further.

Well if it helps, I'm also using the facts that she's young, and a woman, and Harry is a slimy fuckboy, and the game is getting formulaic and I'm also getting annoyed at just how unfair it is, plus one or two of the tasks made me uneasy. I've said it about three times now.

I don't think that describing a young man who has done nothing more than play a game show extremely well as a 'slimy fuckboy' paints you in a particularly good light, tbh.

Well, that's a separate issue. You're entitled to think that.

However what was presented to us by the producers was an unrequited crush

I mean it's been assumed by many that it was a crush because its a man and a woman and of course women make silly decisions in the name of unrequited love (🙄). Nothing presented seemed to suggest that though, to me it came across as 2 young people of a similar age getting on really well (I do believe Harry did like her and it wasn't all solely for the game); with one leveraging the situation to assist in the game when it suited them sure, but it's a 2-3 week game show at the end of the day. Not everyone will be suited to it, Molly seems like an exceptional young woman who has gone through a lot in her formative years, i think she came across well in the show but it must be really intense and she's young- at her age no way would I have had the courage to apply let alone make it to the final!

It's fine of course to have issues with a show and make a personal decision to not watch again, but so much television is ruined by too much micro analysis (some of which didn't even happen), the show is clear about what it is, everyone who applied I'd have thought would have seen the original or at least be aware of the premise; it does them a disservice to assume they were too naieve or whatever to understand.

I do think it's gross how some go onto social media and message their personal accounts. It's one thing to discuss on a messageboard etc (even then of course should be mindful to not be savage), but they can choose to not look at those threads but their social media is harsh.

It really has.

I wanted to put a gif of Paul doing his exit bow here but I can't find it, so just imagine it's here.