‘The Traitors’ Season 4 Episode 9 Recap: Skating on Thin Ice

Eric Nam would not necessarily have been my choice or prediction to join Rob Rausch in the turret on The Traitors, but after Rob presented him with an ultimatum last week to either join him or die, it turns out that Eric becoming a Traitor is just what the show needed. First of all, it’s perfect in its randomness, and second of all, Eric has always been reliable for his soundbites, and he had me at, “I need a helmet and an adult diaper, because I’m about to shit my pants and my head’s about to explode, this is so stressful.”

As soon as Rob recruits Eric, he explains that a murder has to happen that night, something Eric is not totally ready for.

Eric acclimates quickly, though, asking Rob if he can write the victim’s name on the murder proclamation. At breakfast the next day, as the gang speculates as to who the remaining Traitor(s) could be, most of the speculation lands on Johnny Weir – poor, Faithful Johnny – whose only crime was trusting, adoring, and twerking for Candiace Dillard Bassett too much. According to Kristen Kish, Johnny’s a suspect even if he’s simply guilty by association.

It seems that with only about half the cast left in the breakfast room, no one need fight over smoked salmon anymore, and as they gobble down their meal, they realize that Dorinda Medley is the Faithful who met her maker the night before. Rob wistfully, convincingly tells Kristen at brunch, “I loved me some Dorinda.” Rob keeps making all the right moves and saying all the right things to throw people off the scent, that is for sure. Now that Eric is a Traitor and sees how Rob moves through the game, he is absolutely in awe. “Rob is an eagle soaring across the sky. This guy is laying down with his crop top vest on, hands behind his back, and I’m just sitting there trying to be normal and it’s really hard,” he says, witnessing the effortlessness of Rob’s treachery.

For the day’s mission, they’re brought to a field where nine boxes – each one big enough to fit an adult – are laid out. What ensues is a game that’s like a combination of jack-in-the-box and The Newlywed Game, where everyone is asked a question and, while inside the box, they select an answer. If their answer matches the answer given by the Traitors, they earn money. The catch is that this is the first Rob and Eric are hearing about any of this, and after every question is asked, they need to sneak out of their boxes to confer with each other to provide an answer. The boxes seem to be soundproof enough that the Faithfuls don’t hear Rob and Eric sneak out of them but not so soundproof that they can’t hear Alan summon them when it’s time to answer.

PEACOCK

Over the course of several questions, like “Who do the Traitors find most useful to them?” and “Who do the Traitors think is the most manipulative?” Rob and Eric try to throw everyone off by choosing Tara Lipinski for every answer, which is a hilariously brilliant strategy because it manages to be so random, but it also puts Tara’s name out there on display. And as Tara herself says early in the episode, It isn’t until the very last question that the Faithfuls catch on to the pattern and actually just write Tara’s name down. It’s a psychological triumph for the Traitors but also earns the group almost no money for their prize pot.

PEACOCK

The mission’s coup de grace, somewhat literally, is that at the end of it, they have to predict which four players will be on the Traitors’ short list for murder that night, and the actual four players will be locked inside their boxes. Tara, Johnny, Kristen and Natalie Anderson are all locked in when they try to open their boxes, sealing one of their potential fates.

Rob immediately suggests to Stephen Colletti that perhaps there’s a Traitor inside one of the boxes trying to put themself in there as a bluff, and he says it’s Johnny. Later, as the group then debates who to vote for at the round table banishment, half of them seem to be pursuing Johnny, who seems physically and mentally deflated at the thought of it.

The hilarious thing about this season is that Johnny and Tara have been tryin to go full “I don’t know her” with each other, but the fact is they are two of the most famous figure skaters in the world and are co-announcers at major skating events, so it’s kind of wild to me that they think no one in the cast really knows about their preexisting friendship. At the round table, Tara rips off that band-aid and finally reveals their alliance and that candor doesn’t necessarily work in their favor; Maura is immediately suspicious when Tara declares that she’s positive Johnny is Faithful (it’s true, no one can be positive of that in this game), while Kristen, who has been suspicious of Tara all day, explains that she’s now suspicious of the two potential Traitor-skaters. (“They’re just showing they’ve been keeping secrets the whole game,” Rob adds, but for him, that’s not a bad thing.)

So while there’s plenty of heat on both Johnny and Tara, Natalie – who has been on my own murder list ever since she insisted on drinking the antidote at the Black Banquet – throws out Stephen’s name as a possible Traitor. She leads the charge against Stephen, simply going off her gut feeling that he’s been acting weird lately (and referencing the time that Lisa gave him her gold at the end of a challenge), and in the end, Natalie manages to persuade a majority of the table away from Johnny and Stephen is the one banished. “I am a Faithful and you blew it,” he tells them from the Circle of Truth before skipping back to One Tree Hill where he came from.

Natalie feels terrible, and it’s telling that the first person she apologizes to is Rob, he said that her speech persuaded him to vote for Stephen, but it’s also clear she and so many of the others look to him for approval and guidance. In past seasons, we’ve had men in similar roles, Pilot Pete, Dylan Efron, men who have been the most faithful Faithfuls. It’s just ironic that this season, the most faithful Faithful is a Traitor.

When everyone reconvenes to discuss the results of the round table, Kristen starts to grill Eric on why he all of a sudden had nothing to say and no opinion at the round table. Eric declares that he was just blindsided and confused, but Kristen isn’t buying it. Up until now, Kristen has been a peripheral observer, but it’s clear she’s unleashing beast mode. She knows she’s hit on something with Eric, but she also knows that it has left her vulnerable since she’s on the short list for the night’s murder. “If I’m murdered tomorrow, just look at Eric,” she says before going to bed. The only problem is the person she tells that to is Rob.

The night’s murder is unlike any other we’ve seen, as all four short-listed players are summoned to the castle dungeon where they are told to turn the crank on a jack-in-the-box. If a mini-Traitor comes out of the box, that player is murdered. But alas, we have to wait till next week to find out which of these weasels is about to get popped.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.