A mix of excitement, astonishment, a little confusion, and some outright rancor (for two people in paritulcar) has gripped The Traitors fandom following the announcement of the reality competition’s Season Three cast.
There are plenty of intriguing names among the 21 contestants, maybe none more so than Vanderpump Rules villain Tom Sandoval and Sam Asghari, the actor and model better known for being Britney Spears’ ex-husband. Unsurprisingly, those two have garnered some of the strongest reactions, with a quick search on Twitter revealing many are hoping one or the other is the first to get booted from the Scottish highlands castle.
One person dryly tweeted of Asghari, “finally he has a job.” And someone else poured one out for one of last season’s Traitors, Parvati Shallow, joking, “i know parvati is seething she went up against sandra and janelle instead of tom sandoval and robyn dixon.”
Of course, others saw plenty of opportunities for some delightful mess in the casting of those two. Writer and podcaster Ira Madison quipped, “NBCUniversal def cast Sam Ashgari so there’d be one person worse than Sandoval.” And another person wish-casted a moment similar to Jojo Siwa throwing Sandoval over her shoulders a la Special Forces, but this time it’s Big Brother contestant Britney Haynes.
(Then there was some other, different, Challengers-inspired wish-casting about Sandoval and Asghari, which we’ll just leave here without comment.)
Elsewhere, many fans were thrilled with the casting of Drag Race champion, Bob the Drag Queen. “some of you may be unfamiliar with her game so let me just inform you now she is NOT to be trifled with and i will be rooting for her as if she were my very own blood relative,” one person wrote, while someone else added: “They NEED to make Bob a traitor.”
And with four Real Housewives set to appear on the show this year, the franchise’s fans have plenty to look forward to. The casting of Real Housewives of New York legend Dorinda Medley led one person to hope for moments similar to Medley’s famously sloppy chat with Carole Radziwill. Comedian Joel Kim Booster was even ready to start throwing down money on extremely specific prop bets, cracking, “Dorinda’s first confessional will be something along the lines of ‘well this is no Bluestone Manor.’ $10k within five words of that sentence.”
Looking at the cast as a whole, some fans noted the conspicuous absence of all former Real World/The Challenge cast members (Season Two featured three, including the two eventual winners, CT Tamburello and Trishelle Cannatella). “Peacock ain’t letting The Challenge into the hen house again after they dominated last season,” tweeted podcaster Brian Cohen.
Generally speaking, though, the overall mood was of pure excitement.
Or, for one particular semi-famous little brother, amused confusion.