Let’s be charitable and call Michael Rapaport a multi-hyphenate. At various times in Season 4 of “The Traitors,” the actor and reality TV podcaster alleges himself to be more of a Housewife than a Real Housewife, “the best looking, smartest, dopest, faithful Faithful,” and a “cr*p trash talker.”
At least the third claim is true. He is a cr*p trash talker, in the sense that he’s terrible at it.
Champion trash talkers are heckle masters. You never want to be their target, but watching their vicious crowd work from a safe distance mainly places you in danger of wetting yourself with a spit-take. Rapaport wishes he were armed with that caliber of wit. When he announces in the premiere, “I feel like there’s an inner Housewife in me, like, a Housewife who’s trying to get out!” he leave out that his inner Housewife is a Jersey-bred table flipper: All screeching, no sense. The best he can muster against fellow contestant Yamil “Yam Yam” Arocho is to bray like a donkey in labor distress that Arocho is full of “big, thick, ‘Traitor’ doo-doo.”
“I don’t play games!” Rapaport barks in the same scene, forcing teammate Ron Funches to deadpan, “You’re playing a game right now.”
What’s sad is that Rapaport is playing “The Traitors” better than Funches. While he hurls baseless accusations and complaints in that episode, Funches presents a compelling case against another player, Atlanta Housewife Porsha Williams, at a banishment debate. He succeeds in turning the crowd against her, only to discover he’s knifed an innocent woman — and worse, one of those Housewives everybody loves and fears. Now, the rest of them are rejecting the nice guy while Rapaport continues to run amok.
“The Traitors” is an unscripted competition for people who say they don’t watch reality TV. You really don’t need to know much about its Bravo-lebrities and gamers to enjoy it. Spending a little time in a grocery store checkout line is all it takes to absorb the highlights of “The Real Housewives” or “Love Island” by osmosis. The rest is basic psychology in action. Even the snobbiest TV snoots can’t resist Alan Cumming as the playfully sadistic laird of Ardross Castle, emceeing what is essentially a closed circle murder mystery.
(Euan Cherry/Peacock) Michael Rapaport and Tiffany Mitchell in “The Traitors”
The cast may be new, but the essential rules remain unchanged. While most of its players are innocents, dubbed Faithfuls, Cumming surreptitiously chooses several to be Traitors.
The Faithful contingent includes several Bravo and MTV stars; veterans of “Survivor,” “Big Brother,” and “Love Island”; a “Bachelor“; a singer-songwriter; two Olympic figure skaters; Jason and Travis Kelce‘s mom; a “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner; a “Dancing withe the Stars” pro; and Rapaport, the star of “Zebrahead” and “Higher Learning,” whose career peaked in the aughts.
OK, he’s done plenty of other things since then, including directing the 2011 documentary “Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest.” Somehow he managed to hang around the New York hip-hop scene without taking to heart the message conveyed in Run-DMC’s “You Talk Too Much.”
More recently, he appeared in “Fallout” just long enough for his character to be mauled to death by a mutant bear. But New York may be hearing a lot more from him in the future, since he announced he’s running for mayor in the city’s 2029 election.
Nobody is convinced that he’s a Traitor, and if he were one, as a couple of folks have whispered, his chaos would either be genius or as idiotic as it looks to the rest of the world.
Other game shows have launched lesser boobs to greater heights, and Rapaport has no place to go but up. Here and now, he’s this round’s minor celebrity, akin in prominence to the likes of second-season also-ran John Bercow, the former Speaker of the House of Commons, and Season 3’s Lord Ivar Mountbatten, cousin to the crown.
(Euan Cherry/Peacock) Michael Rapaport in “The Traitors”
They won us over with their mild pomposity and aloofness, whereas Rapaport’s annoyance wreaks collateral damage like a chronically unbathed person’s odor assails bystanders. Faithful ally Eric Nam sternly points out to him that his rants are throwing off everyone else’s game. And the Traitors love it.
This season is an especially unfortunate one for the Faithfuls to have a malfunctioning fog machine on their team, because producers added a secret Traitor, a murderer whose identity was kept secret from everyone, including the other Traitors and viewers. That mystery lasted for all of three episodes, although most players clocked Taylor Swift’s soon-to-be mother-in-law, Donna Kelce, on the first night. Fear of Swiftie retribution held them back from acting on their instincts.
Kicking him out will not win the war, but damn it if we won’t keep watching until that happens.
But it’s a good thing the innocents already felled one devil, despite Kelce’s overwhelming sweetness. Every day that a Traitor remains in the game, a Faithful gets murdered. If one remains hidden among the remaining players at the end, he or she walks off with the entire jackpot, which could be worth up to $250,000.
However, that also means that every Faithful banished by the majority vote of their peers takes a fall that could have eliminated a Traitor. And this puts everyone besides Rapaport in an irksome if intriguing position. Nobody is convinced that he’s a Traitor, and if he were one, as a couple of folks have whispered, his chaos would either be genius or as idiotic as it looks to the rest of the world.
So the question becomes, is ousting a two-faced killer more valuable than removing the enemy of your enemy who has all the charm of a raging, snot-dripping bout of the super flu? What’s more important, winning or prioritizing peace?
Is this not the conundrum of our time, and aren’t we fortunate to have this boor reminding us of this with each new episode?
Ugh.
As the show established last season, the people we’re conditioned to view as villains and heels are not necessarily Traitors. Unless, of course, they are.
Season 3 launched former “Vanderpump Rules” star Tom Sandoval in the mix, and while he entered in disgrace, he exited as slightly more likable. This was not the case with “Boston Rob” Mariano, a wildcard mid-season addition who immediately set about backstabbing everyone in his way, including other Traitors.
But Mariano excels at coming across as trustworthy. Hence, he survived much longer than he should have by convincing his prey, including Zac Efron’s wide-eyed brother Dylan, that he’d be too obvious an assassin.
And this is why Rapaport is such a well-played torment. He’s telling the truth every time he screams, “I am the most faithful Faithful!” and yet, every time he opens his mouth, a small corner of the planet perishes from the emissions. Kicking him out will not win the war, but damn it if we won’t keep watching until that happens.
(Euan Cherry/Peacock) Rob Rausch in “The Traitors”
Rapaport may be Season 4’s obvious pain point, but it has its pleasures too. He isn’t the only thespian in the cast. Lisa Rinna, a survivor of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” is acting her glutes off. So far, neither she nor former Potomac Housewife Candiace Dillard Bassett nor “Love Island” alumnus Rob Rausch is on anyone’s Traitor radar. But they should be.
Dillard and Rinna are a little too mirthful about slitting throats at nightfall and lying to the remaining sheep over breakfast, while Rausch is a silent slaughterer, saying little and capitalizing on the rest of the group’s assumptions that he’s just another F-boy from “Love Island.” Those who appreciate a little chiaroscuro interplay in their trashy TV ensembles might fall for this guy, if only for being a potent, balancing opposition to Rapaport’s windbaggery. Asked by Cumming how he intends to use the power of his Traitor’s cloak, our himbo hero shrugs and answers, ever so simply, “I’m just gonna kill some people.” We don’t appreciate the quiet ones enough.
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What about Rapaport’s resentful Faithful companions? In the third episode, a challenge requires half of those remaining to be caged while a partner stacks animal skulls into a tower to free them.
Rapaport volunteers to be kenneled while “Big Brother” contestant Tiffany Mitchell takes it on herself to fight for him. It was the perfect opportunity to place him on the chopping block. But Mitchell is a team player, so in the end, Rapaport survives to squawk another day and probably complain about life’s unfairness over that evening’s pasta buffet.
Meanwhile, levelheaded “Top Chef” host Kristen Kish, Nam, Stanbury and Funches, this season’s Charlie Brown, finish the day blindfolded and tied to a tree in the dark as ax-toting hooded figures lurk nearby.
An apt metaphor for how everything’s going these days, wouldn’t you say?
But take comfort in knowing the loudmouth will eventually get his — maybe soon, but probably later than we’d like. Even if you are of the mind that reality TV should be devoid of anything that makes you grit your teeth, anticipating the relief of Rapaport’s eventual exit is a sweetness worth savoring. Until then, let’s enjoy each week’s momentary rescue delivered whenever Cumming intones, “Players, the time for talk is over.” It’s the only phrase with the power to shut this man down.
“The Traitors” streams Thursdays on Peacock.
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