The Traitors’ Dylan Efron Reacts to Learning Danielle’s True Identity and Competing Against Survivor Legends
The following contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of The Traitors!
Ardross Castle has crowned four new kings and queens!
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In Thursday’s Season 3 finale of The Traitors (read our full recap here), Danielle was banished at the top of the episode leaving her (former?) Big Brother bestie Britney behind as the last traitor in the game. But after a hellish helicopter mission and another spicy roundtable, Brit couldn’t convince Dolores, Ivar and Gabby that Dylan was the one to take a shot at, and she was forced out of the game without revealing her true identity.
At the Fire of Truth ceremony, the remaining four faithfuls decided they’d had enough banishments for one season, and voted to end the game as it stood leaving Dolores, Gabby, Dylan and Ivar as the newest reigning champs of the franchise.
Below, TVLine talks to three of the four winners about that tense final roundtable, competing against reality TV greats and whether or not they’d make a return trip to Alan’s castle.
TVLINE | On a scale from 1-10, how sure were you that Britney was a traitor, since she couldn’t officially reveal her true identity afterwards?
DOLORES CATANIA | Ten.
DYLAN EFRON | For me, yeah, 10. She went at me!
IVAR MOUNTBATTEN | An eight, I would say. Can you ever be 100% sure?
CATANIA | Not unless you’re a traitor yourself.
EFRON | This time, I could, because there was no reason for her to frame me and say I was recruited.
CATANIA | She just was pressing too hard against you.
MOUNTBATTEN | At the roundtable, I think she changed all of our opinions.
TVLINE | Dylan, you played this season with a stacked cast of gamers. What was your first reaction to seeing who you were playing with, and how are you feeling now that you’ve beaten them all in the end?
EFRON | It was crazy. I put it out there that I was a big Survivor fan growing up, and I was playing with four of the best Survivor players that have ever played the game. That’s so cool to me. I knew them all and I’ve watched all their seasons, so getting to play with them… if I was on Survivor, I wouldn’t have that chance. So it was so cool to play with them and then for them to accept me, I don’t know, as a fan it was cool to just be accepted by everybody.
TVLINE | Dolores, most of your votes were a little off-base, so what was your experience like watching the show back?
CATANIA | Well, first of all, I was embarrassed! I knew when this came out, I was gonna hear it, but looking back, I know why I did it. You don’t see everything. Tom [Sandoval] came for me with a 15-minute fight against me, trying to get everybody to turn on me. There was a lot you didn’t see and there was a lot of reasons I kept voting for him, more than what you saw, and not just out of being mad. I had a hard time separating Housewives in real life [from] this game. I thought it was a reality game, but I forgot that people change who they are and become gamers. I judged them by the person that I thought they were, but not the game they were playing. By the end of the game, I figured it out and I just have to say the last vote is what counted to me the most.
TVLINE | Who would you most want to see join the cast next season?
CATANIA | I’d like to see Ayan come back. I thought she was a character. She’s so good at picking a traitor. She called out Bob the Drag Queen before anybody. She was so on it. She could lie, she could be a traitor… she’d lie and you’d believe her because you would underestimate her in the way that you underestimated Carolyn. I think she would do great going back.
MOUNTBATTEN | Jennifer Coolidge. I think she’d be great. She loves the gays!
EFRON | From Love Island — I liked this last season, the U.S. one — I think Leah [Kateb] and Kordell [Beckham] would be really good TV. I just started Southern Charm, so maybe Shep [Rose] would be fun.
TVLINE | Dylan, you were close to Danielle throughout the game. Thoughts on her performance as a traitor?
EFRON | I experienced it in person and watching it back was a different reality. When I experienced it in person, I was genuinely proud of what she did. She’s a self-proclaimed gamer and she played the villain role. She knew what she signed up for and she played the villain to a T. So when she got up there and said she was a traitor, I was proud of her. She gave it her all. That was my honest take.
TVLINE | Ivar, having not come from this world of competitive reality TV, what was the single hardest moment of this game for you?
MOUNTBATTEN | I did a TV program with Bear Grylls called The Island. That was five weeks of living on an island and you were filmed literally 18 hours a day, so in that sense, I was used to it. [But] I didn’t know what I was getting into. It was still very different because on The Island, you were trying to survive. Here, you had to defend yourself, particularly in the roundtables, which were absolutely terrifying. And as I’ve said before, I’m a pretty laid-back guy and not much ruffles me. I’m used to doing a lot of public speaking. But going into those roundtables, they were really terrifying, and because you had to defend yourself from people that you did not know, that you had no sort of connection to and they just came at you… I’m not very good at that. I’ve learned a lot from just that experience, and I don’t think you grow as a person until you’re outside of your comfort zone. So that’s one of the reasons why I did it and I really enjoyed it.
TVLINE | Dylan, how about you?
EFRON | Going against Bob the Drag Queen right out of the gates. That was very tough. I knew I had to do it for safety because I said his name to enough people that I had to say it at the roundtable in case he was a traitor. And he could murder me, so I knew I was gonna get chewed up and I did get chewed up. And then having to vote Danielle and Carolyn. The realization that they were both traitors hurt. I knew what I had to do but it wasn’t easy.
TVLINE | If there’s ever an all-stars season, who’s down for a return trip to Alan’s castle?
CATANIA | I’m signing up for it now. If they’ll have me, I’m going.
EFRON | For sure. It’d be an honor to be invited back.
MOUNTBATTEN | I think that’s quite brave, because don’t you think you should quit while you’re ahead? [Laughs]
CATANIA | Listen, if I ever win again, it would be a fluke.
EFRON | We would get the treatment of gamers though. We had the easy road this time, and we would now get the Boston Rob treatment. We’d have to enter that castle and fight our way.
CATANIA | We’d be feared and loved at the same time.
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