So much for easing everyone in gently.
Gretel Killeen welcomed 22 reality TV faces to Claremont Manor for a new season of suspicion, strategy and very questionable trust exercises, with $250,000 waiting at the end for whoever can survive the lies. The new host also arrived with exactly the right amount of gothic theatre, complete with the show's widow lore and a grand entrance that made the manor feel less like a game location and more like a place where bad decisions go to put on a cape.
It suited her immediately. The players were still learning names, forming first impressions and trying to work out which famous face belonged to which reality TV ecosystem, but the game was already quietly sorting them into trouble.
Shane Gets The First Brutal Choice
The first major twist came before the Traitors had even properly settled into their cloaks.
Shane Gould was pushed forward as the group's "most virtuous" player, a compliment that turned into homework almost instantly. She was handed a bowl of keys and forced into a nasty little dilemma: remove herself from the game, or choose another player to go instead.
Shane chose survival. Fair enough, honestly. It is hard to win The Traitors from the car park.
Her pick was Cam Merchant, which immediately put a very public decision on the board. Cam was not murdered by the Traitors and he was not banished by a vote. He was simply gone, which is exactly the kind of wording this show loves when it wants everyone at home to start side-eyeing the mechanics.
AJ Antonios and Luke Packham both suggested they would have sacrificed themselves in Shane's position, which sounded noble until you remember neither of them actually had to do it. It is very easy to be selfless in a hypothetical. It is much harder when Gretel is standing there with a bowl of keys and your own game is on the line.
That was the first proper crack in the Faithfuls' moral performance. Everyone wants to seem loyal and brave until the game asks for a receipt.
The Manor Splits Into Tribes
Before the murder mystery even began, the cast had already started separating into very recognisable camps.
The Housewives brought a looser, more social energy. The Survivor players looked more calculated, because of course they did. Kween Kong noticed how quickly those groups were forming, and that kind of observation is exactly why a player can become dangerous before the first Round Table has even warmed up.
There were also the built-in connections. Dicko knew Rob Farnham through the music world, and Cosima De Vito gave that corner of the cast an Idol-adjacent little cluster. Josh and Luke Packham had the twin thing going on, with Luke's red face already becoming one of those unfair but irresistible early suspicion points.
Then there was Alex Nation and Keira Maguire, with old Bachelor history sitting between them like a loaded prop. Keira did not help herself by talking about Shane just as Shane walked into the room, then finding herself in early conflict with Manaaki Hoepo as well.
In a house full of people trying to look useful, Keira looked loud enough to be useful to the wrong side.
Alex And Kirby Make The First Pact
The strongest early alliance belonged to Alex and Kirby Bentley, who made a pact before the Traitors had even been chosen.
That is either smart or wildly unlucky, depending on how much you enjoy dramatic irony. Because once Gretel selected her Traitors, Kirby and Alex were not just allies. They were two thirds of the season's first Traitor team, with Alvin Quah joining them in the Conclave.
On paper, that is a dangerous trio. Alex already has social history in the cast, Alvin gives polished confessional energy, and Kirby has the Survivor brain for a game that punishes anyone too emotional or too slow.
But Kirby's game may have started with a problem she could not fully control.
Kween believed she heard Kirby being tapped during the Traitor selection, picking up on the sound around Kirby's shoulder or fabric. Rhys Nicholson also felt something shift in Kirby after the selection. Neither suspicion was proof, but in this game proof is basically a luxury item. A noise, a vibe and a changed expression can be enough to start a fire.
By the time Alex and Alvin told Kirby inside the Conclave that her name had already been mentioned, the new Traitor looked like someone whose first night had gone from powerful to precarious very quickly.
Rob's Shield Makes Him Look Worse
The first mission sent the players hunting for the bones of Gretel's unfortunate husband, because apparently even the dead are not safe from a reality TV challenge.
The important twist was the hidden shields. Josh found one in the dog bowl setup, yanking it free in a way that looked more like brute force than elegant puzzle solving, but honestly, results are results.
Rob also ended up with protection, then immediately made it complicated. He wanted the shield kept quiet, then told his group, which left him in that terrible Traitors no man's land between honest and suspicious.
Keeping a shield secret can look strategic. Sharing it can look loyal. Wobbling between the two just makes everyone wonder why you are wobbling.
Rachael Evren also told her group about her shield, while another group played it smarter by letting the mystery do the work and acting as if everyone might be protected. That move gave the Traitors less certainty when they started weighing up their first murder, which is exactly how shields should be used. Not as a badge. As fog.
Dicko Starts Building His Own Machine
While Rob was making himself visible, Dicko was doing something just as dangerous: organising people.
His early LSD group, built around the idea of listen, select and detect, was not a formal alliance so much as an attempt to drag the Faithfuls away from wild guessing. Dicko's argument was that the group could not truly control who the Traitors murdered. The one place the Faithfuls did have power was the Round Table, so they needed to protect Faithful numbers instead of pretending they could magically identify Traitors on day one.
That is sensible, which is also why it is threatening.
A Faithful who can calm a room and pull people into a voting logic is useful for the good side, but a nightmare for the Traitors. It made sense that Dicko and Rob both entered the murder conversation. Dicko looked like a pack leader, and Rob looked like one of the people orbiting him.
The issue for the Traitors was that Rob had a shield. If they tried to murder him and failed, the Faithfuls would wake up with a very different kind of breakfast mystery. Was it a blocked murder? Was someone recruited? Was the game already playing tricks before anyone had found their footing?
Luke, with his unfortunate red-face subplot, would probably not enjoy that breakfast very much.
Kirby Pushes For Kween
Inside the Conclave, the murder options gave away the first real shape of the Traitors' dilemma.
Kirby had a clear reason to want Kween gone. Kween had clocked her early, and even if the read came from a sound rather than a full behavioural case, it was still too close for comfort. Leaving Kween in the manor meant leaving a suspicion alive.
Rob was tempting because he already looked strange, but the shield made him risky. Dicko was tempting because he could gather people, but taking out a loud organiser on the first night could create its own noise.
That made the premiere feel sharper than a simple introduction episode. The Traitors had power, but not clean power. Kirby had influence, but also heat. Rob had safety, but used it in a way that made him more suspicious. Shane survived the first twist, but made a decision the others could judge from the safety of not having to make it themselves.
For a first night, that is a lot of mess on the table.
The Faithfuls have already started accusing, grouping and pretending they would be nobler than they probably would be. The Traitors have already discovered that a cloak does not stop people hearing fabric. And Gretel looks perfectly at home presiding over the whole thing like she built the manor out of secrets and excellent posture.
The Traitors Australia continues tonight at 7.30pm on 10 and 10 Play.
