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Pod Meets World

Pod Meets Twirl'd: The Traitors 411

27 Feb 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What are the highlights of Season 4 of The Traitors?

0.402 - 7.645

Thank you.

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9.042 - 33.818 Alan Cumming

Welcome to Pod Meets Twirl, the podcast from two guys who had never seen an episode of Dancing with the Stars, but took it on and walked away experts. So now we've turned to Traitors, another show that I had never seen, while Will was convinced that he could win it. We are Will Friedle and Ryder Strong, two best friends, one a TV expert, one a TV skeptic, both dance scholars. Join us.

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34.068 - 43.799 Alan Cumming

As one more time, we step into a castle full of lies, alliances, and over-the-top wardrobe choices. This is the finale of Podmeet's Twirled Trading Places.

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44.78 - 47.583 Ryder Strong

Oh, it's finale. That's how you pronounce it. I was saying finally.

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Chapter 2: How did Maura react to Rob's betrayal?

47.903 - 51.828 Alan Cumming

Finally. Finally. Well, this has been quite a journey.

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51.988 - 53.69 Ryder Strong

Man. Wow.

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54.11 - 84.408 Alan Cumming

Yeah. I'm very excited. We've already announced this, but we're moving on into Survivor. Yeah. And I'm glad. I want to get out of this castle. Really? Yeah. I want to get into the castle. I know you do. I want some salmon by the lock. I ultimately, and we had a great conversation with Chad about this. Yeah. And I think this game needs work. I think Raiders is pretty flawed as a game.

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Chapter 3: What are Will and Rider's final thoughts on the season?

84.709 - 85.23 Will Friedle

Wow.

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85.771 - 109.168 Alan Cumming

I think it's especially this season, and maybe it's less so when it's civilians or a different set of celebrities, but this felt very reality show heavy. It felt more like... I don't know. I mean, the fact that we have two Love Island people at the end, right? It just felt more performative and also left me a little icky feeling at the end.

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109.929 - 114.837 Ryder Strong

I think you're kind of supposed to feel a little icky. Yeah, I guess so. There's a total ick factor to it.

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114.857 - 132.006 Alan Cumming

Absolutely. I know. I think that there's like a camp quality to it, you know, that that I've loved and enjoyed. But that camp quality didn't detract that at the end of the day, it's a show about people lying to each other's faces. Yeah. And I just I just still don't like that. Right.

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132.066 - 132.286 Ryder Strong

Sure.

132.326 - 134.21 Alan Cumming

No, I don't like, I don't like that.

134.571 - 134.811 Ryder Strong

I love it.

134.831 - 139.04 Alan Cumming

I don't like feeling like I'm on the side of liars and I don't, I don't blame them.

Chapter 4: Would Will and Rider consider joining the cast of The Traitors?

139.06 - 148.137 Alan Cumming

Like I really don't think Rob is a bad person. Like at all. Like I know, I mean, I don't think Eric, I don't think anybody, but it's also like, it's just puts them in this position that make that the strength.

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148.498 - 148.718 Will Friedle

Yeah.

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149.159 - 154.169 Alan Cumming

And, um, Yeah. I mean, we've said it since the beginning that I would be bad on this show.

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154.229 - 173.745 Ryder Strong

But wait, devil's advocate. Could you go the way you taught you and Danielle were always talking to me about Dancing with the Stars, where it's like if you just went in and thought of it as like a role. Right. Wouldn't that be the role you're playing on Traitors is as an actor, you're playing the treacherous guy. You're playing the villain. You're playing the sociopath.

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173.725 - 194.974 Alan Cumming

No, that's the thing. And I think that's why that the campy... Campiness is, like, the fun, right? Right, right. And, like, make it so over the top with, like, murder and, you know, the way, like, he just, like, slams their pictures down. Like, all of that, I think, is the only way that it's manageable that you're playing a really psychotic game otherwise, right? Yeah. But...

194.954 - 213.656 Alan Cumming

I don't think it ultimately can't remove the fact that it's still a show about, you know, lying. And maybe because this is my first season and the Traitors won. Spoiler. I mean, we're here. But like the fact that the Traitors won, I wonder if I would feel the exact opposite if the Faithful had won, right?

Chapter 5: What flaws did the hosts find in the game mechanics of The Traitors?

213.677 - 233.035 Ryder Strong

Which is what happened last season is all four Faithfuls won and they were like, we did it. We did it. We did it together. Like, look how good we were. It would feel like a triumph of like, of the spirit and honesty where this year I was like, I was so, he was playing so well. Yeah. That I was like, I want to see him go the entire way. And I was, I was calling every move.

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233.055 - 245.139 Ryder Strong

I was like, oh, now if he does this, I'm like, he can't do this. It's brilliant. If he does, I'm like, oh my God. It's incredible. It was incredible all the way around. But yeah, the last season, all the faithful did win. And there was like this, we can do it.

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Chapter 6: How did the finale of The Traitors unfold?

245.159 - 253.454 Ryder Strong

We did it together. Whereas just watching this man cut through these people with like this scythe of deceit is just magical.

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253.855 - 270.753 Alan Cumming

I don't know. I, you know, we've talked about how Reality has gotten less exploitative and people kind of know what they're signing up for. But the look on Maura's face was like pretty devastating. And that, yeah, I, it's, it made me, it brought me back to like big, did you?

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270.833 - 292.419 Ryder Strong

I watched it three times because it was, it's also as horrible as it sounds. It's a beautifully honest moment in television. Yeah. I mean, you watch this woman because at first you saw the look on her face where she's like, well, you're joking. Like, this can't be right. And then when she realized it was, that look of, wait, she was gutted.

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292.459 - 301.634 Ryder Strong

And it was my favorite part of it, which, oh, my God, though, because she said it like it was a legal binding contract. She went, your pinkies won.

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301.654 - 301.995

Pinkies promised.

301.975 - 310.092 Unknown

Your pinky promise. Your pinky promise. That's a binding legal contract. Your pinky promise. Now you gotta lose a pinky.

310.132 - 317.307 Alan Cumming

Now we take the pinky. Now we take the pinky. I know, man. I don't know. It reminded me of Joe Schmo season one, which I'm pretty sure you watched, right?

317.528 - 319.933 Ryder Strong

I can quote it. I loved that show.

319.913 - 327.002 Alan Cumming

And do you remember how devastated he was to find out that the one guy who was like his best friend had been an actor? He's like, hold on, hold on.

Chapter 7: What moral dilemmas arise from the gameplay in The Traitors?

327.042 - 349.65 Alan Cumming

Yeah, it was. He was not happy, you know? He ended up suing, I think, years later, which sucks because- I don't know what the end result was, but I remember watching that multiple times because when they revealed it, he went, are you kidding us? And grabbed that guy and then was like, wait, what? And then looked at him and it's pretty awful. And it felt similar in this moment. I was like, yeah.

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349.63 - 350.071 Alan Cumming

Yeah.

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350.391 - 358.485 Ryder Strong

Again, I also I am one of those people where if you're going to sign up for one of these reality shows, then whatever happens is on you.

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358.846 - 362.032 Alan Cumming

Well, with Joe Schmo, that was very manipulative. They were actually lying to him.

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362.472 - 369.124 Ryder Strong

Right. But they were. But they knew he was going to you. You're going to a reality show where you're going to sit in a thing. Also, the thing that I loved about.

369.104 - 392.158 Ryder Strong

the original one was the reason people loved him and he made it to the end the way that he did is everything they threw at him and every step of the way he made the right choice as a decent person totally he never screwed anybody over he defended the king good amazing amazing yeah and and that was you know it's the same with like i know jury duty i didn't actually watch the whole season of jury i've never seen it i heard it was good

392.138 - 404.286 Alan Cumming

But I think, you know, I think that is always the point, right? It's like, they don't want to make somebody look that bad. Um, it's still lying. It's still manipulating. And I don't, I just, but again, it's, it's candid camera.

404.306 - 423.021 Ryder Strong

That's a hidden, a hidden camera show. That's punked. That's what I mean. That's what these things are. I don't like any of them. I get uncomfortable with all of them. It's funny, I'm not a huge fan of him either, but I'm okay with people, like at least in this case, you're knowing what you're, as Alan Cummings says at the end, the show is called Traitors.

423.662 - 426.287 Alan Cumming

So the worst one was a show called Film Fakers.

Chapter 8: What are the hosts' plans for the upcoming Survivor season?

426.748 - 437.485 Alan Cumming

Did you ever see that? No. So it was my dear friend and amazing actor that I've worked with, he's in my new Red Weather podcast, Chris Wilde. was on this as an actor.

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438.146 - 452.809 Alan Cumming

Um, and what they would do is create fake movies and hire actors and convince them that they were making a horrible movie that these actors would commit to not knowing that everyone on the crew was an actor pretending to make a movie.

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453.37 - 455.033 Ryder Strong

Oh, I don't know how I feel about that.

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455.053 - 471.392 Alan Cumming

It was, so they were always like 20 somethings, young 20 somethings who are getting their break, a big role. And like, You know, like they did like a horror movie that was like, you know, so ridiculously dumb. But they would write whole scripts and they would actually go out with a camera crew and be shooting scenes.

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471.412 - 486.746 Alan Cumming

But then meanwhile, be shooting a behind the scenes documentary of the making of this movie, which is the actual reality show. And they would do multiple days of shooting before they revealed to these actors that like, ha ha, you're actually on a reality show. You don't have the career, like the moment you thought about it. See, that, yeah, that's different. It was mean, man.

486.886 - 488.527 Alan Cumming

And Chris felt really bad about it.

488.547 - 489.088 Will Friedle

Of course.

489.108 - 497.409 Alan Cumming

Of course. He kept going and he did his job, but he was also like, this feels weird because you're taking advantage of actors' commitment to their art, which sucks.

497.529 - 501.981 Ryder Strong

Now, do you believe that anybody on Traitors was being taken advantage of?

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