This will have spoilers for the second season of The Traitors Australia, so if you plan on watching it, please come back after you have seen it.
It was when Keith looked Annabel dead in the eye and said she was a master manipulator after she had boldly declared (correctly as the viewer knows) that Blake and Sam were the Traitors that I had a feeling deep down that Sam was making it to the Endgame.
That was solidified when despite the evidence (his lack of evidence on Ash but the assured way that he said she was a Traitor, the fact that Luke came for him at the same roundtable as Annabel and was then murdered) at the following roundtable despite all going in with Sam’s name in their mouths primed to write it on their pieces of blackboard they were somehow swayed to banish Simone.
Then once again at the penultimate banishment, they (mostly) had Sam’s name in their mouth and ready for their boards but Gloria managed to seal her own fate by saying something about how they should look at someone they have never looked at before which, yeah you guessed it, Sam jumped on and turned the tide and basically secured a Traitors only final.
There came a point probably around the Annabel/Luke time where I realised that not only was Sam going to make it to the end but I think I wanted him to. He managed to move like a cat and slink about. Perfectly placed with everyone so that they couldn’t see what was staring them right in the face. But the problem with him moving like a cat was that he didn’t seem to notice that he was losing his nine lives. Nor did he realise that he had let a sheep in wolf’s clothing into his ranks.
And well, I am a canine over feline kinda gal.
Here’s the thing, and I’ve thought about this a lot, it’s unfortunate that Blake got stuck in the middle. That man pleaded with Sam to not screw him over because he couldn’t leave with nothing, but he knew who was in Traitors Tower with him and he knew that he couldn’t be trusted and I am GUTTED for Blake.
BUT Sam got what was coming to him. Which I guess was a lesson in humility. Because honestly, the more lives he burned up the worse he got. He was convinced that the two people that made it to the Endgame with him would bend to his will and he could walk away $208,000 richer. He thought he could lie to their faces and they would believe him. He thought that he could plead to the stay at home mum of 4 to do the right thing because he would too and Camille saw through the bullshit.
She didn’t always see through the bullshit (how did no one suspect Camille of being a Traitor at any point. She was all over Sam at one banishment and then immediately dropped it the following day (because she was recruited) and that just seems sus to me, and they banished others with less evidence) but around that fire she knew. She knew they both lying to her and she said ‘no, liars don’t get to win today’.
And the way Sam acted when things didn’t go his way further validated me feeling happy that Camille made sure no one won (again sad that Blake ended up in the middle, that was savage). But for Sam to stand there and be like ‘that’s what a rich person would say’ when he knowingly pissed $6k up the wall and didn’t really care just reeked of sore loser. For him to think that he was owed the win because he had been a OG Traitor made no sense. It’s a game. He played the game and even though he played a blinder his own web of lies caught up with him in the end and he lost.
Camille looked him dead in the eye and said ‘long live the King’, then threw him off the mountain into the wildebeest. And it was the best way it could have ended.
(Side note, Scar was unhinged for throwing his brother into a stampede and even now thinking about the scene sometimes ruins my day)