The Traitors Australia is getting global recognition for its franchise-first moments.
While brutal betrayals and breaking down at the round table aren’t new occurrences, a faithful — AJ Antonios — plotting to work with a traitor — Alex Nation — is, and the moment shocked the players in the game as much as it blindsided audiences watching at home.
The moment took place in a one-on-one conversation between AJ and Alex, and consisted of AJ outright telling Alex that he knows she’s a traitor. While she attempted to mask her shock and defend her innocence, AJ persisted and negotiated with her, convincing her to trust him over her fellow traitor, Kirby.
“I know you’re a traitor,” he says to her. “I’ve known you were a traitor for a while.”
Then, privately to the cameras, he reveals that he needs Alex to “eventually make [him] a traitor”, explaining the motive behind this shock move and why he was trying so hard to earn her trust.
Ever since this moment, fans have been divided over whether his plan made him “the best Traitor-hunter we have seen” or “very creepy”.
However, audiences didn’t get the chance to see his plan unfold as AJ was swiftly murdered. Rather than recruiting him as a traitor, Kirby convinced Alex that AJ needed to go.
Unfortunately for Alex, this moment with AJ had already left its mark, and the psychological weight of the role became too heavy for her to bear, giving her away, and ultimately leading to her banishment at the next roundtable.
Alex revealed to WHO how this confronting moment with AJ felt, and how watching the show back made her rethink everything.
The moment that felt like an ‘ambush’ for Alex
Near the end of Alex’s time on The Traitors, the stress of being a traitor and lying to everyone started to take its toll.
The former The Bachelor star had a tearful (and very human) exit from the show after being voted out at the round table. However, she told WHO that the emotions kicked in long before she was banished.
“I definitely think it was my conversation with AJ,” Alex said, explaining when the toll of being a traitor started. “When we have that very, very intense, raw conversation where he’s crying and he’s telling me, ‘I know you’re a traitor, you need to recruit me, bring me in.’
“That was sort of when I realised how brutal the game was because that felt like an ambush to me.”
While Alex thought she was “close to AJ” during the game, looking back with hindsight, she now believes he was just “playing a game with [her] the whole time”.
“I reckon he knew I was a traitor from day one,” she said. “Just from thinking back to our interactions and things like that.
“That moment for me, I felt completely naked and laid bare, and it was the first time I was like, ‘I can’t lie’. I couldn’t defend myself, nothing came out of my mouth.
Alex added: “He’s crying, I’m crying, and I had nothing in that moment. And I think after that is when it started — the cloak started to feel a little heavy.”
Fans call AJ’s gameplay ‘very creepy’
While fans were obsessed with the chaos and drama that AJ’s sly move brought to the show, they were also “uncomfortable” with how well he was able to manipulate Alex, citing the “crocodile tears” he used to get what he needed.
“AJ’s deal with the devil was fascinating gameplay,” one fan wrote online.
“Glad AJ’s gone,” another commented. “I was uncomfortable with watching him make a deal with Alex.”
“This whole crying and saying, ‘Oh, I care about you so much, and I really want to be together until the end’…Very Creepy,” a third agreed.
“Oh, thank God they got rid of AJ,” another viewer declared. “I couldn’t take another episode of Community theatre dramatics.”
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Alex commended his gameplay, but confessed the moment ‘felt a bit yucky’
Alex confessed that this tearful moment with AJ was as “yucky” and uncomfortable as fans observed.
“In that moment, it felt yucky to me,” she admitted. “I went away from it feeling a bit yucky.
“I remember I took myself off to the toilets and I literally just sat on the toilet and just was like, ‘Oh, my God’.”
Despite her shock, Alex made a point not to “discredit [AJ’s] gameplay”.
“He’s a proper player,” she said. “He can remove all emotion from it, even though you see him crying.”
“I’m not even sure that they were real tears. I feel like he was just doing what he had to do. I’m not sure.
“But the way he could piece things together and come up with the three of us as traitors and have the guts and the grit to come to me to do what he did and pitch bringing him in as a traitor, that’s ballsy. That’s a big gameplay move.”
Alex described how “cool” it was to watch the moment play out on TV (a moment that has “never happened in traitors’ history”) and admits she was so grateful to be able to contribute to the show’s success.
“It’s pretty epic that that moment has been such a pivotal thing in The Traitors’ history,” she said. “But I didn’t like it. It felt not very nice, felt a bit yucky.
“And he got into my head. I considered it. That’s the thing. He made me look at him as maybe someone that could keep me safe in the game.
“But then I ultimately sort of thought, you’re totally manipulating me, and you will throw me to the walls if you need to.”
Alex added: “So I was like, I’m cutting the strings. I’m not going to let you be the puppeteer.”
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