Having established herself as a strategic mastermind, Marielle’s game was playing out flawlessly, but after the Traitors ‘murdered’ Fi, Marielle attempted to throw the blame onto Teresa in front of Kate. This set off alarm bells for Kate, who immediately went to Teresa and the two began their plotting.
Working together for the first time in the game, Kate and Teresa constructed a blindside that wouldn’t allow Marielle to sway them into voting elsewhere, and leading to the Faithful discovering their third Traitor.
“It was good to see it unfold,” Marielle told 10 Play after watching her final episode. “Obviously at the time that happened, I had absolutely no idea where it had come from. So it was interesting to watch them realise and have it come to light for them.
“They pulled off a brilliant blindside, I had no idea that was coming,” she added.
The newest Traitor recruit, Alex, did give Marielle a heads-up that her name had been thrown around, so she was prepared to defend herself if someone confronted her during the banishment. But no confrontation happened, the Faithful stuck to their plan to simply act as if Marielle wasn’t the target, only to flip their slates and reveal her name.
“The banishment room is a crazy place, I potentially would have just crumbled under the line of questioning and cried and told everyone I was a Traitor on the spot,” Marielle said, laughing. “In a way, I was really flattered to be taken out by a true blindside… they didn’t want to give me a chance to potentially sway back being convincing.”
As soon as Craig flipped his slate revealing her name, Marielle said her brain immediately clicked over into planning what she was going to say to the group in her final speech where she would reveal her true identity as a Traitor.
“It was one of my favourite moments on the show, to be honest. You’ve played the game for so long at that point and kept it a secret,” she said, “so it’s sad to be leaving and not see the game through, but at the same time you get to see everyone’s faces when you reveal your truth.”
Coming into the game, Marielle admitted that she hadn’t prepared a full strategy, not knowing what to expect in the game, but when Rodger put his hand on her shoulder and selected her as one of the Traitors she was ready to see how things played out.
“When things started to ramp up and suspicions started to fall on Angus, that was when I really stepped into playing the game I wanted to,” she said.
In a shock move that rocked her fellow Traitors, Marielle began to align herself with the Faithful and helped to vote out Angus. Then, immediately after, she and Nigel joined the group in voting out Claire.
“In an ideal world the Traitors would have stayed together for longer,” she admitted, “but I did go in to play a game that would get me to the end, and I think I saw when Angus and Claire started to arouse some suspicions — my closest friendship group in the game were heavily on their backs.
“For me to try and sway that narrative would have been a big red flag, so I decided to just go with pushing it,” Marielle continued.
“That decision to blindside Claire and Angus brought me protection for quite a while in the game. I don’t regret it.”
Through those moves, Marielle solidified her alliance with the last remaining Traitor at that time, Nigel, admitting that if the pair had gone all the way to the end she had every intention of sharing the money and the win with him.
Some viewers have hit out at Marielle for being too strategic, in a game of strategy no less, which she admits could come down to the fact that there are so many nuances in the game that aren’t seen from the outside.
“And I think people love the idea of a group of people going to the end together, that’s the Australian camaraderie spirit maybe,” she added. “But people maybe didn’t quite grasp that it’s not a team game, and when you form alliances in a game of strategy, you use the alliances until you get to where you need to be. That’s when you part.
“There are very loveable players in the game, and people didn’t like seeing those people go and I totally understand that,” Marielle continued. “But it’s a Traitor being traitorous on a show called The Traitors, it’s not really cause for surprise I don’t think.”
The Traitors continues Sunday - Tuesday at 7.30 on 10 and 10 Play on demand