Why Danielle Reyes Is a Reality TV Legend Despite Chaotic Gameplay on ‘The Traitors’

There is no denying that Danielle Reyes had a rough start on The Traitors season 3. Selected as a Traitor during the premiere, Danielle, 53, was never on the same page as her fellow Traitors, “Boston” Rob Mariano, Carolyn Wiger and Bob the Drag Queen.

Her play in the first several episodes was emotional, erratic and entirely out of character from what Big Brother fans came to expect from one of the best to ever play the game.

As the season has played out, it would be understandable for fans unfamiliar with Danielle to wonder why the show picked her to be a Traitor in the first place. Rob was a no-brainer — he’s one of the savviest strategic players in competitive reality TV. Bob the Drag Queen has a gigantic personality and clear strategic chops. As for Carolyn, she’s wildly unpredictable and wears her emotions on her sleeve. Putting her in the turret with the others was guaranteed to produce fireworks.

But why Danielle? She had admittedly shown nothing that would make people think she was worthy until episode 9. Here’s why she is a legend, despite her chaotic gameplay so far.

How Danielle Became 1 of the Best ‘Big Brother’ Players to Never Win the Game

Danielle made her reality debut on Big Brother 3 and played a masterful game. Realizing she was outside of the house’s power structure off the bat, she forged a secret alliance with castmate Jason Guy. The two met in secret, disguising their meetings as games of chess.

As they worked their way through the game, they quietly influenced votes and showed adaptability when things didn’t go their way. Their two biggest moves came in convincing players not to use the power of veto.

In the first instance, their castmate Amy Crews had won the power to veto her ally Roddy Mancuso’s nomination for eviction. Danielle, who had long been targeting Roddy, convinced her not to, leading to Roddy’s eviction. Then, in one of the most notorious moves in the show’s history, Danielle convinced Marcellus Reynolds not to use the veto on himself, keeping himself at risk of eviction. She was able to convince him that Amy, who sat next to him on the chopping block, was going to be evicted anyway and it would keep the house happy to not force Head of Household Jason to nominate someone else.

Marcellus obliged and was immediately evicted.

Even Danielle’s downfall in Big Brother 3 was legendary. Sitting next to Lisa Donahue in the final two, after never even being nominated for eviction, she lost in a 9-1 landslide, with only Jason voting for her. That’s because the rest of the cast went home after their evictions and watched the season, thus discovering that she bad-mouthed them in confessionals. That led to Big Brother sequestering its juries in future seasons. Though Lisa also played a strong game, many fans thought it did not stack up to the masterclass that Danielle had put on that summer.

While Danielle later performed well on Big Brother All-Stars season 7 and got a raw deal on Big Brother: Reindeer Games, Big Brother 3 remains her best work.

Danielle’s Ups and Downs on ‘The Traitors’

Danielle’s early game on The Traitors was riddled with errors, starting with her willingness to give up a shield during the first mission, which immediately raised suspicion. But she could have navigated around that if she hadn’t been so over-the-top emotional at every breakfast following a murder. She insists that it’s all acting, and she may be right, but all it seemed to do was put more attention on herself — the opposite of what a Traitor should be doing.

Even still, Danielle is savvy enough to bounce back from her own mistakes, which is one of the most important skills one needs in a game of strategy. That’s why it was so jarring to see her thoroughly botch another mission in which she had two opportunities to give herself a shield and lower suspicion on herself. Instead, she gave one to Dolores Catania, saying she was tired of seeing Housewives get murdered, and another to Derrick Levasseur, her fellow Big Brother icon.

Yet somehow, as of the season’s penultimate episode, which aired Thursday, February 27, she is still alive. That’s because she has played masterfully over the previous two episodes, even if you can reasonably argue she should not have targeted Carolyn.

From Danielle’s point of view, Carolyn was erratic and would never trust her fully. When Carolyn nixed her plan to invite Britney Haynes into the turret, Danielle knew that eliminating her was her only way to move forward with an ally. She gave Carolyn plenty of opportunities to seal her own fate at the roundtable and out-argued her to the point that she was voted out.

Then, at the roundtable in episode 9, she saw immediately that her plan to eliminate Gabby Windey was not going to work. She flipped her vote to Lord Ivar Mountbatten instead as Britney did the same. The episode ended on a cliffhanger indicating Britney might have turned on Danielle yet again, but we’ll have that answer next week.

For now, we’re finally getting to see Danielle at her finest.