Featuring a cast full of normies, a well dressed Paul Henry and a new castle of nightmares.

Light the lantern, don a cape and creak open the coffin lid, because the first trailer for the new season of The Traitors NZ is here. If you’ve been trapped in a cryogenic chamber for the last two years, The Traitors NZ is a murder-mystery game where not a drop of blood is spilled. A group of strangers move into a castle, and some are secretly chosen as traitors. They must “murder” the other players one by one, while the remaining players (the faithfuls) work to expose the traitors and banish them from the game before they themselves are killed.

It’s intriguing game of strategy, skill and luck, and this new trailer suggests that season two of The Traitors NZ has plenty of wild and ridiculous drama in store. I’ve watched the trailer more times than Colin Mathura-Jeffree ate eyeballs last year, and here’s everything it reveals about the upcoming season. 

It starts on Monday July 1, 2024

That’s only 18 more sleeps! July 1 is also the day that sunglasses were first invented back in the year 1200. Coincidence? Absolutely. 

Paul Henry is back to run the show…

The broadcaster and Act Party supporter has emerged from his basement filled with gin bottles for another season of strolling around a castle while wearing a very nice three-piece suit. “Who you choose to trust will decide your fate, and possibly your funeral,” Henry announces in a low key, completely normal start to the series.  

…and is accessorising to death

Henry might be ready for the mind games to begin, but my aged noggin started spinning the minute I saw him wearing what appears to be a… beaded necklace? A scarf? Some kind of jazzy lanyard? Might be a trick of the light, might be the final thing we see before three shrouded strangers drag us to our deaths. Either way, lock me in a turret and throw away the key if we’re not all wearing Paul Henry-esque brooches, pocket-kerchiefs and rounded owl spectacles by the end of this well-dressed nightmare. 

There’s not a celebrity in sight

Big news: this trailer suggests that there’s NO celebrities in this season of The Traitors NZ. In fact, the only slightly famous person I recognised was this guy, who looks exactly like the character who ran around killing people on Shortland Street last winter: 

Celebrities are all well and good, but there’s always something compelling about watching ordinary New Zealanders on the telly. As complete strangers (as opposed to last season, when all the celebs had been to each other’s weddings), they’ll have to build relationships quickly and we’ll get to revel in their idiosyncratic New Zealand selves in a very weird situation.

It is set in a real castle

The sprawling Airbnb from season one is dead and buried, replaced by this spooky gothic mansion (rumoured to be Claremont Castle in Canterbury). Like all good murder sites, this castle features a verandah, some lovely leather armchairs, and a clock. There’s also thunder and lightning in the skies, crunchy gravel on the driveway, and probably three witches standing over a cauldron out the back. Five stars, will stay again. 

The gameplay is fierce

“I’ll put it brutally, I’m more than happy to [beep] him up,” this sweet grandmotherly figure declares, and we can only assume she’s not talking about Paul Henry’s choice of pocket handkerchiefs.

They seem to hunt down a traitor early in the game

This dramatic moment shows some hearty celebrations from the packed round table, which suggests that either this is a group of clever people who know how to sniff out a traitor early in the game, or we have some lousy murderers on our hands. Whatever happens, let’s hope these guys pace themselves. Eventually the cheering will stop, and they’ll probably be in a bathful of maggots when it does.   

Whatever the hell is going on here

Run for your lives. 

The Traitors NZ premieres on Three and ThreeNow on Monday, July 1.