Tara Ward chats to Bailey Kench, the winner of season two of The Traitors NZ.
It was a cold, cold night when Bailey Kench won $73,000 in the final episode of The Traitors NZ. Standing outside the historic Claremont Manor near Timaru, the Auckland wedding videographer began to shake, not only from the chill in the air, but from the adrenaline surging through her traitorous veins. When the cameras weren’t rolling, the production crew rushed to wrap the players in warm blankets, but it did little to ease Kench’s nerves.
Two weeks of tactics, tension and treachery had come down to this: Kench was about to pull off the biggest win in Traitors NZ history.
“I felt physically sick,” Kench reveals over the phone, as she looks back on that dramatic night in the Canterbury countryside. As Kench and her fellow finalists – information manager Donna Officer, landscaper Jason Kahika and content creator Joe Fa’agase – waited silently in anticipation to make their final deathly votes around the firepit, Kench found herself willing it all to be over, no matter what the result.
“I just wanted that last hour to be done,” she remembers. “You have no idea what’s going on in the other three people’s heads, and no one’s making eye contact. It was so dark and somber – and freezing.”
Murder most horrid (Screengrab)
The chilling scene marked the end of two delicious months of tactics, tension and treachery in what is the best season of New Zealand reality TV ever. Few suspected Kench to be a traitor, a role she didn’t even want, but this quiet assassin played with an unassuming nature that hid her dedication to the game.
Having started as a faithful before being recruited as a traitor, Kench reveals she kept a diary filled with “every single banishment, every person’s votes, every weird thing I picked up at the round table versus the rest of the day”. Publicly, she made no big, risky moves that would arouse suspicion. From the privacy of the traitors conclave, however, Kench was pulling all the strings.
“I knew I’d have a chance, just based on how my personality is – blending into a background pretty well, and being like a real thinker and observer,” Kench says of her approach to the game. “Then once I became a traitor, I was like, ‘oh, we might have this’.”
It was, as Kench calls it, a “slow burn” of a win. As the days passed and more faithfuls were successfully murdered and banished, she grew in confidence. Then, during that intense finale, Kench eliminated her biggest threats, one by one: fellow traitor Siale Tunoka, then Fa’agase, then the clever, perceptive Kahika. That left Kench (a traitor) and close ally Officer (a faithful) as the last two players.
If a traitor remains at the end of the game, they take all the prize money. But in revealing that she was, in fact, a traitor, Kench had to destroy the trust of a loyal friend.
The moment of truth (Screengrab)
Looking back on that highly-charged moment, Kench remembers the truth sticking in her throat. “I was shocked, it didn’t come out as proper words,” she recalls of revealing her true identity. “Then part of me was, ‘oh god, do I have to say it again? Was I loud enough? Did the mic pick it up?’” Officer’s reaction was immediate and heart-breaking; she burst into gut-wrenching, disappointed sobs. “I am so hurt,” she wept, as Kench wiped away tears of her own.
“It was just awful,” Kench remembers. “It was the nightmare that I knew was coming the whole time.”
Months later, Officer and Kench are on very good terms. “Donna is absolutely incredible,” Kench confirms, adding that the two have since met for coffee and chat all the time. The entire Traitors NZ cast have a group chat, and several have met up to watch the show together. While some players are reportedly still harbouring grudges, Kench says most of the cast had a great time, and she’s proud of the way she played despite being so far out of her comfort zone.
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“The game itself is pretty cruel and ambitious, but I just enjoyed the ride,” she says, and plans to continue the ride by spending her prize money on a new car. “And if people think I’m the most boring traitor, that’s absolutely fine. I’m so much happier to take that title than the world’s meanest traitor or biggest backstabber.”
“It’s the best experience ever, truly – just for the ride, not even the winning part,” she says. “That was just the cherry on top.”
Alex Casey power ranks an agonising final week on The Traitors NZ.
One of the many genius things about The Traitors is that the finale doesn’t feel like most reality television finales. Where the finals of Love Island and Celebrity Treasure Island have the same energy as going to a Friday night Mamma Mia singalong with your friends (jubilation, happy tears, laughing), the finale of The Traitors feels more like watching Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist on a grey hungover Sunday with your brother (descent into hell, nobody talks afterwards).
Before we get into it, let us take a moment to acknowledge again how truly outstanding this season has been. The Spinoff has long waxed lyrical about the potential for reality television to showcase our nation in all its complexity and beautiful weirdness, and every now and again there is a moment that proves us right. Last year it was James Mustapic and Tāme Iti arm-in-arm, this year it might just be tradie Jason affixing a rose to his high vis vest before going to dinner with Paul Henry.
It’s these sort of moments that also force one to ask: what is television? What is life? And why was this finale guest-directed by Ed Gein? I know last year we got Colin Mathura-Jeffree scoffing eyeballs while Brooke Howard-Smith was up to his own in cockroaches, but these individual missions were next level. Siale’s maggot-infested sheets looked far too lived-in for my liking, as did Bailey’s sewage tunnel. Also, is it legal to show a mouse autopsy on television?
RIP to that mouse, but also RIP to the many salt of the earth Kiwi legends who met their maker during the final week of The Traitors NZ. While I’m sure they all would have preferred to come away with a fat stack of silver bars, at least they hopefully get to keep their weird AI portrait of themselves wearing ruffled collars and other colonial garb, freshly adorned with a gorgeous painted red cross on their face. Onto the rankings!
Murdered: Cat (Faithful)
Curiosity killed the cat this week. And when I say curiosity, I mean Siale. She would not let go of their famed forgotten blackmail conversation (a chat that has now been referenced nearly as many times as hoof-gate), and as a result sadly found herself at the end of her nine lives.
Murdered: Professor Spanky (Unclear)
The biggest M Night Shyamalan twist of the season is that these camp Chinese Crested hairless dogs seem to be Paul Henry’s actual dogs, rather than gag dogs?! Fun fact: our Chinese Crested had one litter of hairless puppies back in the 2000s and we had to moisturise them every day. Is this what Paul Henry is doing with his retirement? And whatever happened to Professor Spanky? Makes you think.
Banished at the roundtable: Noel (Faithful)
No matter what you thought of this fellow, who was somehow from both the Big Apple (New York) and the Bad Crapple (Invercargill), you gotta respect Noel for lasting this long. After finally being banished, he delivered a rousing closing monologue that painted an even more confusing picture of the 22-year-old writer. “I’ve been an actor since the age of nine and a very capable poker player since I have been old enough to hold the cards,” he said. Proposing a new viral challenge where Gen Z faithfuls have to try and fight the urge to reveal they are an actor, due to it 1) having no bearing on anything in the game and 2) being a bit annoying.
Banished at the roundtable: Siale (Traitor)
Whoever designed Siale’s final mission should be banished to the underworld. This poor man had to have a sleepover with what he described as “a million trillion” maggots and flies, and then had to put his head in a box filled with roaches and recount every murder and banishment in order. Given that some cockroaches can live up to two years, is there any chance that some of them got a callback after doing such a stunning number on Brooke Howard-Smith last year? Do cockroaches have an agent? A showreel? An appearance fee? Anyway, Siale got banished and those cockroaches should probably join a union.
Banished at the firepit: Joe (Faithful)
“I came in here not knowing how to play the game. I still don’t, and now I’m here at the grand final,” Joe cackled into his final breakfast. While he consistently turned out the most resplendent outfits of the season, building up to a truly awe-inspiring full sequinned suit for the fire pit, Joe couldn’t quite make it all the way after getting too hot-headed and acting out at the final roundtable (for the record, Joe is not an actor, but did admit he “acted as if I was straight half my life”).
Perhaps it was due to many gallons of hot sauce coursing through his veins, but Joe lashed out just a tad too much, yelling “C’MON MISS LITTLE BO PEEP, MISS GUILTY BAILEY” across the table. Of course, he was right about Bailey, but the overblown performance was perhaps just enough for Donna to silently decide to soon banish him around the firepit, sealing his fate in sequin glory forever. On god and on family, you were one of the all-timers, Joe. See you back for Traitors: All Stars.
Banished at the firepit: Jason (Faithful)
So close, but so far. Jason had a promising start after pinning a beautiful red rose to his tradie vest and winning Paul Henry’s double dagger at dinner (which, by the way, might as well have been a group date of The Bachelor NZ). That gave him an extra vote, which got Noel out of the picture, and allowed Jason to spend seven whole hours assembling a dossier of questions on people of interest without having to fret about how someone can be from New York and Invercargill at the same time.
On his final mission Jason was asked to abseil down a cliff facing forwards, which of course he loved almost as much as getting electrocuted and getting taken hostage by armed strangers. “Took me back 20 years,” he grinned. Even when the climb got tough, he found strength in all the faithfuls that had fallen before him. Bree, with her wedding to plan. Stephen, with his “Feck off, I’m retired” hat. Molly, still trying to figure out how to use a VHS.
Jason calmly laid out his case against Bailey, wearing the spiritual horsehair wig left to him by Judge Utah. “She has been a great traitor but the cracks are starting to shine,” he said, later musing “the truth is what sets us free”. Alas, Jason was set free despite his unwavering truthfulness and commitment to health and safety (high vis). “It was never about the money for me, it was about the objectives,” he said as he left the game. “And I know I got them all.”
Shafted in a resplendent orange jacket: Donna (Faithful)
It’s hard to write about what happened to Donna and not start crying over the keyboard, so I am going to try and delay the final moments for as long as possible. First of all, can we talk about the aplomb with which she dissected and reassembled that mouse? She found the intestines way too quickly and looked way too relaxed stitching it all back together. Maybe The Traitors greatest prize is not the money at all, but in finding a second wind as a taxidermist?
I joke, I jape. All the dead mice in the world couldn’t change the fact that Donna was genuinely devastated by the reveal that her closest pal Bailey had been a Traitor for half the game and lied to her face. Her mouth crumpled as she put her hand over her face, sobbing inconsolably as Bailey muttered “sorry Donna” at an appropriately mousey volume. As Donna collected herself and straightened out her stunning tangelo-coloured finale jacket, she spoke through brimming tears.
“The one thing I did not want was to be a fool, and I just have been, and I am so hurt.”
Shout out to Paul Henry for stepping in here. “You know Donna, that hasn’t happened,” he said sagely. “You have made it right to the end of this game. You have played this game spectacularly.” Beautiful words from a surprising ally in the eleventh hour. She may not have come away with the prize money, but all signs point to a couple of upcoming Chinese Crested taxidermy jobs on the horizon.
WINNER: Bailey (Traitor)
My heart was in my throat for Bailey, the introverted videographer thrown into a hellish scenario when she was forced to become a Traitor just a few weeks ago. But thanks to a low profile and general likeability, she was able to fly under the radar all the way to the final firepit, where her deep connection with Donna saw her take out the whole entire game. “I see Donna and she’s smiling at me, and I’m trying to give her the same smile I’ve always given her,” Bailey sobbed.
When it came time to reveal the traitorous truth, Bailey whispered “this is my worst nightmare” under her breath and could barely look Donna in the eye. “I’m a traitor,” she blurted out, nervously smiling and tucking her hair behind her ear with the casualness of someone revealing they are vegetarian at a meat-only barbeque. But the magnitude was far greater than rushing in a last minute legume dish: Bailey was left crying inconsolably too, despite just winning $73,000.
“This game finds those who deserve to win,” said Henry, hugging Bailey with black burglar gloves that implied he had recently stolen the entirety of the prize money from a nearby bank. “That game is called The Traitors, and you are victorious – the ultimate traitor.” And lucky for you, we’ll have an interview with Bailey, the ultimate traitor, tomorrow morning. But will she be telling the truth to us? We’ll never know for sure.
