Sandra Diaz Twine Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
As the competition on The Traitors season 2 gets down to the wire, Sandra Diaz-Twine could possibly steal the game from under the traitors’ noses.
Sandra, 49, has been underestimated by her fellow competitors and viewers not familiar with her Survivor gameplay, but the two-time champion’s strategy of laying low and creating strong bonds with her fellow competitors could take her all the way to the finale.
Early on in the game, Sandra cemented friendships with members of the Bravo squad in addition to establishing a working relationship with fellow Survivor winner Parvati Shallow. (Parvati, 41, was recruited early on by the traitors and ultimately banished in the February 15 episode.)
As one of the remaining faithfuls, Sandra proved she was an asset to the team when she proposed a plan to keep her crew safe while taking out Peter Weber’s alliance of the “most faithful of the faithfuls.” In an instantly memed teaching moment with billiards balls, Sandra gathered the outcasts from the Peter Pals alliance and demonstrated how they could all make it to the end. Following the episode, Sandra shared some insight on the impromptu strategy session.
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“I want to make something clear. During that strategy session 🎱 I also made it clear that hopefully, the traitors were in our group so that they could murder each, and everyone of the so-called most faithful of the faithful, therefore allowing the faithful in the leftovers to get to the end of the game,” she wrote via Instagram earlier this month. “Self-preservation and end game strategy. What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is faithful also have to go just like the Traitors. We all can’t get to the end.”
She explained that her group, which consists of CT Tamburello, Shereé Whitfield, Kate Chastain and Mercedes “MJ” Javid, were all aware that Parvati and Phaedra Parks had been called out on multiple occasions for being traitors.
Sandra believed that her group needed to keep the people they were sure were traitors in the mix so the faithfuls could have a fighting chance to take home the cash prize. If one traitor gets banished, the remaining traitor(s) can recruit a new member to the team, which means the faithfuls have to “start back from zero.”
Peter, 32, tried to implement this exact strategy in his own game after it was too late. After being against Parvati since day one, he tried to pull her to his side, which inspired suspicion among the other competitors. Peter’s fate is now up in the air as the recent episode ended on a cliffhanger, with the vote being tied between Peter and Phaedra. MJ’s still-unrevealed vote will be the deciding factor in the February 29 episode.
If Peter gets banished, Sandra will find herself in a powerful position as one of the major swing votes at the round table. And from there, it’s just a short walk to the finish line.
The Traitors airs on Peacock Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.