Forget ‘The Traitors,’ Hulu’s New 8-Episode Reality Competition Has a ‘White Lotus’ Star Running the Show
Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.
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Alan Cumming has had the reality competition market cornered on streaming for a while now as the host of the U.S. edition of The Traitors. On Peacock and NBC, the social deduction smash hit has been an audience favorite since its 2023 premiere, thanks to the drama, intrigue, and its fabulously dressed Shakespearean presenter. Between its popularity and its sweep of the Outstanding Reality Series category from 2024 on, it's not going anywhere either, with renewals through Season 9. This season, though, Hulu is giving the king of the genre a competitor that trades the Scottish castle setting for an Italian villa with another beloved actor running the show.
On October 26, the Disney-owned streamer debuted The Mob, a new high-stakes series uniting stars from a wide range of other reality shows and even The Sopranos in a battle to become the next don of the villa and win up to $250,000 in cash prizes along the way. Recent The White Lotus Emmy nominee Parker Posey takes the reins as host, guiding players through a series of challenges ripped straight from classic mob movies. Hustling and taking out competitors are the name of the game, with a player chosen as the new don at the end of the job to decide cuts of money, reward loyalty, and whack whoever they choose. Just because the prospective dons are cutthroat doesn't mean things can't get a little silly as contestants try to fumble their way through their tasks.
Collider can exclusively share a sneak peek that centers on The Bachelor alum Maria Georgas and Too Hot to Handle alum Harry Jowsey after they're paired up in the kitchen for a cooking competition. Their goal is to make eggplant caponata with rosemary crackers, but there's one tiny problem — neither of them knows what caponata even is.
While everyone scrambles around the kitchen, Georgas is just trying to figure out how to even roast an eggplant to begin with, let alone prepare a sweet and savory vegetable dish with it. Jowsey is even more clueless as to how to approach the dish, outright saying that the one place the two of them absolutely do not belong is the kitchen. It's ultimately Georgas who takes charge, given she at least has one dish she can make well, whereas Jowsey has maybe never cooked in his life, but no matter who prepares the caponata, their chances of standing out in this job seem dire.
Collider Exclusive · Villain Personality Quiz Which Criminal Mastermind Would Be Your Nemesis? Lecter · Joker · Moriarty · Chigurh
Four of the finest criminal minds ever put on screen. One of them would look at you and see something worth their time. Eight questions decide which one comes for you, why they picked you, and what they would want when they arrived.
🍷Lecter
🃏Joker
♟️Moriarty
🪙Chigurh
01
What would a criminal mastermind notice about you first? Great villains choose their opponents carefully. Something about you got their attention.
02
How do they make first contact? The introduction tells you everything about what is coming next.
03
What do you actually believe about right and wrong? Every nemesis is really an argument about the thing you believe most.
04
What finally gets under your skin? Everybody has a pressure point. Finding yours is the whole plan.
05
They have made their move. How do you fight back? This is the part of the film where the audience finds out who you are.
06
What would they use against you? A good villain never brings a weapon you have not already handed them.
07
What do they actually want from you? The money is never the point. Something else always is.
08
How does it end between the two of you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who comes for you.
The Case File Is Complete Your Nemesis Is…
Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours. Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from the encounter.
Hannibal Lecter
Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the conversation is.
- Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
- You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve is exactly the door he would knock on.
- The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence. It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
- He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.
The Joker
Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.
- The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
- He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool you would normally reach for.
- His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend the rest of your life proving him wrong.
- He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.
Moriarty
Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.
- Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from: a mind the equal of the hero's, pointed the wrong way.
- You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he has already built the room.
- This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs the game to be worth playing.
- It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.
Anton Chigurh
Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.
- Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
- You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no interest in how capable you are.
- No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
- Call it. He will wait.
Who Are the Other Contestants Making Up 'The Mob'?
So far, The Mob has already seen a few casualties through its first four of eight episodes. There's still a lot of competition to go, though, before a winner will ultimately be declared. In addition to Georgas and Jowsey, Season 1 has welcomed Willam Belli (RuPaul's Drag Race), Demi Engemann (The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives), Joe Gorga (The Real Housewives of New Jersey), Chelsea Lazkani (Selling Sunset), Debi Mazar (Younger), Bella Palk (Love Overboard), Shane Parton (Bachelor Nation), Bruno Tonioli (Dancing With the Stars), and the late James Gandolfini's on-screen Sopranos sister, Aida Turturro, to the villa.
Studio Lambert, which also produced The Traitors, and Primal Media brought the series to life with a concept from Adam Wood and Mat Steiner, while reality television veteran Susan House pulls the strings behind the scenes as showrunner.
The Mob airs two new episodes on Monday, November 9. Check out our exclusive sneak peek in the player above.
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