It’s cold and stormy in America, and in this dead of winter, Netflix’s The Trust arrives with slap-happy colors and pristine blue waters. Eleven sunny and hopeful contestants step foot inside a beautiful contemporary mansion somewhere off the Caribbean coastline. In this competition, they are all offered the $250,000 cash prize from the jump. Will they share the money among themselves through the rest of the competition (obviously no), or will they cut one another out to get more for themselves?
Over time, we find that the game is less about greed and more about one’s own deservingness. If everyone can win, who should win?
Cue the discordant flutes and puffing vocalizations à la White Lotus.
The Trust introduces us to a cast with scripts seemingly optimized by an AI that’s studied our current American lexicon:
Brian: A rancher in a Stetson hat who thinks money is poison yet feels as if he deserves to be on this show.
Juelz: The cop who introduces himself as a stripper because of the negative connotations of his occupation.
Jake: An ex-military with tattoos of an attack helicopter and a tattered American flag on his chiseled arm.
Julie: An Austin girlie with a scarcity mind-set after being raised in a trailer home by an unstable parental unit.
Tolú: Gutsy and honest, she is here for her family and believes that all trust has to be earned.
Winnie: A quiet yet astute observer who rocks the Texas tuxedo better than Brian with her candy-red heels.
Jay (or Mama Jay): A retired 70-year-old woman here for the vibes, the birds, and the whales.
Bryce: A third-generation realtor who insists that he will never vote anyone out of the Trust.
Simone: An unemployed divorcée whom the male contestants call an angel purely for getting along with them.
Lindsey: An ex-Mormon who already has a morning ritual of talking to herself in the backyard.
Gaspare: A teacher from New Jersey with a self-deprecating sense of humor and a heart of gold.
We meet them all at Cliff’s Edge, where host Brooke Baldwin (of CNN Newsroom fame) shares that they are all winners but that it’s up to them to decide whether they want to make it to the end together. There will be voting ceremonies for contestants to decide whether they want to cut a person out of the Trust. It can take just one person to name a name for that contestant to be out of the Trust. The contestants seem innocent and confused, except our sharp Winnie, who suggests that she is prepared to eliminate people.
And so the game begins. Brooke asks if any of them would like to vote anyone out at this time, but no one steps forward.
After what is one of the slowest starts in recent paradisiacal-game-show history, the group’s next challenge feels like a forced icebreaker at a company retreat: The contestants sit around a firepit and pull out index cards that reveal an anonymous secret about each member. As they read each one aloud, they must guess to whom this secret belongs. Even the secrets are generic confessions of infidelity and debauchery. The most delicious of them all: At 21, someone in the house became a millionaire. This is a huge problem for a few contestants, especially Julie, who cannot fathom why she should split their winnings with someone who already has money. Meanwhile, Bryce sits as wide-eyed as a deer in his silver wheat chain necklace and crisp white pants, not ready to confess. When asked, he denies that this is his secret.
By the end of the game, the contestants seem unsure about what they should be doing. Without much of a clue on how to strategize, Gaspare keeps cracking jokes. Tolú and Winnie fortify their alliance in their rooms. Jake and Julie start flirting. The wide range of responses to uncertainty is wholesome, but wait a second: I thought this was a competition, not a goldfish bowl! I start to worry that a game show where everyone is a winner does not have legs.
Come morning, Brooke surprises our contestants: Below their castle is a Vault! Every time they step inside it, there will be two offers: one that benefits them and one that benefits the entire team. Contestants selected to go inside the Vault don’t have to reveal what they chose to the rest of the team unless they want to. At random, Juelz and Simone become the first to enter the Vault. As they head down, Tolú stares hard at Juelz, who, in less than 24 hours, has made a reputation for himself as an untrustworthy man. Oh, Tolú, you should know better than to judge someone for being a “stripper” who only buttons the bottom button of his Hawaiian shirt! But then again, Juelz was really bold to arrive so puffed up to a game all about trust. I do like to see a cop shoot himself in the foot …
The Vault is lavish, velvety, vapid. Gold bars and fat stacks of money occupy sparsely arranged display cases. In the center of the room sits a marble table with Juelz’s and Simone’s offers: take $2,500 each for themselves if someone is cut at the next vote, or add $5,000 to the Trust if they block two people’s votes from being counted at the ceremony. They decide to add more money to the pot. To decide which two contestants’ votes to block, they look to the wall across from them, which has a certificate of the contestants’ names listed in random order. They choose the first two names on the list. The self-fulfilling prophecy shines down on Tolú when Juelz and Simone return to the group and tell them that her vote has been blocked (alongside Bryce’s) in order for them to put more money into the pot. Tolú lets a few of the women know that she smells B.S. with Juelz — just in time before the first voting ceremony.
The first voting ceremony is upon us. Under a full moon and before a rollicking high tide, the group gathers around a large dining table that overlooks the cliff. Before they cast their votes one by one at Cliff’s Edge, they have the opportunity to discuss strategies or affirm that they have each other’s back. The men, with a dose of soft aggression and a splash of Brian’s earnestness, ask that the team stay a team and that no one vote. Hell hath no fury like a suspicious Tolú: She, alongside her allies Winnie and Julie, votes Juelz out of the trust
When Brooke comes back with their decision, the men are stunned. Juelz — the only contestant who lied about his profession from the jump — openly laments that he was among the most honest people here. Our gentle, bovine Brian tears up and walks away from the table, followed by our patriot, Jake. As the guys retreat to their rooms in shock, Tolú is relieved that her alliance shook the table. These men need to start playing the freaking game! We are getting bored!
Simmered down by morning, Brian stays true to his strategy and places his faith in the group. Jake tries something different: Feign interest in the women. Lindsey shares private details about her marriage to Jake, while Julie charms him with her love of Lord of the Rings and how she’s sooo nerdy for it.
After the group indulges in brunch and whale watching, our chaotic-neutral Brooke arrives to share another test: The team must line up and rank one another from best to worst in various categories. Jake puts himself first in line as the smartest and best leader. Amused by his main-character syndrome, Julie stirs the pot by suggesting Winnie is a better leader than Jake; he balks at this, irritation hidden behind his cheap polarized sunglasses. Lindsey and Mama Jay think it’s comical that anyone would proclaim that he is the best leader. For the final category, Brooke pulls Jake out of the line and asks him to rank the team from most to least loyal. True to his brotherhood, Jake puts his boys Gaspare and Brian at the front, then humbly puts himself second in line. Julie, Lindsey, and Jay gawk at his audacity after all the things that they shared with him. Jake thinks they’re being emotional. Suddenly, it’s a girls versus boys game show circa 2005.
After making a mess of a group (as the best leader does), Jake has to choose two people to send to the Vault. Jake picks Gaspare and Bryce, reasoning that Gaspare can put emotions aside and Bryce could use a solid as his vote didn’t count at the first voting ceremony. Did he … forget that Tolú was blocked with Bryce at the first voting ceremony? So much for being the smartest of the bunch.
In the vault, Gaspare and Bryce receive two new offers: receive $5,000 for themselves if the team votes for the same person at the ceremony, or protect one person from elimination but deduct $10,000 from the Trust. They’re stressed!! If they protect Jake, the rest of the team, who are already peeved about his “men are better at everything” rankings, will put targets on their backs. One floor above them, Jake is also stressed!! It dawns on him that he will be crucified no matter which way his brothers decide. But it does not dawn on him the other ways that he’s pissed off the women: the misogyny-tinged rankings, the intimate personal details he extracted from them, and the numerous times he’s referred to Tolú and Winnie as his African sisters and queens (he must pay for this).
When Bryce and Gasparre return upstairs after what seems like hours, a chill has set over the house. The group begrudgingly gathers to hear Bryce and Gasparre’s decision: they have picked Julie to protect from elimination and cut their $10,000 loss. “Great, good for you,” the team seems to say as they go back to picking Jake apart. Brian and Gaspare are a little shaken by how much Jake has upset the house. All of it reduces Mr. Military Guy to crocodile tears.
In the morning, Bryce finds a friend in Lindsey. Great timing because holding in his secret is tearing him apart! He divulges to Lindsey, but she is unfazed; maybe his crisp designer shirts have been dead giveaways. But at least Bryce can now share all he wants about how he specializes in commercial spaces for the Boeings and Amazons of the country.
The ever-direct Tolú confronts Julie about her clumsy balance of their alliance and her thing with Jake. Telling on herself, Julie runs to Jake to share how Tolú is feeling about their union and his racist microaggressions. Jake, not wanting to lose people who could keep him in the game, decides to talk to Tolú. Jake apologizes for inappropriately stereotyping Tolú and neglecting to choose her to go to the Vault for the same reason that he chose Bryce. Their tight and teary embrace feels like whiplash because less than 24 hours ago, he was calling the women too emotional. Tolú is okay with the apology, though. Fine, I guess…
Hours before the next voting ceremony, Tolú calls her Julie-Jay-Winnie alliance to Cliff’s Edge. She shares that she will not vote anyone out that evening. Julie and Winnie follow suit, but Mama Jay confidentially reveals that she will be voting for someone. Julie is unsettled. Is her big, bad Jake at risk? But hey, this alliance is strong, right? Right?! Julie warns Jake that the Trust could be broken that evening.
The tension is palpable at the voting ceremony table. With the conversation at Cliff’s Edge looming over her head, Julie opens the floor by asking whether anyone will be voting tonight — a leading question directed at Mama Jay. However, Jay is mum, as is the rest of the alliance. Julie can’t stand the uncertainty and decides to throw in a name other than Jake’s to cancel Mama Jay’s vote out. If her noble plan works, nobody is going home.
But Brooke arrives with shocking results: the Trust has been broken once again and … Simone is going home?! Once again, Brian is irate. Human beings really are harder to read than cattle.
Winnie, suspicious of Julie’s budding whatever-it-is with Jake, has questions: why would her supposed ally ask the group at the table if anyone was going to vote? Tolú comes to Winnie with answers: after not getting a concrete name from Mama Jay, Julie voted for Simone in an effort to save Jake. Winnie has a problem with Julie throwing people under the bus for Jake. Though I worry that Julie’s rocked the boat with her alliance, I’m more concerned that Jake consistently puts his boys before her. You are smart to create options, girl, but those options have got to be on the same page as you!
In the morning, the very nervous group gets to play some shuffleboard with a twist. One table has three scoring zones and putting it in one of those zones adds money to the trust. The other table guarantees immunity at the next ceremony if they hit a target. Everyone plays to benefit the team, making this the easiest test they’ve done so far, with another $10,000 added to the pot. They head back to the house to celebrate with espresso martinis.
Julie pulls Winnie aside to share her guilt about voting for Simone. Appeal all she wants, but Julie’s still on Winnie’s radar for putting Jake over the group. As she should be, too, because as soon as dusk approaches, Julie and Jake saunter off to Cliff’s Edge. She snitches about the conversation that her alliance had before the night prior’s voting ceremony and how Julie voted for Simone to neutralize what she thought would be a vote by Mama Jay for Jake. Julie asks Jake to keep it a secret, which is met with a light kiss, a tight squeeze, and a resolve to get Mama Jay out for being hostile.
By nightfall, Brooke reveals it’s time to head to the Vault again. Jake and Bryce pick the winning keycards. Furthermore, the offer values are doubling, testing people’s threshold to think for the group. The first offer: Bryce and Jake each get $10,000 if someone goes home at the next ceremony. Offer two: $2,000 is added to the Trust for each person who does not vote at the next ceremony. In their deliberation, Jake reveals that he wants to clean house because there’s a “sniper on the loose.” (Mama Jay is literally a 70-year-old woman who stress-eats Milanos and embroiders in her bed.) Ultimately, they take the second offer. Finally, here is the opportunity for the “family” to go through one trust ceremony without an elimination. Brian’s dream!
At the next voting ceremony, Brooke delivers the good news: Brian’s dream came true, and $18,000 is added to the pot per Jake and Bryce’s accepted offer! The group is treated to a fancy dinner, but with nine people left, Brooke asks people to couple up with who they want to sit next to, signifying their strongest connection. Everyone partners up except our most easily likable character, Gaspare. At first scared of a sudden departure, the group’s comic relief is instead rewarded with a seat at the head of the table.
While everyone revels, Bryce thinks it is time to unload his burden of a secret. Everyone shows little reaction (“We knew that”) except for Julie, who was chosen by him as her strongest connection. She is upset. She is also offended that the group accepts him as a liar and, worse, a millionaire. Why is he here? He doesn’t deserve any of this! She confronts him about this disconnect, but the conversation is heavy-handed and futile. After all, what can a wealthy kid tell someone to convince her that he should stay in the game of greed?
At the end of dinner, Brooke asks Gaspare to choose two people to send off on a day-trip adventure. He picks Brian because the hardworking farmer ought to see the tropical forests while he’s on vacation. He also chooses Julie to accompany Brian because she comes from hardship and deserves something nice. Julie, moved by Gaspare’s kindness, just might move him up a few notches in her own private rankings of deservingness.
The next day, Julie and Brian go on a zipline adventure and a wondrous cave tour. Back at the house, the contestants get massages! Tolú and Lindsey share a moment about Bryce’s tone-deaf ways; it doesn’t play well that the rich son of a real-estate empire was tormented that he had to hide his status until now. Bryce overhears and asks Lindsey to fill him in as an ally. But is it too late for him to rectify things? A plan is hatching between Tolú and Winnie …
Back at Julie and Brian’s big getaway, Brooke appears from the trees in the middle of their lazing about. Where there’s Brooke, there’s fire: another Vault is somewhere in this jungle! There, she will give each of them an offer that will benefit only them. If they open the offer, they have to take it. The others have no idea that they are given this offer, nor do they ever have to be told about the offer. Brian and Julie don’t even have to tell each other whether they take it or not.
Each of them approaches Brooke alone in the Vault somewhere deep among the trees. Even though his family and his cows need it, Brian passionately, tearfully tells her that his integrity is not for sale. And Julie? After a dinner where she learns that she’s still playing this game with a millionaire? She does not hesitate. My girl is going to take the offer.
• Is Julie a girl’s girl? Does it even matter? The Jay-Tolú-Winnie alliance really cares whether or not their fourth member can stick with them, mentioning multiple times that she has become too emotionally invested in Jake. I think Julie is smarter than to see Jake as anything more than a tactic. Plus, there is no reason to criticize any woman as a girl’s girl, especially when Julie is one of the few characters that keeps this show interesting.
• Faced before Brooke with his offer, Cowboy Brian reveals that his family is saving money to adopt a boy named Rooster. This man’s dedication to the FarmVille life is impressive. Coquette girlies be damned.
The Trust Series-Premiere Recap: Boys Versus Girls
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