‘The Trust’ series premiere review: A priceless new game of deceit

How far would your trust in others go when there is money on the line? That is the big question at the heart of Netflix’s juicy new reality TV show, The Trust. The new competition had its series premiere by dropping the first four episodes of the inaugural season, and based on the beginning rounds, it’s already shaping up to be an interesting game. The Trust has pushed all the players to consider what criteria they’d use for who they’d share money with … or who they’d cut next.

At the forefront of a new game, the format makes or breaks the show’s future success. The purpose of The Trust see a group of adults living at a luxurious mansion and tasked with deciding whom they’ll share a large fortune with. The group can choose to forgo their votes to eliminate someone and they would then share the pot evenly at the end, or the group can periodically vote someone out. If everyone but one chooses to forgo their vote, that lone vote decides who goes home. The Trust is a thrilling game because someone’s dream of winning money could be instantly extinguished by one anonymous vote. It’s a simple concept that has so many possibilities for how the players can choose to play.

We see this play out in major ways during the two current eliminations. First, the girls’ alliance of Tolú, Winnie, Julie, and Lindsey band together to eliminate Juelz from The Trust because they kept having a bad vibe and couldn’t trust him. This move was a shocking moment because, even though it was predictable based on the editing that they would vote for him, they took the reins to go against the group and force someone out. The cast of The Trust Season 1 isn’t here to simply keep team unity and peace going – if they fully believe in something, they have no problem cutting some throats. The first vote set the tone for how morality and ethics could play in the game.

The second vote, on the other hand, played into the strategic mindset side of The Trust. Simone’s elimination was an accidental windfall that we don’t see too often on reality TV — a gift to us fans. As mentioned above, sometimes all it takes is one vote to eliminate someone and the 70-year-old retiree Jay was dead set on casting a vote. Julie, thinking Jay was going to vote for her crush Jake, made a strategic move thinking it would cancel Jay’s vote. Instead, she accidentally voted the same as Jay as they both voted Simone. It’s a deliciously satisfying twist that made our jaws drop! Voting strategically to cancel someone else’s vote is a powerful move, but you need to make sure it does what it’s supposed to do.

In addition to the voting element, The Trust incorporates the staples of reality TV: tests/challenges and player decisions. Most of the challenges have focused on winning money for the group pot or choosing between rewarding the group or rewarding themselves. Unfortunately, The Trust fell into the easy trap of a morality-based format like this one (we’ll get to this later on). However, the one game element that The Trust should consider adding more of is introducing the players’ secrets.

During the series premiere, the players were tasked with reading anonymous secrets so that they could get to know each other. Some of the secrets were simple and harmless, but others had significant waves that impacted the game. For instance, Juelz hid too much about himself to the point that it didn’t fit with the girls’ perception about him, Lindsey took a stand to reveal her secret, and the secret millionaire secret (Bryce) came back to haunt him in later episodes. As the group continues thinking about who they want to share money with, introducing secrets gets them to see one another in a different light. Plus, it gives them more ammunition to make moves about the group and who they feel is deserving of the money.

Bryce is most likely not going to win this game because he revealed his secret in the fourth episode. After hearing the secret, the group was very clear that they didn’t think a millionaire was deserving of splitting the trust with them. So, for him to reveal the truth, it gave the players a new piece to the picture they had been forming about Bryce. He might have won Lindsey over with his explanation, but for more passionate and direct players like Tolú and Julie, being a millionaire is a criterion that has rubbed them the wrong way. The secrets proved in such a short time how lasting and impactful they can be in a game like this. Hopefully, more secrets will be introduced later on!

The ranking challenge was another element that caused lots of shockwaves. Seriously, what were you doing, Jake?! In a morality-based game like The Trust, appeasing the group and being more easygoing is the way to win people over. If you’re going to take a stand, you need to be fine with the target it places on your back. Jake kept making one wrong move after another, and his personal biases (whether overt or indirect) exposed a lot about him as a person.

Tolú, Jay, and Julie were right to call out their frustrations because nothing would’ve changed without it. Tolú and Jake’s heart-to-heart at the cliff was a great growing moment for him that he needed to have, and it helped him to learn more about Tolú as an established woman with her mindset and opinions. In a way, The Trust has offered a fascinating character study outside of the typical reality TV fight for cash.

Though, with all the good of The Trust, the first four episodes exposed two glaring issues with the format: public groupthink and self-gratifying eliminations. Why would anyone choose the selfish option in front of the group? Why wouldn’t someone not vote a player out to increase their share of the pot? Sure, certain decisions can cost or reward money, and making certain options could affect their place in the game. However, there is nothing truly stopping these players from playing a very safe and formulaic game style to get to the end.

For example, if the decision was public, the players always chose the option that rewarded the group. They never wanted to go to The Vault because they didn’t want to make any decisions that would have them stand out. Just look at how Tolú felt after her vote was taken away by Juelz and Simone (funny enough, they were the first two eliminated)! It was always safer to go with the group, which made for filler and dull outcomes.

And with eliminations, the current structure has no real threat if someone were to cast a vote. Sure, some of the twists from The Vault could lose the group money, but the bigger share of the pot is more advantageous. A person could easily justify sending people out because they thought themselves more deserving and needed to eliminate less-trustworthy players. There should be an added element within The Trust that gives the players a real decision about whether to cast their vote or not. Like, if they cast a vote to eliminate, the vote comes with a cost that progressively increases as the rounds go on, and if they don’t vote, they add some small money to the trust. If the show returns for another season, it’s an easy fix to make the morality decisions more tempting.

The Trust is an easy-to-follow concept that hooks fans with its balance of deception and greed. The first four episodes came running out of the gate to establish an exciting must-watch competition for Netflix. There is so much potential here, and the players used the opening rounds to leave a lasting mark. I’m crossing my fingers that the momentum keeps going right to the end!

The Trust airs new episodes every Wednesday on Netflix.