Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Trust: A Game Of Greed’ On Netflix, Where Contestants Decide Whether To Split A $250,000 Prize Or Cut People Out

Reality competitions need intriguing contestants, but if they’re put in boring situations or are given a game premise that’s not well thought-out, the whole series suffers. A new Netflix reality competition tests the ability of 11 contestants to maintain a team attitude even if having the opposite view would fetch them a much bigger jackpot.

THE TRUST: A GAME OF GREED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A modern house on an ocean cliffside. Host Brooke Baldwin says, “What if a group of strangers was offered a quarter of a million dollars to split equally? Will they just accept it, or will they vote each other out to keep more for themselves?”

The Gist: The quote from Baldwin above is essentially the entire game of The Trust: A Game Of Greed. Eleven strangers gather on a cliff-edge to meet each other and Baldwin, and she tells them the premise of the game. As of that moment. they have won a share of the $250,000 prize. What they each have to do is figure out whether or not they’ll decide to cut someone out of “the trust” that is being formed. During each “trust ceremony”, Baldwin will ask each contestant whether they want to vote to cut someone out or keep splitting the money among the current group. If only one person votes to cut someone out, the person they pick is sent home with nothing.

To test that premise, the first choice is made right then and there. Of course, no one is stupid enough to show their hand and volunteer that they’d like to vote someone off. As the group gets to know each other at the house, an alliance starts to form between Tolú, Winnie and Julie, who immediately think that the bare-chested Juelz is a “fuck boy” who can’t be trusted. For his part, Juelz, a cop, tells everyone he’s a stripper and a hustler, because he doesn’t want people to judge him for what he does for a living (yes, we know how that sounds).

In a trust exercise, one group reads secrets the other group wrote on slips of paper and try to guess which person holds which secret. But the person who actually has that secret doesn’t have to fess up to it. One contestant, for instance, says they became a millionaire at 21; everyone guesses that young realtor Bryce is that guy, but he isn’t saying. Why would he want to put a target on his back?

The next day, Baldwin tells the group that there’s a “vault” under the house; two people will randomly pick key cards that give them access to the vault. There, the two are given two choices: One that benefits the group or one that benefits them individually. They can tell the rest of the group about their choice or withhold all information. The next trust ceremony is that night, and the group has a discussion, led by former marine Jacob and current rancher Brian, that makes people think everyone is going to choose not to vote to cut people out. But the idea of “all for one, one for all” gets blasted away pretty quickly.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Trust: A Game Of Greed feels like an amalgamation of shows like Big Brother, The Traitors, and The Mole.

Our Take: We have to give the casting directors of The Trust credit: They brought in a group of pretty mercenary contestants. Out of the eleven contestants, at least eight if not nine of them have the attitude we’d expect someone on this kind of show to have: Why would I go through this for $22,727 (a 1/11th share of the $250,000 prize) when, with the right moves, I can have the whole damn thing?

Let’s face it: Any of the contestants who came in thinking that the group was going to stay cohesive and split the pot at the end of the series were deluding themselves. Maybe they just want to believe in the goodness of their fellow contestants. But greed is a powerful thing, and the pot is just big enough to trigger that greed, but just small enough to make splitting it 11 ways — or even five ways — less than worthwhile for the effort involved.

When the “we’re all in this together” contingent gets a slap of reality, though, their competitive instincts kick in. This ends up making all of the contestants the equivalent of the “bad guys” on other reality competitions, the ones who say during their confessionals that “I’m not here to make friends” or some other pablum that’s edited to make them sound like arrogant asses.

That might get old as the eight episodes press on. We also know that at some point, the alliances that form in the first episode will break apart, and when everyone is out for themselves, things might get pretty bleak.

The episodes could be shorter; the discussion of who can be trusted and who can’t starts to get repetitive pretty quickly, and the key-card pulling and voting scenes are drawn out for a dramatic effect that isn’t there. Baldwin does a decent job as host, especially as the contestants give their reasoning for their votes or non-votes during the trust ceremony. But, like in most shows like this, the contestants are the attraction.

Sex and Skin: Aside from some skimpy dresses and shirtless guys, that’s about it.

Parting Shot: After the trust ceremony, a contingent of contestants feel they’ve been lied to and plot some revenge.

Sleeper Star: The three oldest contestants — Jay, Simone and Lindsey — are all interesting because of their respective life experiences. Others in the cast have some interesting history, but this trio is being completely underestimated by the much-younger remaining cast.

Most Pilot-y Line: You’d think the “Cliff’s Edge,” which is where everyone decides to keep splitting the money or cut someone out, would have a catchier name, like “The Trust Chamber” or something like that.

Our Call: SKIP IT. We were pretty bored by the first episode of The Trust: A Game Of Greed, and we’re not sure if the rest of the series is going to get any more interesting.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.