At the outset of the glossy and borderline cheesy but guilty-pleasure Netflix reality competition series “The Trust,” the obligatory Strangers From All Walks of Life have arrived on a spectacular property on a cliffside mansion paradise and are lined up as if they’re in the opening scene of a “Knives Out” film.
The first surprise is the host. Hey, that’s Brooke Baldwin, the longtime CNN journalist who left the network in 2021 and has now joined the ranks of Jeff Probst, Julie Chen Moonves and Jesse Palmer. And good for her, it’s got to be a lot less pressure to explain the rules of the game and swoop in once in a while to announce a nifty twist or host some sort of elimination ceremony.
Surprise two comes when Baldwin explains the rules, which are essentially a reverse-time twist on the way it works on “Survivor” and “Big Brother” et al. At the outset of the competition, the 11 contestants are given a trust of $250,000, which they can split equally. No one has to be eliminated. Week after week, if they all agree to decline to vote, they can all stick around — and at the end of the journey, they’ll each take home, let’s see … $22,727. Not bad for staying in a lavish manse for a month and proving we can all get along!
Ah, but just a single vote can boot a player. (If there’s a tie, nobody goes home.) “They all start as winners and they can all leave as winners, IF they choose to share,” says Baldwin. Also, each episode includes a trip to The Vault beneath the property, where various contestants will be tempted with an offer that will enrich their individual coffers but could hurt the group.
That’s your show right there. Now, it wouldn’t make for a compelling eight-episode run if everyone just hugged and talked about how they were going to spend their share of the winnings; the fun of it is getting to know this colorful and likable and/or hiss-worthy bunch and to enjoy the bonding and the confrontations and the backstabbing and the SHOCKING TWISTS NOBODY SAW COMING.
We know what to expect, and “The Trust” delivers, from the suspenseful techno-beat soundtrack to the swooping overhead drone camera shots to the “confession room” interviews. Some of the larger personalities in the group include the 26-year-old Tolú, who moved from Nigeria to the United States when she was young and makes it clear her loyalties are to her family, not these new “friends” she’s just made; Jay, a 70-year-old who tells us she’s not the typical grandma, as she “had a Harley and did the drugs and the drinking”; Juelz, a ripped and cocky 32-year-old police officer who tells everyone he’s a stripper and fitness instructor and can’t seem to work the buttons on his shirt; and Brian, a 42-year-old rancher who comes across as so kind and empathetic we wonder if it’s an act.
We’ll say no more. The fun in these empty-calorie shows is seeing whether the outsized personalities will sell a little slice of their integrity in the name of winning the game, if a romance or two will develop, and if our favorites will triumph in the end. “The Trust” delivers on all those counts.
