'The Traitors Canada' $72,000 winner Neda 'wanted to disappear' facing friend Tranna in the finale

From tears to arguments and screaming matches, Traitors Canada Season 2 was a whirlwind. With the Faithfuls unable to banish any Traitors until almost the end of the season, it was Big Brother Canada alum Neda who ended up being the winner of the $72,000 prize.

With Neda and Faithful, comedian and Big Brother Célébrités star Tranna as the last two standing, in the final moment Neda had to reveal that she was in fact a Traitor. What made that moment particularly difficult was that Neda and Tranna had established a real friendship throughout the show.

"I just wanted to disappear," Neda told Yahoo Canada. "Honestly. I felt so, so bad. I was just like, 'Can I be a Faithful too? Can we just win this together?' ... But no, I had to do it to her."

Neda's boldest move that got her to the finale was turning on fellow Traitor Kyra right before the end.

"Going into the game, ... if I was a Traitor, I was sticking it out with the Traitors until the end, because really, when I've seen other shows, it's when Traitors turn on each other, that's when the biggest clues are revealed," Neda said. "That's when their game starts going downhill."

"But I had been kind of worried about her the whole time and then when she turned on Michael John, I was like, 'She's going do it to me.' And once Michael John leaves I'm like, I know I'm the next person she's going to target. So I just have to get to her before she gets to me. In an ideal world, I would have loved to finish it with the Traitors, but if I didn't make that move, she would have gotten me out."

As a fan of the show, while there were some particularly heated moments at the roundtable, and even the breakfast table throughout the season, Neda was just enjoying the entertainment.

"Not to sound callous, but it was so fun to watch it, especially because I wasn't involved in it," Neda said. "I just got to sit back."

"I'm a fan of the show. I felt like I'm at home on my couch watching it all happen in front of me."

But don't think that means she was any less committed to the win, Neda was studying her next move in the manor every night.

"I would go back to my room every single night, I had a list of people and I'd be like, 'OK this person I didn't talk to that much today, so tomorrow I really need to spend more time with them,'" Neda revealed. "I had a tracking of every single person, what we had talked about, what I need to talk about.”

Now $72,000 richer, as Neda said in the finale, the title is for her and the money is for her mom.

"The money's for my mom's retirement," Neda confirmed. "For me, I'm just going to go back to my job, I'm not doing anything crazy. I'm just happy with myself. I'm happy I accomplished this."

The last Faithful standing

Reflecting on her time on the show, and her heartbreaking final moment, Tranna describes it as a "bittersweet" feeling to see it all come to an end.

"I feel like there's basically two chapters to this experience," Tranna explained. "There's the lived experience of actually playing the game and shooting the show, and then there's the second chapter of watching it alongside everyone week-to-week, and now it's like both chapters are over."

"There's a part of me that's relieved and happy to move on to other things, and there's another part of me that already misses the experience, and is kind of sad that it's all over. But I just feel so proud of Neda and happy for her, and I feel like it was a really amazing thing to get to be the last Faithful standing. ... I've just truly received this avalanche of love, … messages and tweets and DMs. It's kind of overwhelming and it's just so lovely that I was able to entertain people and make people feel good watching the show."

Tranna was easily one of the most vocal players in the game, always one of the first people to speak her mind about any suspicions, which unfortunately didn't always pan out in her favour. Looking back on what prevented the Faithfuls from targeting any of the Traitors sooner, she had a different perspective on each one.

"When it comes to Michael John, I just didn't see it. ... He had never watched the game before. He didn't know the rules, and that's what I was picking up on. I really was looking at him, I'm like, I don't think he knows what game he's playing. He seems so lost," Tranna said. "But I shouldn't have allowed that to take him off the radar completely, and also, I just didn't really spend a lot of time with him, so I didn't really get a sense of like who he is and shifts in his behaviour and all of that."

"Kyra, also genuinely never thought she was [a Traitor] until Neda told me. ... And Neda, we just had such a connection and such a deep friendship, even on our very first day before we actually started shooting."

'It's not Faithfuls versus Traitor, it's an individual game'

But just because it took the Faithfuls a while to clue into the Traitors, that's not the only way to play.

"As much as we were getting it wrong, ... the odds were really in our favour [in the finale]," Tranna said. "But I think what made it impossible for us to get [Neda] at the end was the fact that all the last banishes did not share their identity."

"Me, Laurie, Neda and Lauren, we didn't get to have one last conversation after the roundtable, whereas in a lot of other seasons, they get to have one more conversation before going to the fire."

As The Bachelor franchise star Kevin stressed, with The Traitors being a relatively new show, his strategy to not prioritize calling out Traitors is still effective.

"This show is still such a baby show, ... nobody really knows how to play this game yet," Kevin said. "My strategy is something that I think will be mirrored in all the franchises, because it's not Faithfuls versus Traitor, it's an individual game. That evil versus good play on the show, I get it for optics, but when you go into it, I don't care if you're a Traitor, just don't kill me, and I don't care if you're a Faithful, just don't write my name down."

"I think we'll look back after 10 seasons and be like, there's different ways to win the show. It's not just sussing out the Traitors, because if we would have gotten, let's say Neda on Episode 2, I don't know, they would have recruited Cedric to throw me off, or they would have recruited Aaron, who was a good friend of mine, and it would have thrown my whole game off. By not getting Traitors, it was actually kind of nice, because I knew where everybody stood with me."

Another interesting player in the game was Laurie, a kindergarten teacher from Lethbridge, Alta., who played an "authentic game" while consistently reminding herself that it is, in fact, a game.

"I played an authentic game from the start," Laurie said. "I let my emotions fly. I cried. I laughed. I told somebody I didn't want to be on the TV show I was on anymore. I just left it all out there."

"But I think what essentially is really interesting is that we all came in saying, 'It's a game, it's a game, it's a game,' but some actually lived it and believed it, and some didn't. And I just think I was someone who actually believed this is a game. This is not my real life. … I loved when my name came up, because I was like, 'Oh my gosh, there's a chance that I actually might get banished instead of murdered.' I think that it all was about your perspective going in, and emotionally where you were on each day certainly affected your gameplay at the roundtable."

But what's fascinating about Laurie is that you did get the sense that some players were underestimating her, because of her job.

"I ooze kindergarten teacher," Laurie said. "I do think there were some stigmas to be battled in the house, and the first night introducing yourself, and people are like, ’And what do you do?’ I'm a kindergarten teacher. ‘What else?’ ... There is nothing else, that is my life, and that's what I'm here to represent."

"I am so grateful I get to be that teacher representation on a show like Traitors Canada."