Alan Cumming Shares Which “Traitors” Contestants Impressed Him and Who He Thinks 'Blew It' (Exclusive)

The Scottish host tells PEOPLE he "was surprised by many people" on the Peacock competition series, which comes to a conclusion on Thursday night

On Thursday night’s finale of The Traitors, the remaining Faithfuls will try to oust last Traitor standing Kate Chastain.

Certain contestants’ games ended too soon (RIP Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio), and others seemed to have flown under the radar to make it to the end. But some managed to impress host Alan Cumming along the way.

“I was surprised by many people,” Cumming, 59, tells PEOPLE, first citing former U.K. Parliament member John Bercow. “I first thought, ‘He's not going to last long because he talks too much. They don't know who he is, and they're going to be annoyed by him.’ He completely got that and adapted and became a real team player, and that was surprising.”

Related: The Traitors Season 2: Who Has Been Banished, Who Has Been Murdered So Far?

The Scottish star gives props to Love Island USA’s Carsten “Bergie” Bergersen for “suddenly” making major moves during the graveyard challenge in episode 3 and appreciates the gameplay of former Bachelor Peter Weber, who made it the season’s penultimate episode.

“Peter's trajectory in the show is fascinating because it shows this whole theory that gamers from shows like Survivor and Big Brother and everything are going to be much more predisposed to be good in the show; that's clearly not true,” Cumming says. “Peter being the cutesy Bachelor has kind of worked it all out and was really kind of strategizing in a really amazing way.”

Related: Alan Cumming on the Flirtation Between The Traitors' 'Castle Daddy' CT Tamburello and Phaedra Parks (Exclusive)

Cumming found himself surprised that lawyer and former Real Housewife of Atlanta Phaedra Parks took such a “passive” approach to playing as a Traitor. “The only thing she was really kind of firm about was her loyalty to the Housewives,” he says. “There was a very tribal aspect to her Housewife stuff, which I kind of enjoyed as well.”

Parks, 50, often used her skills for crafting a flawless argument to take the heat off of her at the roundtable, most notably when Dan Gheesling, also a Traitor, outed her as such in an attempt to save himself from banishment. In last week’s episode, Parks kept it together while lying to fellow Bravo star and longtime friend Shereé Whitfield when Whitfield, 54, asked Parks directly if she was a Traitor.

“She never really risks a judgment about anything,” Cumming observes of Parks. “And as a lawyer, you have to be very authoritative, but non-partisan. So, I was kind of surprised.”

Related: The Traitors' Dan Gheesling Is Retiring After 'Ticking Time Bomb' Final Days in Reality TV (Exclusive)

Cumming also marveled at how Big Brother winner Gheesling approached Traitors. “Everyone talks about what a great game player he was and how great he was at tactics and everything, and he blew it in a major way,” the four-time Emmy nominee says. “All the other contestants were telling him what to do!”

Gheesling, 40, received heat from his castmates for staying quiet in the game and not putting forth the name of anyone he thought might be a Traitor.

“The thing I was trying to do was be quiet and when I talk [have people think], ‘OK, this is Dan's time, let's give him this vote. He takes a shot, I get out a Traitor and it's like, OK, he really is the Faithful.’ And then I build some trust with everyone,” he told PEOPLE. “And then probably closer towards the end, you take a shot at whoever is the next person you recruit.”

Related: Survivor's Parvati Shallow Was 'Jazzed' to Have 'More Than Just 1 Old Pair of Underwear' on The Traitors

That didn’t work out for Gheesling, and he ended up being the first Traitor voted out. Survivor’s Parvati Shallow, 41, soon followed, and in last week’s episode, Parks’s time came too.

Parks recruited Chastain, 41, after Shallow’s banishment, and now, remaining Faithfuls Trishelle Cannatella, Sandra Diaz-Twine, Mercedes “MJ” Javid, Chris “C.T.” Tamburello and Whitfield will have to banish the Below Deck alum in order to walk away with part of the prize money. First, Chastain has a murder to complete, and Javid, 51, won’t be the victim since she won a shield in the last mission with seconds to spare.

Javid tells PEOPLE she went on The Traitors to challenge herself in just the way that episode 10’s mission did.

“I've lived in the Bravo bubble,” the Shahs of Sunset star says. “I'm here because I want to do something brand-new, something so different from my day to day. It’s obviously this whole other muscle and it's really interesting to have so much at stake. I have a lot of respect for the game.”

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The season 2 finale of The Traitors airs Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on Peacock.

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