Two Plus Two Equals Seven In This Man's Head

The Friday Post.

Let me assure you that there are no spoilers for season three of The Traitors below. You actually don’t even need to have watched any episodes of The Traitors (although you should) to follow along.

Tom Sandoval on The Traitors. Photo: Screenshot.

It was not so long ago that the name “Tom Sandoval” meant nothing to me. “Tom Sandoval,” a name befitting of a quartermaster on The Black Pearl, the pirate ship from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. “Tom Sandoval,” the given name of a smarmy older gentleman who has robbed a few rockstars of their touring money. “Tom Sandoval,” the name of a cartoonish wolf pushing an anvil off of a cliff and onto a flock of barnacle geese. “Tom Sandoval,” the given name of a robot who has animated himself into being, and is trying to pass as a normal human man with a trench coat buttoned up to the top.

But Tom Sandoval is none of those things. (Alternatively: he’s all of them.) He was a cast member on Vanderpump Rules, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills spinoff that focused on the restaurant empire of Lisa Vanderpump and her husband Ken Todd. He worked at Vanderpump’s restaurants Villa Blanca and SUR Restaurant & Lounge as a bartender. But the show, which he was on for 11 seasons, was not his first brush with fame: “Sandoval appears as Jack in the 2002 music video for ‘Misunderstood’ by Bon Jovi,” per his Wikipedia, “and reprised his role as Jack in the 2003 video for Bon Jovi's ‘All About Lovin' You.’”

None of that matters here, however, in matters I’d like to discuss tonight. Tom Sandoval is currently a contestant on season three of the American version of The Traitors, a show that is middle school drama made real. A cast of mostly “Faithfuls” works together to suss out the “Traitors,” players selected by the host Alan Cumming (and production) to knock off the cast members one by one. Tom, despite his tenuous grasp on fidelity and the truth, is a faithful.

I knew, vaguely, the drama around Pump Rules’s “Scandoval,” a lengthy cheating scandal that roiled the entire cast. Sandoval cheated on his partner, Ariana Maddix, with another member of the cast, Rachel “Raquel” Leviss. None of that really means anything to me, as I only know Ariana Maddix as the host of Love Island USA. I had a general sense going into the season that Sandoval’s reputation was bad, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what a complete oddball he is.

Sandoval doesn’t look, he glares. He doesn’t walk, he stalks. He doesn’t gesture, he pounces. He sweats and shivers at all times. It’s honestly hard to tell if he’s a scheming traitor, or a paranoid faithful, or if he has Draino in his veins instead of blood, an expired Four Loko where his brain should be.

Who knows why he’s sweating and everyone else is dressed totally normally for a mid-day brunch. Who knows where he’s been or how he found gym equipment in a castle that the cast doesn’t actually stay in after cameras stop rolling. I’m gonna say this and I know you probably won’t believe it but: Tom Sandoval is the only person in those photos telling the truth.

And if I say Harry Styles in the “Sign of the Times” music video, what are you gonna do about it…

This was a conversation where Tom Sandoval is talking to people he has literally no reason not to trust because they have only just joined the game and have no alliances or foes.

I know 2+2 equals seven in that head.