‘House of Villains’: Tom Sandoval & Tyson Apostol Talk Bromance Nickname, Gross Moments & Tease ‘Great’ Finale

There were not one but two eliminations in the penultimate episode of House of Villains Season 3. Warning: There are spoilers ahead for House of Villains Season 3 Episode 9 ahead.

This time, it was bunk buddies Tom Sandoval and Tyson Apostol who were eliminated in rapid succession. Tom’s elimination came by a surprisingly unanimous vote in the chamber against Christine Quinn, while Tyson was taken out the very next day after losing the vote to Kate Chastain.

While much of the house had turned on them, one person was riding for them until the bitter end: Tiffany “New York” Pollard, who just loved her “vanilla wafers.” However, her influence wasn’t enough to save the day for either of them, leaving Christine, Kate, and New York to vie for the finale prize with Drita D’Avanzo and Paul Abrahamian.

Tom and Tyson were at the center of many of the season’s most entertaining — and, let’s face it, disgusting — moments, so TV Insider caught up with the two of them to talk about the highlights … and get a sense of what to expect in the finale jury vote, when a winner will be declared!

What do you think of New York calling you “the vanilla wafers”? Is that your new team name?

Tom Sandoval: [Laughs.] Wow, I never heard that one.

Tyson Apostol: I mean, I’m pretty bronze. I’m of Greek origin. So vanilla? I guess so. I’m fine with that.

Sandoval: Yeah, I got some spice in me. I’m a bit of a melting pot. But aren’t they called “Nilla Wafers”?

They are. They’re called “Nilla Wafers,” unless you buy them at the Dollar Store.

Apostol: Yeah, the generic brand is “vanilla wafers,” but the other ones are “Nilla Wafers.”

Sandoval: I’m OK with “Nilla Wafers.”

Apostol: Yeah, you don’t want to be the generic brand.

Sandoval: No. I want to be the main brand.

So Tom, why were you so willing to go that far to bat for Tyson in the redemption challenge? It must have been kind of a trial to lay in that box full of worms?

Sandoval: I would say, Kate pulling me aside right before we go into a challenge where I know Tyson has got a target on his back, to me, in that moment, it seemed like a manipulation tactic, getting somebody to throw them off, causing them to make a bad decision or a quick decision. I knew I would have plenty of time to get to the bottom of whatever Kate was saying, but I wasn’t going to let that waver me right before I’m going into a redemption challenge where Tyson needs me, especially as he was my closest ally.

So I was like, “I’m gonna go that much more and above and beyond.” Because I don’t know where this motivation is … It could be a trick. Tell me this right before, then a sabotage. And it’s like, “Oh, hey.” I just got excited, because I just started really talking to Kate more in-depth, only for about a day, so we hadn’t talked a whole lot leading up to that moment.

So yeah, I went in there, I jumped in there, and I was actually excited to do all the things that we did. There were actually even more challenges that were on that challenge that didn’t make the cut. But super worms were … So doing The Traitors, I’d done an insects challenge, and I just assumed — we had worms dumped on us on Traitors. And I just figured, “OK. They’re both Peacock shows. They’ll probably be the same worms.” But no, they were super worms, and super worms bite. So we were getting bit, like, hundreds of times a second. It was crazy. You felt like you were getting electrocuted.

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How big are the bites?

Apostol: They had pretty good pinchers on them.

Sandoval: They bite you. It feels like you’re getting cut all over your body simultaneously. So it’s just crazy. You honestly feel like you have an electric current going through you. I’ve never felt anything like it before in my life. It was so crazy and strange.

Tyson, did any of your Survivor history give you an advantage in any way, specifically for this challenge or in general?

Apostol: I mean, yeah, it gave me an advantage, for sure, because I think there were people who hadn’t played strategic games in the house, so they definitely didn’t start off as quickly or as strong in building a relationship and figuring out and making moves and stuff like that. So I think that was advantageous. To win this game, maybe not necessarily, but for the challenge, yeah, I guess so. I mean, eating those worms. I’d eaten gross stuff on Survivor before, but I’ve never won an eating challenge like that, and I just knew that I had to move faster than Johnny [Middlebrooks] on those horned worms. So I’m sure it helped me, but I’ve been doing this thing for 20 years, so it probably helped me, but this is my life now.

Sandoval: I think that I think we’re Johnny possibly messed up, when he was eating the worms — by the way, I ate one of those worms because I’ve never eaten a live insect before, so I ate one of those worms because I was like, “I just want to, if this ever comes a time where I have to eat something like this, I want to know that I’ve done it before mentally.” So I just did it. And one thing I do that feel like Johnny maybe messed up on, when he was eating is, he didn’t control the squirt. So when you bite into something like that, it’s like all gonna squirt out in your mouth, all the juices, guts. Johnny, I don’t think he controlled the squirt. And so the juices squirted probably back into his throat, and he started gagging. And those few seconds that he had to stop and gather himself from gagging is where Tyson was able to keep going. Tyson, I could tell he controlled the squirt. Did you not control the squirt?

Apostol: Oh, I controlled the squirt. I also realized that — because they give you the rules. The rules are you can only eat one at a time, but you just had to transport it one at a time, so they could keep track of how many people were eating. So I just filled up my mouth with all of them, and didn’t swallow them till the buzzer rang. So Johnny, I think he didn’t control the squirt, but he also tried swallowing halfway through the challenge, which made him gag, too. So something made him gag, and I was trying to keep everything in the front of my mouth until the end of the challenge. And then at the end, I was like, “Do I have to swallow these?” Because I was like, “Maybe they’ll just let us spit them out.” They’re like, “No, you have to swallow them.” So they gave us any time to chew and swallow what was already in our mouths. So, yeah, that was good.

Sandoval: I mean, Tyson, I’m sure you could probably attest to this. If you can equate the skin to anything, because you obviously eat vegetables, it was like leaf leather, right?

Apostol: It was thick, yeah. It took a little extra to get through the skin.

Sandoval: The skin was the worst part.

Apostol: It would be like dried fruit or something was what the texture was. But then this taste, there was none… I just knew I had to get through it. So I was like trying to push the flavor out and the texture out and just matching or beating Johnny with every worm in my mouth.

Casey Durkin / Peacock

Tom, were you really that upset about Johnny having considered you for the hit list? 

Sandoval: Well, I was actually, and the reason why is because, during the toxic tea party challenge, nobody guessed anybody right? … He didn’t have to do anything, and I was talking to him the whole time. He had approached me a few times about really being in a tight alliance. And I told him, I was like, “I talked to Tyson,” and I was like, ‘Let’s make Johnny. Let’s work together to make Johnny the super villain, to show our trust in him, to prove we’re trustworthy and that we’re a team.'” And so I not only got out Plane Jane and Ashley [Mitchell], but when I placed that tea in front of Tyson, I got myself out. So I got out three people to get make Johnny a supervillain. Because Johnny was like, “It wasn’t me,” and Tyson was like, “Was it you?” And I’m like, “Well, I don’t know!”

I basically got myself out to make him supervillain, to give him that choice. And soon as he saw all of that, he saw how I was talking to him, working with him, whatever. And we were, like, bonding. And we went inside, we took a shot together, and he was like, “Nobody’s safe… except you, man, you’re good.” And then, as soon as we sit down in the outing… he told me that he’s putting me on the hit list. And I just, I could not believe it. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, “Dude, if there’s one person that you shouldn’t put on the hit list who helped you, who basically gave this to you, gift wrapped this supervillain [win] for you, it should be me. If you want to throw people off, put Paul, put Ashley, put Tyson even on there…”

Apostol: Not me!

Sandoval: I know, but I’m just saying in that situation, for all that I had done for him, “Out of all five of us that were working together at that point, I was the one that gave that to you, so you should at least put me on there.” And also I knew Paul was threatened by me because I called him out for lying. I knew that he had lied and changed his vote immediately, and he knew I knew, and so I felt like him and Paul were coming after me, and that’s why I just felt very, very betrayed, very stabbed in the back. And Tyson will attest to this, the only reason why he literally changed his mind, and I mean, at the last second — because I showed up to that hit list nomination ceremony, I was gonna dress up, but I was so pissed. Metaphorically, I was like, taking myself back to high school when I would get into a T-shirt and jeans and fight. I literally wore T-shirt and jeans so that I was mentally ready to just bring the walls down. And [Tyson] pretty much told Johnny, “At that point, if you put Tom on the hit list, you lose him, and pretty much [me] too as well. You lose us both forever.

Apostol: So we were walking into the ceremony, and Paul and Johnny had a conversation right before, and I watched it happen.

Sandoval: I had two conversations with them. I had a conversation with them outside, and I had a conversation with them in the room. And they were still like, “Oh no, Tom, I think we gotta… I don’t know”… Literally gonna still do it.

Apostol: And Johnny kept going back and forth. And I saw them have a conversation right before. So I was like, “Oh no. The last conversation they had, I know they’re still talking about targeting Tom.” So as we went in this thing, Johnny looked at me, kind of like, you can see the look in his face was like, “You might not like what I’m about to do.” And I was like, “If you put Tom up, you’re gonna lose him, and he if he comes back, then it’s gonna be a war.” And so I think that changed his mind. But I do believe he was gonna put Tom up.

What can you tease about the jury vote in the finale?

Sandoval: Well, I think it’s an interesting ending jury, and it’s a good ending. It’s a great ending. And somebody asked us earlier if we think the person who won should have won? The answer is: At the end with what was left? I think yes.

Apostol: Because of the three finalists, the most deserving of those three won.

House of Villains, Thursdays, 9/8c, Peacock

– Reporting by Erin Maxwell