Warning: This post contains spoilers for the first three episodes of The Traitors Season 3.
Welcome, friends and foes, to another season of Peacock’s Emmy-winning reality competition series The Traitors. With the first three episodes available to stream as of 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, Season 3 is off to the races replete with its typical deception and twists. But if there’s one thorn in the side of the latest iteration of the American version of Traitors, it’s the specter of Scandoval haunting the Scottish Highlands castle where the show takes place.
For those who somehow managed to avoid mention in the past two years of the scandal that rocked the reality TV universe, Scandoval refers to the March 2023 revelation that Vanderpump Rules cast member Tom Sandoval was cheating on his longtime girlfriend and castmate Ariana Madix with their fellow castmate Rachel “Raquel” Leviss. News of the seven-month-long affair broke shortly after Season 10 of the show, which had been filmed the summer before, began airing, and quickly became an international viral sensation. The extensive fallout from the public betrayal resulted in a landslide of endorsement deals and new opportunities for Madix and, on the flip side, a 2024 New York Times Magazine profile that dubbed Sandoval the “most hated man in America.”
Considering the drama on Vanderpump Rules had frequently been propelled by cheating bombshells since the Bravo series’ 2013 debut, the reaction to the news felt extreme, to say the least. But Sandoval’s own response didn’t help matters. After failing to apologize to or even mention Madix in his (now-deleted) original Instagram statement, following a year of reflection, he went on in the aforementioned NYT Magazine story to compare his treatment in the wake of the scandal to the experiences of George Floyd and O.J. Simpson. That apparent lack of self-awareness cropped up repeatedly.
Since that time, Sandoval has appeared in an additional season of Vanderpump Rules (ahead of the November 2024 announcement that Bravo was planning to fully recast the series) as well as a season of Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test—neither of which appeared to do much to restore his public image. Leading up to The Traitors Season 3 premiere, Peacock released a trailer in which Sandoval excitedly stated that “people are finally taking me seriously.”
However, judging by the first three episodes, that doesn’t really seem to be the case. From the moment Sandoval arrives at the castle in Episode 1, his mere presence incites derision. “Oh my gosh. Do you see who it is?” Total Bellas‘ Nikki Garcia asks The Bachelorette‘s Gabby Windey when Sandoval shows up.
“I’m not saying hi to him,” Windey responds.
Next, in a one-on-one chat with host Alan Cumming leading up to the selection of the traitors at the season’s first round table, Sandoval heavy-handedly insists that he would love to be a faithful. “I don’t think I would do well as a traitor,” he says.
“How would you feel if I were to tap you on the shoulder? Would you feel I’d betrayed you, Tom?” Cumming replies, earning an affirmative response from Sandoval. “Doesn’t feel so nice, does it?”
When Cumming grants his wish by instead tapping Big Brother‘s Danielle Reyes, Survivor‘s Carolyn Wiger, and RuPaul‘s Bob the Drag Queen as the original three traitors, Sandoval’s strategy of aggressively ripping off his blindfold and staring wildly around the table to gauge his fellow contestants’ reactions elicits some telling responses. “For some reason, Tom is f-cking mad-dogging,” Bob says in a confessional. “I’m like, girl, stop f-cking looking at me.”
Sandoval then begins the game by immediately trying to throw Selling Sunset‘s Chrishell Stause under the bus as a potential traitor, leading to the first direct mention of Scandoval. “Tom is already throwing my name out,” Stause says in a confessional. “First of all, who plays like that? Second of all, I know Tom has a bias against me because I am friends with his ex. Knowing what he did to Ariana, I have an opinion of him already. So if the ship’s burning, he’s coming down with me.”
And that’s just the first half of the very first episode.
Later, following the introduction in Episode 2 of three additional contestants—Survivor‘s Rob Mariano, Big Brother‘s Derrick Levasseur, and The Challenge‘s Wes Bergmann—Sandoval’s bid to relay his theories about who the traitors are to the newcomers results in Bergmann dismissing the “propaganda spewing out of this guy’s mouth.”
Given that every Traitors contestant is a reality TV star from another show, preconceived notions are obviously a part of the game. However, most of the bad blood, like the tension between Reyes and fellow Big Brother player Britney Haynes, stems from betrayals within another competition show rather than real-life transgressions. Not to mention that Sandoval’s ill-conceived attempts to repair his reputation by continuing to appear on reality TV are simply getting annoying.
At this point, if audience perception is what Sandoval’s truly concerned about, leaning into his villain era would likely play better with viewers than trying to portray himself as a deeply changed man who’s incapable of lies and deceit. But with the way things stand now, it seems like the best we can hope for is that his baggage will fade into the background as the game kicks into a higher gear.
Luckily, as of the end of the third episode, Scandoval has yet to have a material bearing on the course of the season. But it’s certainly proving to be a tiresome distraction in a show that organically provides plenty of drama all on its own.
The post Scandoval Is an Annoying Distraction in The Traitors Season 3 appeared first on TIME.
