The Zach Nichols Podcast - Vets and New Threats Season Finale Review with Yeremi Hykel! | ZNP EP. 139

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

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And we're back. Welcome back to Zach Niels podcast. The Big Fettuccini and I are here with one half of season 41's winner. You're me. Everybody, round of applause. A rookie and a winner that makes two winners on this church pew. So we got one loser. Okay, look.

One big Fettuccini. He was allowed to do the subtle congratulations. Now I'm going to do the hyped up congratulations. Season 41. Champion. Jeremy, how do you say the last name? Hi, cool. You.

In this motherfucker. Now we're in trouble in Switzerland. Live from the Alamo draft house in Austin, Texas. Shout out to everybody here, man. And we're in this, I don't know what you call it. I think it's a devil-worshipping crime. A little satanic chapel. I'm bringing the Catholicism to it.

Don't worry, guys. I got my cross on, too, just to protect himself. Filthy room that here booked. It's not my fault, all right. It's complimentary. All right. I take that type of shit. Anyways, thank you for taking the time, bro.

Absolutely, dude. Love, love watching you guys. Always love chopping it up with y'all about the challenge and stuff like that. So super fucking excited to get into it. What a creative moment. I mean, what do you have to do now? You won your first season. So what is there to do?

I don't know, dude. Just, I guess, go back and just wreck havoc and just fucking throw grenades everywhere. I don't know if you know this. Once upon a time, another person in this room went on his first challenge. won his first challenge. Just like, no, just say, you know, shout out to Frank. Shout out to Frank.

Also in Austin, Texas person. Shout out to Frank. But yeah, I mean, you just touched on a little bit. I think personally, just getting to know you a little bit here, the part I'm most excited about for the future. And we're going to talk about all the past

and everything that gone down. But me personally, getting to know you a little bit, I can't wait to see you talk a little shit out there. Appreciate it, dude. Yeah. This season has been, like, I definitely hold my tongue for a ton of stuff.

I would say that, like, To talk shit, I care to perform, and I let my performance show for me. I find that talking shit can dig you into holes that you don't want to be in, that you don't need to be in. And for somebody that was in deep waters like me with a huge target, that was an element of the game that I just didn't need to bring into it, although it is quite entertaining. You didn't do yourself any favors by smoking everybody on the first mountain challenge.

I know, you know what? I didn't do anybody any favors, but. No, you didn't do yourself any favor. Oh, yeah. You did everyone else a favor because everyone else is like, well, we know who we need to get out. spotlight. Well, you know what? It was crazy because I was, I didn't even think that that was going to look like that. I was like, you didn't think about that going. You just wanted to win? Well, I don't know. I just thought there were dogs in the challenge. Okay. There are

dogs in the challenge. Where they at? That was crazy. That's fucking nuts, bro. Well, a couple of us are on the blacklist. I'll tell you, bro, I want the, I want the wrong way, still smoked everybody up that. Damn, the wrong way first place. Not the standard first place, the wrong way first place. The mistake. So, uh, so, I mean, do you want to, I mean, we can start there. Why don't we start with this episode and then we'll, we'll go back. Yeah, let's start with this episode. So we're starting the second half of the final here.

And right away, you have this crazy ultimatum where T.J. says, hey, look, you've been working with some new threats. You might have been working with the vets. But you can stake a claim on any person in the final. What were your thoughts? Were you surprised? And why didn't you stick, Sydney? Yeah.

Yeah. So when we got to that place, when we're at the kind of the base camp of the mountain, and T.J says that we can take a claim. I was definitely super surprised. I was like, damn, I can't believe that this is happening this late. You didn't have a, I mean, I had a hunch. I called it. I said, it's going to be an option in the final.

Yeah. Well, there's always a hunch. There's always hunches going around. Like, all you're doing is speculating the entire game. For sure. Right. So getting there, like, I'm still surprised, right? I'm surprised seeing everything that you're doing in the final as it's going.

but no I'm not going to lie I was like fucking I'm not sticking a fucking clam I'm tired of this fucking shit you see the show I did some hell yeah and and that oxygen there's not a lot where you were at yeah no no there was not a lot of oxygen not a lot of warmth you know I had to get my ass in that water

because Olivia wasn't going to right yeah not something a fetus should be doing either that solid that's definitely an interesting perspective because over here we're talking about game oh it'd be so good for you to work or Sydney and whatever, you're like, bro, I don't want to do shit else that I don't have to do.

Did you not know how, like, how bad of a shape, like, I'm not saying bad shape, but like just hurting turbo was, because if you would have known that he was in, like, not doing well, physically and cramping up, would that have changed your mind on it? No. You were just set. It wasn't. Yeah, it wouldn't have done it. I didn't need, to be honest with you, I didn't need anything else.

I didn't need, like, and I had Olivia, she was fine. Yeah. right as long as her she just kept doing what she was doing i felt good yeah i was like let's just keep going right and if in my head i was like sydney if you want to stake a claim on me you absolutely can you'd be going against olivia that's fine at that point to what you were saying is i did not know how absolutely right freaking toasted uh turbo was right he puts on this front like he's just like yeah he gets massage by pain and bludges makeup or whatever right all that all that kind of shit so like when i was there i was like oh this dude's you know he's he's he's he

He's solid. So I already know what's taking a claim is like. And I was like, I'm sure as fuck don't want to do that tomorrow morning at what, 5 a.m. after, you know, whatever we're going to do tonight. It's honestly crazy to hear that mindset. Because I was just, I was thinking, oh, there's got to be some type of strategy involved. You're basically like, I'm the fucking prize. They can work for me. I'm good. I'm going to win regardless. Like, what a crazy, crazy different mindset. Different within I was expecting. You talked about Olivia specifically just for a second. You said, oh, she's good. You knew what you were working with. But How was it working with her?

Because we've kind of been talking about, hey, is she the quality partner? Is she somebody that can take you to the promised land? And she proves it in this episode. So how was it working with her? And did you, you know,

like just talk about your mindset working with her. Yeah, dude. So like I had worked with her previously on like, you know, way back in the in the season on Amazed. We worked together. And we worked together like kind of fine.

And then after my stake in claim and we're working together in the final, she was fine, right? I try to be careful with myself to never compare who I'm working with, especially if they're female to who I am, right? I cannot expect you to run as fast as I can, to push as hard as I can or anything like that. And me putting my false expectations on you, that can defeat you, right?

And that can put you down. So she was doing a really good job of like explain to me what she needs. Like, yeah, me slow down. Like slow down. I can't keep going or ease up on this or like let's let's run again or let's walk again. I need to hike, whatever it is, whatever little break. And if she needed a break, which a couple times she did, which is real, I was like, we can take a break, but it's not going to be a long break.

Like, we're not going to sit in this break. Like, I'll count the break down. Not like Theo and Sydney. They were like literally straight chilling. Not a lay on the ground freaking break. That was crazy. But she was good. She was good.

She kept our head on her on her shoulders when we got to puzzles. Like we both talked about what our strategy was. That first puzzle that we actually ran into, well, I guess it was like the second, second puzzle the one where you had the like yes yeah yeah the matching yeah the matching one right she she took like a really big lead on that one like she started to figure out the strategy and i was i think i was literally just the one moving them around and we were kind of like working together on figuring out so yeah i really enjoyed having will uh in in our studio and talking to him and getting to know him but it was a clear difference in the way that you guys communicated i mean to me it was a very critical moment

on the snare masters you know where she says hey like should i conserve your legs and you kind of put it on her like you do what you want and when she makes her decision you don't guilt her for it you don't make her feel bad you're like okay yeah okay you accepted it and you moved on no matter how you actually felt you were positive with your reinforcement that pissed me off now my question that would have been so right but my question is let's just say you didn't have to stake a claim to be partner with her do you think you and aviv do just as well in the final or better or worse i think better yeah vive's a little

I think better, yeah. Aviv is, she is stout. So that must have, like, that must have been a tough decision then to stake the claim because, I mean, I would have liked to see Naveveveve run that final. I would, too. And what she could have done there. And I wanted to run that final with her, right? Like, me and Aviv, like, that was my girl. And I didn't want to do anything to leave her, right?

I wanted to fight with her all the way to the end because, I mean, that concludes the free preview of the Zach Nichols podcast. So go to Patreon and subscribe to see the rest of the shit that we talk. Go do it now.