A quiet calm washes over the water. Jeff Probst stands atop a great green vessel on a crystal clear day, hand on the rail, one foot half hanging over the edge. He, like the rest of us, watches and waits for the four dots in the distance to become boats. Closer and closer they approach, killing the calm. I swear I hear war drums in the air. Soon, I recognize the sound for what it is: the pounding of a heart against a chest. I only feel mine at first, and then twenty more. I can only imagine how the hearts sound in the ears of the contestants, one of them in particular: Stephen Fishbach, who believes he’s sailing up to a giant physical battle. “I’m nervous about whatever terrible grueling thing we’ll have to start with,” he tells me one day earlier. “Some Schmergen Brawl, or some duel with jousting poles… something ridiculous and very physical.” The Schmergen Brawl, if you do not recall, is the full-contact challenge that saw Ben Browning ejected due to overly aggressive gameplay, to say nothing of the two Survivors who suffered significant injuries in the brawl, in back-to-back seasons, leading to one immediate medical evacuation. It’s intense, to put it lightly, and most likely retired. Stephen does not face the Schmergen Brawl, nor does he face an immediate Sumo at Sea situation as he rows up to the marooning — but the looming challenge is decisively physical, a chaotic grab-and-go of all the supplies the Survivors will need for the days and weeks ahead. It could be worse, but still, this is not the challenge Stephen needs right now, not with the palpable feeling of dread pumping through his stomach. One day earlier, Fishbach’s skin is closer to Ta Keo green than Bayon pink. He sits in my cabana at Ponderosa on Survivor: Cambodia — Second Chance Eve, teeth clenched when not talking, arms crossed tight across his stomach, sweat on his brow despite the fan in his face. Throughout the chat, he mocks himself and second-guesses his every move, ping-ponging through thoughts at a blazing speed even the fastest man alive couldn’t keep up with. It’s classic self-deprecating Stephen — hopefully not literally, but honestly? Maybe. “Physically, I am not feeling great,” he admits when I ask him how he’s doing. “I have a little stomach bug thing happening. Normally, Ponderosa is where you guzzle food and store up energy. I’ve been eating a little bit, but I’m worried that I’m weakening as the game looms.” This is one of Fishbach’s fears. It is one of many. Despite finishing in second place on Survivor: Tocantins, Stephen is best known these days not for his gameplay, but his commentary. He has penned a blog on People.com for every season since his went off the air. He has co-hosted the Survivor Know-It-Alls podcast with Rob Cesternino since the show’s revitalizing Season 25, the home season of Abi-Maria Gomes. Eleven other Second Chancers come from the Post-25 era — the New Schoolers — and a twelfth hails from Season 19, Samoa, the first season Stephen ever blogged about. “I think it’s a positive as a person, but a negative in a game sense,” Stephen tells me, talking about his fear of being labeled the Know-It-All. “There’s this idea of someone who is strategic, someone who can work their strategy voodoo and screw them up — and I’ve definitely said some negative things about people.” For example, he says, he once called Vytas Baskauskas “smug and sociopathic.” But, hey, at least Chaos Kass McQuillen shares the view, right? Well, then there’s the time that Fishbach trash-talked Kass during her season, so maybe not. So on and so forth. But those examples pale in comparison to the fear Stephen feels toward Jeremy Collins, the Season 29 firefighter who first played Survivor alongside his own wife, Val. On the night she was voted out, Stephen co-hosted a live version of his podcast in New York City. It was an eventful evening, to say the least, and Stephen’s assessment of Val turned out to me not so nice. “I know I’ve talked [expletive] about Val,” he says. “It’s one thing to talk about you. You can forgive something someone says about you. But what about something someone says about your wife?” It’s a valid concern, especially considering Stephen and Jeremy will be sharing one of the two Bayon boats cruising up to the marooning in one day’s time. But it’s not just Jeremy who makes Stephen nervous. “Everyone!” he declares, cracking up, when I ask who frightens him. “All these people! That’s why the old schoolers are good for me! Anyone who was before my blogging days!” In other words, Fishbach fights excrement on two fronts: The stuff in his gut, and the stuff he’s thrown at well more than half of the people he’s about to compete against. It’s why he’s looking into teaming up with some of the players from before his time. Too bad they didn’t all make the trip. ON THE NEXT PAGE: Middle School Blues

Teresa “T-Bird” Cooper — the flight attendant from Survivor: Africa who experienced the first tribe swap in the history of the show, fought tooth and nail through Tomorrow and into an impressive immunity win, voted for Lex van den Berghe and almost incited a big old Boran bloodbath in the process, and outlasted the rest of her Samburu tribe for a fifth-place finish — finds out on live television in front of millions of viewers that she will not be getting a second chance at Survivor. She is gutted. The only person in the CBS Studios auditorium as gutted about Teresa is Fishbach. As part of his preparation for the upcoming season, Stephen rewatched old seasons, including Africa. He wanted to learn more about Teresa, described by fans who remember the third season of Survivor well as an underrated player, someone who could cause severe damage in a future appearance. That might still be true some day, but it won’t be true during Season 31 — and Stephen, lucky enough to make the cast, feels like a bit of a dingus right now. “I’m bummed! What a tremendous waste of time that was,” he laughs when I ask about all the time he poured into watching T-Bird’s season. “I know her game so well!” Fishbach found himself brushing up his old school Survivor Shakespeare because he’s in a spot occupied by few other Second Chancers, smack dab in the middle between eras of the game. He played in Season 18, positioning him closer to the present iteration of the game than the past. However, there’s an argument that Stephen’s season was one of the final traditional Survivor experiences. Tocantins boasted a completely unique location, featuring 16 competitors, zero tribe swaps, and two hidden idols that went unplayed. It was Survivor as it was originally conceived — mostly — and Stephen thinks players from the classic version of the game will receive some classic benefits. “I think the old schoolers are in a great spot,” he says. “Everyone loves them because they have fond nostalgia for them. No one thinks they’re threatening.” Stephen’s right, at least in part, about the underestimation of the old-schoolers. For instance, Shirin Oskooi tells me about how much these players from yesteryear have to catch up on heading into Second Chance; she puts Stephen “in a league of his own” in that regard. But Fishbach doesn’t see it that way. He thinks many of these players will go the distance. “I think they’re going pretty deep into the game, because people are going to be gunning for others,” he says. “People will gun for who they know are the big strategic threats. No one knows Jeff Varner is a strategic threat. He maybe instigated a fight between Kimmi and Alicia. Uh oh! So they’re going to get a pass, and that’s great for them.” Stephen does not see himself getting a pass. He feels heat on his back, and even more heat swirling in his stomach. He’s worried about being one of the least physical competitors out here, even forgiving his current ailment. “I do think I’m the weakest dude here,” he says. “This cast is huge. I’m 6’2” and 185 pounds, and I’m the smallest guy. It’s crazy how big these people are. Spencer is physically smaller than I am, but he’s more athletic than I am.” But Fishbach’s physique has caught the eye of Terry Deitz: “Have you seen the size of Fishbach? He’s been doing CrossFit! He’s looking big! He looks like a threat!” Even on physicality, viewing himself as the weakest male on the Second Chance cast with a storm brewing in his belly, Stephen does not get a pass. But he gets a pass from Terry, decisively from an old school mindset, as far as strategy goes. Terry told me he would like to align with Stephen. If only the old school male on Stephen’s upcoming tribe felt the same. “He can blindside people and they’ll never see it coming,” Andrew Savage told me earlier in the day. “I read that, and I haven’t said one word to Stephen, but I’m thinking, ‘Dude, okay! If that’s the way you roll, that’s the way you roll!'” For what it’s worth, Stephen is similarly wary of Savage: “He’s someone who scares me because he has this bro thing he does. He’s a natural leader who is going to align with big guys, and I’m not that type. He’s got all this weird surfboard paraphernalia. He has this cool bro thing. He has a very Probstian vibe, with his puka necklace.” But however much Fishbach fears Savage, he fears targeting him even more — and to discuss the reason why, we need to sneak behind the curtain. ON THE NEXT PAGE: Have You All Never Meta Neat Fishy?

When I visit Bayon on the second day of Second Chance, I do not see Stephen. He is not eating mangoes with the women on the beach. He is not sowing seeds of doubt with Kass McQuillen. He’s not wandering the field with Keith Nale, Ghost of Koh Rong. He is not asleep in the shelter. He is nowhere. Well, okay, not nowhere, but a place outside of my reach. He’s in the middle of an interview somewhere, talking about his schemes and strategies… and I wonder how much he’s holding back. Stephen is a heavy meta man. When he blogs and podcasts about the show, he talks often about winner’s edits and airtime — who we should watch and discount based on how much story we’re seeing. He says the word “production” like it’s a code name for the new Metal Gear, just waiting to crush the world. The word is as sharp as ever when he talks to me in Cambodia. Take Savage, for instance. Fishbach feels concerned about the Pearl Islands veteran, but feels even more concerned about targeting him. Welcome to another one of the fears gnawing at Stephen’s guts. In the down time at Ponderosa, obsessing over the road ahead, he’s grown so paranoid that he’s afraid if he reveals too much about his game plan in interviews, it could backfire against him. It’s yet another reason why Fishbach feels vulnerable heading into Second Chance. Not only does he not feel he can “bro” down with the Savages of the world, he also questions whether or not he can trust the system enough to go after these people. Fishbach follows these fears further down the rabbit hole, wondering how his reputation as a Survivor prognosticator will impact his odds. He does not know how to address the Know-It-All of it all with his fellow Survivors. “I’m concerned about it,” he says. “Do I forthrightly address, ‘Hey, so, I talked [expletive] about you!’ I think I don’t, because then it reminds people of all the [expletive] I talked. Don’t even beg for forgiveness. Just keep it under the carpet.” But then Stephen changes his tune, wondering aloud about actively trying to subvert his own image — a theory he arrived at after consulting Survivor winner and friend John Cochran. “We talked about what my persona should be,” he says. “The idea of, ‘I think I know it all, but do I really know it all? I thought I knew it all until I came out here — and then I learned I know nothing!'” He changes his mind a minute later. “It’s situational. If it comes up…” He shakes his head and laughs. “Look, if I over plan it, I’ll [expletive] it up.” Stephen also wrestles with the meta issue of legacy. He and J.T. Thomas stand out as one of the most successful duos in the history of Survivor, plowing through a severe numbers disadvantage and making it all the way to the Final Tribal Council. Fishbach lost decisively, gaining zero votes, and J.T. went on to earn a second Survivor experience two seasons later. Without getting into the gory details, let’s just say it did not work out well for Stephen’s former partner-in-crime. “I have to prove that Stephen was the brains,” Fishbach says, half-kidding about his reputation as the strategic powerhouse behind his Tocantins success, but I sense some seriousness there, too. Really, he’s more concerned about making it further than his podcasting partner, Rob Cesternino, who was voted out early on Survivor: All-Stars after finishing in third place on his first season. “I just have to do better than the third Tribal Council! That’s how well Rob did.” In reality, Stephen would love nothing more than to find a new J.T., Rob or other form of close-knit ally: “I like having a writing partner! I like bouncing off an interchange of ideas.” And he even has his eye on some prospective partners, like Vytas. “I think we could do great damage in this game if we didn’t do damage to each other first.” But he doesn’t see it happening — not because he and Vytas couldn’t bury the hatchet over the whole “smug and sociopathic” thing, but because Stephen questions whether the “writing partner” strategy is even viable anymore. “There’s such a target on pairs now, especially after last season,” he says. “I think strong pairs are going to be picked off once again.” “Typically I would like to take the role of the buddy or the best friend,” he adds, “but I wonder if I’m too big of a threat to play that. Just because of the podcast, the blog, and all these people who are aware of me doing that. I can’t fade into the background in the same way.” Stephen is right, at least as far as where he’s landing on the greater radar. His name comes up more than anyone else’s throughout my interviews at Ponderosa, for positive and negative reasons in equal measure. There are people who want to work with Stephen, and there are people who want him gone early. He senses this, but he does not know how to untie the knot. “The game is so meta now; anything that was strong is now weak,” he sighs, speaking about Survivor at large and about himself specifically. He sees the strengths of his first game working against him now, even the moment that was both his biggest achievement and his biggest disaster. ON THE FINAL PAGE: Growing Pains