There are two Spencer Bledsoes. There’s the one we know, and the one we don’t — the man from the future, beloved or bitter, staring at his younger self from across a chess board. “Your move,” he whispers. The first Spencer sits across from me at Ponderosa. He’s restless, his long limbs stretched out every which way, signaling body language that would raise Jeff Varner’s threat level to code red. “It’s been an arduous and silent wait,” Spencer tells me. “I think everyone’s itching to get going.” At the risk of instigating easy frame jokes, I can understand Spencer’s itchiness. This young lad is one day away from Survivor: Cambodia — Second Chance, and one day away from becoming a new version of himself. The Spencer we know right now is, decisively, one of the single most popular Survivors of the modern era. He hails from Cagayan, thought of by many (yours truly included) as the best Survivor season of the post Heroes vs Villains era. His storyline, filled with ecstasy and devastation in unequal measure (Spoiler: It was mostly the latter), is a huge part of the season’s success — a storyline so huge that we needed it, one might say. Spencer’s journey through Cagayan was a wild one: He started the game as a member of the brainless Brains tribe, lost three of his season’s first four Immunity Challenges, nearly lost his torch at the hands and hatchet of Tasha Fox and Kass McQuillen, survived long enough to team up with those two brainiacs for one vote ahead of the merge, then lost virtually every ounce of power he had in the game due to Chaos Kass torching the alliance and moving forward with Tony Vlachos, the man who went on to win the season. Following the brain-burning betrayal, Spencer survived for an improbable period of time, winning three crucial Immunity Challenges, finding a hidden immunity idol but playing it on the wrong person — himself — at the wrong time, swinging over to Team TV for two big blindsides, and eventually falling at the Final Four, despite a compelling case to stick around for one more round… well, compelling-ish. All of Spencer’s triumphs and failures, his highs and lows, could not translate into a million-dollar win, but they joined forces to turn him into an undisputed fan-favorite, so beloved by so many viewers that he was named Mr. Survivor after winning a vote-driven popularity contest on Rob Has A Podcast, a show hosted by two-time Survivor player Rob Cesternino. So, when it came time for Spencer to survive the Second Chance vote and fight his way onto the season? He did not have to fight much at all. “I felt good,” he says when I ask him what he thought about his odds, and I immediately call him out for his modesty. The pre-game is over, and he can cop to the obvious now: Spencer was one of a small handful of contestants who boasted a Mike Holloway sized 155,000% chance of making it onto the season. He finally, reluctantly, admits the truth: “Pretty much from the start I knew that based on being pretty recent, the odds were pretty solid.” Spencer says he felt even better once he saw who he was sitting with at the Worlds Apart finale’s live cast reveal: Joe Anglim, one of the other guaranteed locks, and Blood vs Water veteran Brad Culpepper, a retired NFL defensive tackle and celebrated mathematician. “I looked at how people were lined up, and I noticed the pattern of [Jeff Probst] disappointing people while letting people know that they were on,” he recalls. “And things lined up in a way that reduced my anxiety.” How are his anxiety levels now, on the eve of his second Survivor season? I imagine they’re as high as the stakes, and the stakes go well beyond the million dollar prize. Spencer’s legacy — his reputation as a fan-revered Survivor, his untapped potential as a player — is on the line as well. Now we’re talking about the second Spencer, the man we’re about to meet, the man he’s about to create, the man he’ll become forevermore. The particulars of this person are very variable right now, and very exciting, in pretty much every direction. Looking out at the field, Spencer steps into Second Chance with countless fans on his side, 19 potential allies and enemies on the beach, three players from his former season, and a substantial amount of people setting their sights right on his brain, right away. How does he plan on using those numbers and factors to avoid the shots, to survive the days ahead, to scale the mountain and become Sole Survivor — or at least avoid falling face first into the valley below? Based on what he tells me at Ponderosa, the answer will involve a blend of self-awareness, digging deep, and a steady diet of kneecaps with all the fixings. ON THE NEXT PAGE: The Return of the Young Lad

Spencer sits on the beach with Kelley Wentworth, digging and digging, fingertips scraping sand. Sweat drips down his forehead, his face tense, his life on the line. Okay, that sounds dramatic. In reality, Spencer’s just doing his best to contribute to the Ta Keo tribe’s camp life, working with Wentworth on building a fire pit. It’s the second day of Second Chance, and everyone on the beach is working tirelessly at building their new home — when they’re not catching breaks in the shade, at least. Spencer is no different from the others in terms of work ethic, but there are seven significant details separating him from everyone else — seven years, to be more specific. Spencer is by far and away the youngest person on the Survivor: Second Chance cast, three years behind Joe Anglim, four years behind Ciera Eastin, and seven years behind Wentworth, the next youngest person on his tribe. This fact is not lost on Spencer, 22 years old and fresh out of college. He is absolutely concerned about where the age gap leaves him in Season 31. “I think the nickname ‘young lad’ has never rung more true,” he tells me, laughing at the ridiculous relevance of the moniker he earned from Tony Vlachos during Survivor: Cagayan. Better to laugh than cry. “It’s daunting,” he continues, “the fact that the average age, especially on the guys’ side, is so high. My gut reaction is that it’s not ideal. It could make it hard to relate and talk about the same things.” But Spencer has been mulling over the difference in years for a while. He has a plan for how to overcome the distance between himself and his rivals, and it involves leaning into the age disparity. “If I can work it in a way where I become almost like a child figure to some of these people, or an understudy, I think it could bode well,” says Spencer. “There are people here if I present myself in the right light, especially as a fan, who in some cases truly does admire these people, I think I could potentially stroke them in the right way to have a good relationship where they don’t see me as threatening — because I’m so young, and because I look up to them.” It’s a tactic Spencer hopes to use against people like, say, Andrew Savage — or, more immediately, Terry Deitz, the Exile Island third-place finisher and Spencer’s fellow Ta Keo tribe member. Terry already told me that he’s fond of Spencer during our interview at Ponderosa, describing him as “a good kid.” That description certainly fits what Spencer has in mind, as far as becoming “a child figure.” Spencer feels his youthful qualities can help him in another way, if needed. Just looking around at Ta Keo, Spencer is surrounded by great figures of Survivor lore, from Terry and his challenge-winning record to Kelly Wiglesworth as the show’s first ever runner-up. He says he can leverage his status as a well-known Survivor fan as a tool toward working with some of these veterans, stroking egos when necessary. “I’ve tried to remove myself from the fan state of mind,” he tells me when I ask him if he’s geeking out at the sight of any of the returning Second Chancers, “but I think what I most want to do is have that state of mind and be conscious of it, showing it only when it’s necessary. If a situation comes up and I want to make someone feel good and bug out and really fanboy over them, I think it’s a plus that I could make that happen genuinely — that I genuinely have that within me to give them. It wouldn’t even be acting.” But Spencer does not want to go there immediately. Before becoming “a child figure,” before becoming “an understudy,” Spencer wants to break in on an even level: “I have to gain their respect and come in as an equal.” Perhaps he’s making some progress on that front already. When I see Spencer building fire with Wentworth, I wonder if they’re working on something deeper as well. He tells me at Ponderosa that Wentworth, hailing from Season 29, is one of the people he wants to align with in the game — and he has his eye on another Ta Keo tribe member as well. “Kelley Wentworth and Shirin come to mind,” he says when I ask him who he wants to work with this season. “I feel like I’m getting good vibes from a few recent people, especially people who didn’t get the chance to play how they could have.” Spencer wants to make all the friends he possibly can — because he knows better than anyone about the bullseye on his back, just by virtue of where he comes from. ON THE NEXT PAGE: The Cagayantourage

Chaos Kass McQuillen could have lived with cutting Spencer or cutting J’Tia Taylor at Luzon’s third Tribal Council. She and Tasha ultimately chose to keep the former, and what Kass viewed as an arbitrary decision was a defining moment for Spencer’s future. Had Spencer fallen within the first four Tribal Councils, he would not have gone on to meet Tony Vlachos and begin a relationship that rode the line between rivalry and mentorship. He would not have received an autographed apology from Jeff Probst at the live Cagayan reunion. He would not have won the Mr. Survivor competition. He wouldn’t have made it onto the Second Chance ballot, let alone the cast. You can make the argument that Spencer owes Kass no further thanks, but then you would be missing an even larger point: Kass’ betrayal of the Brains paved the way for one of the great post-merge games of Survivor, a turbulent whirlwind that caused Spencer plenty of grief along the way, but also set him up as an underdog worth rooting for. It’s an enormous part of why Spencer is now in Cambodia, and why the three others from his season — Kass, Tasha and Yung “Woo” Hwang — are here as well. And while getting a second chance is great news for these four individuals, it might not be so great for them as a group. “I definitely feel the heat of four people from Cagayan being here,” Spencer tells me. “It’s us — we have four — and then San Juan del Sur has three. No one else even has three. Our season is the most heavily represented.” When I brought up the topic of the Cagayan Four with Tasha earlier in the day, she shrugged it off. When I brought it up with Kass, she pointed out that she’s not close with people from her season. With Woo, he wooed. Only Spencer fully acknowledges the size of the target on his season, knowing that any excuse people can muster to get rid of someone is a worthwhile excuse to explore. Even Stephen Fishbach, one of Spencer’s friends on the Second Chance cast and someone he hopes to work with this season, is keeping an eye on the Cagayan Four. “The block is real,” Fishbach tells me a few minutes after Spencer leaves my cabana. “Spencer and Kass play up this thing where they hate each other, but they slept in the same bunk for 37 days. That’s more real than me meeting up with Spencer at the live Know-It-Alls.” “It’s something to be aware of,” Stephen continues. “It might be a great way to target people. It might be a great way to get out Tasha — because if she hooks up with Spencer, we’re all [expletive].” This kind of observation, coming from one of Spencer’s prospective allies, is exactly what Spencer sees and fears — that even if he’s not as close with his Cagayan cast mates as other people believe, Spencer knows that perception is far more important than reality. “I think with someone like Tasha, who I worked with already, people are just assuming we’re going to be inseparable,” he says. “At least with Tasha, the downside of people being suspicious of us is washed out a bit by the upside of her being a good potential partner.” “Even with Kass and Woo, who I’m not really that tight with, people are definitely suspicious that we’re really tight,” he continues. “It’s a tricky situation to manage. It’s probably one of the early hurdles I’m going to come across.” Indeed, Spencer is particularly worried about Kass; as she told me, they’re not exactly on each other’s Christmas card list. Spencer does not know where he stands with Kass, thanks in large to an encounter between them a few weeks earlier. He tells me about attending J’Tia’s wedding with Kass and Tasha earlier this year, and how much fun they had — or, at least, how much fun he thought they had. “Kass, in her [campaign] interviews, came away from that wedding talking about how Tasha and I were super cold to her and hated her,” says Spencer. “That was mind-blowing to me. That’s not how I viewed it at all. I thought Tasha and I were super friendly to Kass. The last night, we were asking Kass to come out and hang out. I have no idea why she came away with that perception, but the fact that she did? It tells me that almost regardless of how I treat her, she might suspect that I hate her underneath everything.” Hate might be a strong word, but Spencer’s instinct is spot on: Kass does not trust him, not one bit — and now, Spencer returns the sentiment. “I don’t think it was smart of Kass to say that she thought Tasha and I hated her,” he continues. “She’s been talking to Tasha saying, ‘Don’t worry, you can trust me.’ She’s been saying to me, ‘Don’t worry, I don’t hate you.’ And then she goes on a podcast and clearly indicates that she thinks we hate her. I don’t think that’s good.” For what it’s worth, Spencer says he’s not completely closed off to working with Kass, should the need arise. “Kass thinks I am very much out to get her,” he explains, “and the truth is that I am, but only if she’s out to get me. There’s no reason I should have to target Kass, unless she becomes a problem in the game and a threat to my game. I’m definitely open to her.” But given where he believes Kass is coming from, Spencer thinks he’ll have to shut the door in her face, forcing him to initiate some big moves early on that he normally would not make. “If she’s out to get me, that’s a problem,” he says. “That’s going to put me in a position to probably play a little riskier early on, which you usually don’t want to do.” Maybe it’s something Spencer wouldn’t normally want to do, but the same can’t be said for the winner of his first season, a man with impossible footsteps to follow. But Spencer has no interest in following Tony’s path. Instead, he wants to pave his own way forward. ON THE FINAL PAGE: Who Is The Second Spencer?