Picture this: Tasha Fox, standing ankle deep in the crystal clear water of Bayon beach, devouring a mango, surrounded by the four other women in her tribe. This is what I am looking at right now. She crushes the juicy fruit by the mouthful, standing next to Kimmi Kappenberg, picking apart a pineapple. Ciera Eastin and Monica Padilla sit across from one another in the water, cross-legged, digging away at the mangoes in their hands. They’re talking about the rival tribe Ta Keo, trading notes on what they know. Kass McQuillen, her mango mostly whole, mentions that Peih-Gee Law likes to play video games. “I think it’s called League of Legends,” she says. As Kass speaks, I step back, not because I’m not interested in what she has to say, but because I don’t want to stand too close when Tasha takes a swing. I mean, that’s what’s supposed to happen when these two are in the same space together, right? In my mind, I see Tasha dropping the mango and throwing a punch at Kass, clear as day, as vividly as Desmond saw Charlie’s future. But the punch is never thrown. The mango remains firmly in Tasha’s hands. She keeps eating, nodding along with the conversation, perfectly civil. Nobody expects physical violence on Survivor. Nobody wants it. Nobody tunes in to see people spill blood, or even beans for that matter. But there’s no doubt that the people playing Survivor: Cambodia — Second Chance have, almost without exception, ruthless enemies in their Survivor past. Many of them are long ago and far away. Others are here in Cambodia, but living on another beach, a problem for another day. And then there’s Tasha, standing here with Kass, the person most responsible for her demise in Survivor: Cagayan… and they’re not fighting each other. No arguments. They’re not even giving each other the silent treatment. They’re talking. They’re smiling. They’re eating mangoes. They’re eating mangoes! Two days earlier, Tasha and I are talking in my cabana at Ponderosa. She sits on one of the beds in the room, and while it’s not quite the couch she’s allegedly hogging, according to Jeff Varner, Tasha absolutely owns her space. There’s a regal quality about her. Her gaze is intense. Her smile never fades, even when the words coming out are fierce, a word she often uses to describe herself. It’s a friendly face for a fighter — an appropriate term, considering how she describes the coming season. “This is going to be a battle from the beginning to the end,” she tells me. “In the previous seasons, you have your goat you can just drag along, but this season, I don’t think there are any goats. I think everyone’s here to fight and win.” Many of these people are here to fight and win against Tasha specifically, if only because she is one of the four contestants from Season 28 on the Second Chance cast. She’s not concerned about that. “If all four of us were super tight on Cagayan, then I think it would be bad, because people would say, ‘I want to take some of those players out,'” she says. “We’re probably safe individually because we weren’t tight on our season.” But people are paying attention to the Cagayan Four, from Jeff Varner to Jeremy Collins and well beyond. Whether Tasha knows it or not, she is being watched. But she has news of her own: Tasha is staring right back. “I have a little journal,” she says. “Every day, even here in the pre-game, I’m looking at my notes and jotting things down. I’m seeing who’s smiling at each other. I’m drawing little arrows at how this person might be connected with that person.” I’m thinking about these arrows as I stand feet away from Tasha, watching her stand beside Kimmi, Monica, Ciera and Kass, mango juice dripping down her knuckles, her smile ever-present, her eyes washing over each woman in the circle. I’m thinking about something else she tells me at Ponderosa, too. “I would like to get rid of as many girls as possible.” ON THE NEXT PAGE: No More Nice Tasha

In her first season of Survivor, Tasha Fox was one of the fiercest fighters in the Philippines, competitive in every challenge, and winning three all on her own. Indeed, she was chasing the challenge record of Kelly Wiglesworth, the original Survivor runner-up, and still the woman with the highest amount of consecutive immunity wins to her name at four. Now, not only does Tasha have a second chance to chase the Wiglesworth record, she has the chance to take on Wiglesworth herself, in person, as a flesh-and-blood competitor. On the day that Tasha feasts on mangoes, Kelly will be just one boat ride away, at Ta Keo beach, working around camp with Abi-Maria Gomes and Woo Hwang. “I’m glad Kelly’s here,” Tasha tells me at Ponderosa. “I mean, that’s season one! That’s what captured all the super fans’ hearts! And she looks good, too. She looks strong.” Tasha is keeping a close eye on who looks strong and who looks weak, she tells me. It’s one of the defining factors in how she plans to move forward through Second Chance. Kelly represents “one or two strong girls” that Tasha can see herself aligning with, but beyond that? She says she’s taking her chances with the guys — for a little while, at least. Tasha tells me that she only wants to take out the women early on so she can turn the men against each other further down the road. “I think there are so many strong guys, that if we get to the merge with three or four girls, they’ll pick each other off — and I’ll help them,” she says. “That’s my strategy. Get a couple of strong girls, and let the guys bond together. They’ll target the weak people in the beginning, and that’s usually the girls. If I can help them do that and get to the merge with mostly guys, it’ll be a bloodbath, and I’ll be there to mop it up.” Tasha feels good about her ability to help the men spill some blood, thanks to how she played in her past season. For the most part, Tasha’s game revolved around bruising her way through competitions and keeping her head as low as possible. It was enough to keep her torch lit deep into the merge, but without immunity around her neck, sixth place was the end of the line. “I think people will think I’m a strong person and a good physical player,” she says when I ask how she feels she’s perceived by the rest of the cast. “In the tribe portion of the game, hopefully I’m not a target. I haven’t rubbed anyone the wrong way, and I’m really strong, and you want to keep your tribe strong. I think people will be willing to work with me, and will want to work with me.” “I think people will think I’m very nice,” Tasha continues. Then, without warning, her gaze tightens, and her smile grows wide. “What they don’t know is, Nice Tasha is dead.” No, this is not one of Second Chance‘s twists, that half of the cast members have been buried out back and replaced with evil dopplegangers. What Tasha means is that anyone who has a positive perception of her based on Cagayan is in for a rude awakening. “I think I have some goodwill built up and people will want to work with me, but they should watch their backs,” she says. “Hopefully they don’t make the assumption that the Tasha they saw the first time is the Tasha that’s out here. I’m willing to do whatever.” Willing to do whatever sounds a little bit like someone else’s strategy, the way I hear it — and that someone else knows a thing or two about how Tasha played the first time. ON THE FINAL PAGE: From Cagayan to Cambodia with Chaos