The sweatiest place on Earth is not CBS Television City in Los Angeles on the night of December 16, 2015. It’s uncharacteristically cold in California, requiring layers typically reserved for places where the word “winter” actually carries meaning.

Perhaps it’s because all the sweat and heat have been left on the beaches of Bayon, Ta Keo and Angkor all the way across the world. Even though Survivor: Cambodia — Second Chance is about to wrap up for the fans, the hard-fought battle ended months ago. After speaking with the contestants all season long, and the finalists in person at the finale, there’s an undeniable sense that blood, sweat and tears have been permanently left behind on the Second Chance battle field, as an offering to the Survivor Gods from one player, and as a casualty of war for 19 others.

Still, there’s heat in the room, and I’m feeling it, sitting in one of the most prime seats in the house. I’m covering the finale with my friend and podcasting partner Rob Cesternino, the host of Rob Has a Podcast and himself a legendary two-time veteran of the game who knows a thing or two about second chances going wrong.

Indeed, we are literally surrounded by figures of Survivor lore. The Savage family is to the left of us, and the McQuillens are to the right. The Morgan tribe’s Darrah Johnson from Pearl Islands sits right next to Rob, as part of Andrew Savage’s clan. A row ahead of us and to the left sits Blood vs Water’s Tyson Apostol and Rachel Foulger, sitting in seats reserved for their fellow Season 27 veteran Ciera Eastin; tonight, Tyson and Rachel play the role of Laura Morett, screaming out words of support for their “daughter” at various points throughout the night.

Really, the list of familiar faces is virtually endless. John Cochran, King of Caramoan and writer of an upcoming sitcom about Bob Crowley, is in the crowd as usual. Even Bob himself, champion of Gabon, is in the room, getting up and shifting seats a few times for reasons unknown. It’s a Where’s Waldo of Survivor fixtures, a feast for the nerdy Survivor fan’s eyes everywhere you look.

“I feel like I’m about to see Star Wars,” Rob tells me, sitting on the edge of his seat, grinning like a lunatic. You can see that loony grin for yourself at numerous times throughout the reunion, most especially during the segment on Danny Deitz; an unfortunate moment for Rob and I to appear on camera looking like complete goons, but it is what it is.

Rob and I are hours away from hitting the red carpet to interview all six of the final players left in the game together. We have an idea of the topics we want to cover with everyone, but there are still three hours of show left to mess everything up. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happens, as the finale launches with one of the most strategically complicated Tribal Councils in history, thanks to Kimmi Kappenberg’s flip, Jeremy Collins and Kelley Wentworth’s immunity idols, and Keith Nale’s kind-eyed confusion.

In Keith’s defense, he’s not the only one confused; the entire auditorium is a mixture of laughs, gasps (which I’m told is where it’s at) and applause. Whether or not the viewers at home needed Probst to come out and draw up a literal map of what the frak just happened, I can tell you, we in the room were grateful.

From there, what could easily have been a Coachish frog march to the Final Tribal Council for Jeremy, Spencer Bledsoe and Tasha Fox instead becomes an hour of pure tension. Will Keith stick to the plan and fake people out with a fake idol? No, but you believe it for a minute, as his on-screen cackling fills the air, swirling with the audience’s own laughter. Will Jeremy take Wentworth to the finals instead of Spencer? Of course not — that would be so dumb — but Spencer’s passionate plea is fiery enough that for a few moments, we’re convinced it could happen.

You know what happens next. A fantastic Final Tribal Council filled with classic moments, like Andrew Savage and his beanie giving a sermon about arrogance, and Kelly Wiglesworth paying homage to Greg Buis by asking the contestants to pick a number for her vote. (It’s easily the best Wiglesworth moment of the season, which, I know, is a really tough call.) What you don’t see are the finalists and jury coming out on stage as Tribal winds down, taking their places for the reunion show, no longer looking island hot, and instead just looking regular-life hot.

When the whole squad looking fresh AF. #SURVIVOR pic.twitter.com/LkEqaCNYum — Josh Wigler (@roundhoward) December 17, 2015

The contestants cast their votes. We don’t see any of them. I turn to Rob and tell him it’s a ten-zero-zero shutout for Jeremy. Minutes later, it’s confirmed, and even though the man didn’t give a second chance to his yellow bow-tie outfit from the San Juan del Sur reunion, Jeremy still looks amazing as he hugs his fellow finalists, snubs Abi as she goes in for an embrace (CAREFUL, JEREMY) and hops off the stage to be with his family. It was always about family.

The reunion flies by in a blur, as I’m trying to mentally prepare all my questions for the finalists, so my memories here are scarce. There’s the aforementioned Deitz photo bomb. Apparently you can see me when the camera turns to Joey Amazing‘s father, too. You can absolutely hear me shouting “WOO!” not for Woo, but for my man Stephen Fishbach, when Probst starts asking him about his decision to chase after “The Golden Boy,” with his golden hair.

But it’s all over in a flash, and within minutes of the reunion’s conclusion, I’m on the red carpet with Rob for an hour and a half, talking with each and every one of the final six competitors. You can watch the interviews and conversation here:

In many ways, they are exactly as I remember from when I sat with them in a tiny cabana in Cambodia back in May. Kimmi still gets a far-away look in her eye when talking about her children, telling us that she never told them her final result; they witnessed her legendary fate without warning. But she also sports a wide-eyed grin when we congratulate her on pulling out some Sons of Anarchy tactics throughout the season, especially during her final historic night in the game.

Wentworth excitedly relives aspects of her experience, landing on the sweet side of an otherwise bittersweet experience of being the person who very likely would have won if only she hadn’t literally dropped the ball. (Consider Drew Christy’s prophecy officially confirmed, by the way. There’s no basically about it: Kelley Wentworth, you are a badass.)

Spencer, the Young Lad, talks about how he wishes he could travel in time (imagine that!) to start targeting Jeremy sooner. He has a lot of regrets, he says, and doubles down on his claim that he’s through with Survivor, if only as a player.

“I’m done,” he says three times. “Cut and dry, if I went back, it would be to try and win. It would be this egoic need to try and win. I feel like it’s more productive to focus on my life. … Survivor would be fun, but ultimately, the prize of winning isn’t worth doing it again. I think I’ll find more fulfillment in winning in life than winning on Survivor.”

Also through with Survivor? Keith Nale, who claims he’s retired from the game. The Ghost of Koh Rong and owner of the newly formed You Call We’ll Haul Tuk Tuk Towing Co. is the first person we see on the red carpet, and man, is he a sight. He’s all laughs, and hard to hear, thanks to losing his voice the night before. He’s still trying to piece together what happened on the night Kimmi went home.

“I still can’t figure out how my name was never written down, but I was fixing to go to the house,” he says. “I mean, I’m not the sharpest dude, but…”

He talks about how he almost volunteered to leave that night, insisting that Kimmi and her family needed the money more than he did.

“Kimmi’s a great gal,” he says. “Single mom, two little boys. I haven’t been a millionaire for 54 years. Fifty-four more ain’t going to hurt me.”

His comments solidify why I love Keith Nale: He’s a meat-and-potatoes player, someone who would prefer a straightforward path to victory over the scheming-and-plotting complexities of the modern game. “No more lying,” he said back in San Juan del Sur, an attitude that remained alive and well in Keith’s final days in the game.

In fact, Keith has no regrets about Second Chance, but he still regrets the way his first season ended, losing at the Final Four, when one more immunity win could have earned him the million dollars.

“I still ain’t over that. I’m over this one more than I’m over that one,” he says. “That’s a hard pill to swallow.”

I remember talking with Keith one year earlier, almost to the day, at the San Juan del Sur finale. He remains as laughingly frustrated with his Season 29 result now as he was then. But as I sat down to write my recap of the Second Chance finale, I started looking for my old interview with Keith, and couldn’t find it anywhere. Then I remembered why.

The same night that San Juan del Sur drew to a close, maybe at the exact moment I was speaking with Keith, someone in my family lost his life. I didn’t know it until the next night, when I was out to dinner with none other than Rob, celebrating the launch of our Survivor audio book. It was a shell-shocking moment, one that I’ll never forget as long as I live. I was on a plane back to New York bright and early the next morning, heat in my belly, slicked in sweat, fighting back tears so I didn’t look like a maniac in front of my fellow passengers. I’m guessing the internal fight only made things worse. Anyway, my interviews with the San Juan del Sur finalists fell by the wayside, with the exception of winner Natalie Anderson and runner-up Jaclyn Schultz, while I went home to be with my blood, and to say goodbye to my cousin Jeremy.

I don’t want to go too far down the rabbit hole of how I view fate and destiny, and I certainly don’t think my cousin was at all invested in the outcome of a season of Survivor. (Helping to make sure the new Star Wars is awesome? Now that’s something my cosmic cousin would be interested in.) And yet, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by the full circle moment. Almost exactly one year after the night my Jeremy lost his life, Survivor‘s Jeremy wins Second Chance, after missing his own opportunity to walk the San Juan del Sur red carpet twelve months earlier.

I did not have a vested interest in any of these contestants winning, beyond wanting to see a hard-fought and entertaining season. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling personally connected to Jeremy’s win. He played for his family, and in the moment he’s named Sole Survivor, I’m overcome with feelings about just how much mine means to me.

But back on topic. When Jeremy comes up to us on the red carpet, I remind him about the time we sat together at Ponderosa, when he told me that he did not need to win Survivor. I challenged him in that moment, and he doubled down, telling me, “This is a game. I just want to go, play, and have fun, and let the chips fall where they may.”

Somewhere along the way, Jeremy’s views changed. In the final episode of the season, he says the words outright: “I need to win.” Want became need, and I was curious if Jeremy had been lying to me at Ponderosa, or if something transformed while he was on the island.

“At the time, it was 100% real,” he says. “I was just in it to play the game. I had to get something off of me, to lose the way I lost. I just wanted to play free.”

Jeremy points to the night that he played an immunity idol for his longtime ally and friend Fishbach as a turning point. “Coming into the game, there was no way I’m playing an idol for Stephen Fishbach,” he says, almost laughing at the notion. But on the way to that Tribal Council, he decided to pull the trigger. “I know where the votes are gonna go, so why not? Just play, and ball out.”

Survivor Gods, if you’re listening, you might want to make those words your show’s official slogan moving forward: “Just play, and ball out.” Jeremy’s philosophy perfectly speaks to why Second Chance was so exciting, and why the season finale was one of the best in Survivor history. Speaking personally, I did not know how much fulfillment this season would bring me, and how much a Jeremy victory would mean to me, until finale night. To paraphrase another champion of the game, this season was huge — and I don’t know about you, but I certainly needed it.

Josh Wigler is a writer, editor and podcaster who has been published by MTV News, New York Magazine, Comic Book Resources, Digital Trends and more. He is the co-author of The Evolution of Strategy: 30 Seasons of Survivor, an audiobook chronicling the reality TV show’s transformation, and one of the hosts of Post Show Recaps, a podcast about film and television. Follow Josh on Twitter @roundhoward.