Survivor Ghost Island has arrived! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the castaway most recently voted off of the island.

“I think we’ve survived this so-called first phase of the game. From now on, it’s a race to the merge and beyond. What happens today can be critical to everyone’s gameplay.”

Little did collegiate track star James Lim know that his own race to the merge was going to get cut short before the pivotal final lap as he spoke these words on Day 15 shortly before drawing new buffs in the season’s second tribe swap. His run had been far from perfect up to that point, spanning from costing his tribe immunity to helping mastermind a blindside to take his group from the minority to a position of power. Unfortunately, his talk of the next switch being critical to his gameplay came to fruition, as he found himself back in a familiar setting on Malolo, but now on the outside looking in at a tight trio. When they lost the next challenge due to another single screw-up, this time from Desiree Afuye, those original bonds held steady enough to send James packing.

James came into the game with one of the highest IQs across 500-plus Survivor contestants, but host Jeff Probst worried that might not carry over to emotional intelligence, in a game where relationships are critical. Luckily, he was able to fit in well enough in the initial stages of Malolo that he never became a target when Malolo lost the first Immunity Challenge. But soon that spotlight would turn promptly in his direction, as he struggled in the next challenge to dive down and progress his tribe forward. He eventually received reluctant aid from Donathan Hurley, a moment that proved simultaneously ecstatic for Donathan and demoralizing for James. Though Malolo received a gift-wrapped sacrificial lamb in Jacob Derwin, the majority alliance led by “lion” Brendan Shapiro chose to throw a couple of votes James’ way in case Jacob played his own gift-wrapped idol after going to Ghost Island. James took no offense to this, as his strict Korean upbringing before moving to the United States on his own ingrained in him a mentality to take ownership of his own mistakes.

On Day 7, a tribe swap gave James a change in camp, as he moved over to Naviti with his tribe members Donathan, Laurel Johnson and Libby Vincek. At first glance, the quartet was on the outside looking in, up against five members of Naviti who had never gone to Tribal Council. But a fault line existed underneath the high-rise camp, as growing resentment between Domenick Abbate and Chris Noble led the two to attempt simultaneously to rope in the newcomers. When Chris got sent to batting practice at Ghost Island, the alliance of Domenick, Wendell Holland and Morgan Ricke chose to take the opportunity to cut off his throwing arm, and decided to target Angela Perkins. Originally, the former Malolos were willing to go along with the plan, until James realized they had a golden opportunity in front of them. With those three voting for Angela, and Angela voting for Libby under the impression the Navitis were sticking together, the minority group was in power, and they took advantage of the numbers to hang the aquatic Morgan out to dry. Though the Malolos were now the kingmakers in Naviti camp, James couldn’t help but look over as, on the other tribe, his former tribe members were easily led to the torch snuffer by a tight group fronted by Kellyn Bechtold and Bradley Kleihege. The second swap had him reuniting with Michael Yerger, who admittedly was not his strongest ally in the beginning and bringing Angela with him to join up with Desiree and Kellyn. Angela was clearly in the middle of two pairs, as she was original Naviti, but had bonded with James and was still resentful at the idea of tribe loyalty after the actions of her first Tribal Council. Knowing he was on the chopping block, he tried to paint Desiree as a target for her puzzle struggles. But it turned out he was as blind to the actions of his tribe as he was during the blindfolded Immunity Challenge, and similarly ended up over a barrel (though hopefully with less pain to his lower body than in the actual challenge). His entire tribe, Michael included, had their heads, hearts and guts pointing in James’ direction, choosing long-term loyalty over short-term strength and sending him out.

Now out of the game, James talks with me about if he would have instead swapped over with a different member of original Naviti, why he considered every three day period a “sprint,” and what Survivor taught him about dealing with imperfections in his life.

So you had a strong reaction when the votes came in, tilting your head slowly and looking over to your left. One could argue that look would be for either Michael or Angela, who you expected to vote with you. Was it for anyone in particular?

That was mainly to Michael. He was sitting directly to my left at Tribal Council. I walked in thinking that I did my job flipping Angela and that it was going to hopefully be a 3-2 vote for Des over myself. The whole blindside reaction was more about the fact that it was a 4-1 lopsided unanimous vote. Obviously, I was one of the big targets, but I didn’t know. That look was more of a reaction towards Michael, my own Malolo brother, flipping on me.

So in spite of that shock, when Jeff snuffed your torch, you turned to the tribe and said, “Great blindside, guys. It’s been a true pleasure playing with you. Good luck.” Did your emotions change between that initial bombshell and when you got up there?

Jeff told me that apparently when I gave those dagger looks, he saw in my eyes that I processed in that split second, “What the hell?” Then, “Wow, I was just voted out of Survivor,” to an appreciation for the game. Apparently, he could see that change in my eyes. I’ll have to go back and take a look. But I blacked out. You hear from a lot of castaways that when you hear your name come up and you’re voted out, you black out. I think it was more my actual intuition coming out. Listening back, it was a good representation of what I truly felt. I respect good gameplay, and I respect every one of them as people and friends. So I’m glad I was able to give them the tip of my cap before walking. It wasn’t shown, but I shook Jeff’s hand and told him, “Thanks for everything”; I really felt compelled to do so. It was a profound moment for me.

As you said, Michael was the other original Malolo with you on this tribe. I’m assuming you didn’t know about some of the stuff he was doing during the first swap, but you said on the show that the two of you weren’t close. Did you give any thought to throwing him under the bus to the others, knowing you had the deck stacked against you?

That definitely occurred to me. Michael and I did bond, and I did get a vote from him [in the second Tribal Council], but it was more of a vote that we as a tribe agreed on. But I saw quickly that Des and Michael were really tight. They were napping together in the shelter all day long. Meanwhile, Kellyn, Angela and I were looking at each other like, “I have no idea what’s going on.” I knew it was going to be hard for me to throw him under the bus because he already had nine days under his belt with Kellyn and Desiree. If you look at it in terms of the tribe split, I was on the bottom not only with the OG Malolo/Navitis but also the swapped tribes. I was there with Angela, trying to navigate through Michael, Kellyn and Des. And we now see that Michael had completely flipped to Kellyn and Des to save himself. It was possibly the worst tribe swap that could have happened for me.

Let’s talk about that. Put yourself back at the second swap. Let’s say that you had your choice of any of the former Navitis who were on your tribe to come with you back to Malolo: Angela, Chris, Domenick or Wendell. Who do you choose?

It’s hard not to be results-oriented, obviously. [Laughs] But I feel that at that moment, I thought I had a good bond with Chris and Angela. The pitch to Angela was, “We saved you.” We had some deep conversations personally as well, aside from the gameplay, to the point where I thought we were on the same page. On Naviti, us Malolo four were rock solid. Libby and I were working the Chris/Angela angle, and Laurel and Donathan were working the Domenick/Wendell angle. Then we would come together and debrief. If it were somebody like Chris, we would have acted together. I respect the hell out of the guy, and he respected me as a player, so it might have been a different outcome. But I did think that with Michael and me together, I could have [swayed] Angela. And I think I made a pretty solid pitch, but obviously, it wasn’t enough.

Talk to me about Angela. In my exit interview with her, Morgan seemed to allude to the fact that she didn’t know what was going on. This episode, Kellyn talks about how “she doesn’t know what’s going on in her own head.” What are your thoughts about playing with her?

[My thoughts on] Angela changed throughout my time with her. There was a big moment on about Day 16 when she finally opened up and came out of her shell. She told me these deep stories about her service, her family and her divorce. I, in turn, shared my story with her of moving back to the U.S. and living my American dream. That was a very powerful moment. I actually got to see the real Angela come out. I [wish] that bond we formed could’ve helped me strategically, but personally it was great for me as well. We connected on a pretty profound level. I just wished that she made the right choice for me. [Laughs]

Let’s rewind to your time on Naviti. As you mentioned, you used the “divide and conquer” mentality between the two pairs of the tribe. But if push came to shove, who would you have sided with had you gone to Tribal Council again?

I think it would have been a group decision. I would have left it up for the four of us to reach an agreement; I didn’t have a strong preference either way. Our game purpose was to keep that war raging on. So let’s say if Donathan says, “I really want to keep Domenick,” I would have been fine with that because we’d still have a majority. The plan was once we make a choice, then we have a 6-2 majority, which allows us to split votes 3 and 3. One of my big regrets looking back is [not] throwing both challenges. We could have saved Brendan, we could have saved Stephanie Johnson and we could have destroyed old Naviti. It was a great feeling to orchestrate the Morgan boot, but I should have kept on pushing and going back to Tribal to make more moves with my allies.

Was there something telling you not to throw challenges? Just the idea that you had been to three Tribal Councils straight and didn’t want to go anytime again soon?

It was partly that and partly that, as new players, we need to have this mindset to pull the trigger. While I had that for the third Tribal, we had Tribal Council fatigue. And winning felt good! You saw Domenick and I beat Kellyn and Bradley in a puzzle, and part of me thought, “What if I pulled a Peih-Gee and Jaime in China and said, ‘Look, we’re going to Tribal’?” We should play as if we’re returning players. As a newbie, it’s hard to pull the trigger on a crazy bold move like that. I wish I had done that.

Where you were shown to come up with this idea of taking advantage of the momentary numbers to get a plurality of votes against Morgan. How difficult was it to get all the other former Malolos on the same page, especially when Libby had a close connection with her?

The swap put us in a minority position, but it was great to see I was with three other Malolo allies that I was already close with. It was so great to see that, and even in that tough position, it brought us closer together instead of breaking [us] apart. We were rock-solid. The one difficulty was to convince Libby. I pushed for it because I saw Morgan and Libby grow close, and I could see the bond forming in three days. I knew if we had let that go on, Libby would easily flip on us and choose Morgan over myself. So I thought it was the right time to throw the votes onto her and push a narrative that “We have your back, Libby. We need to have the same target.” For me personally, coming from a disaster on Day 6, it was an amazing feeling to help my own allies and redeem myself in that manner.

I saw a Secret Scene last week where you talked about relating the game to your running background. In it, you said you treated the entire Survivor season as a marathon, but treated every three-day cycle like a sprint. Can you elaborate on that?

I’m really glad you brought that up. It’s a mentality that I developed as a sprinter. There’s the overall journey that is drawn out. When you’re out there, it feels like each day goes on forever and you just want to eat and sleep again. Where I’m coming from with the whole sprint analogy is that there are these key moments that allow you to come through and shine. It could be [in] challenges, Tribal Council or a piece of game conversation. I think there were some moments where I stepped up and did my job, and obviously some moments where I couldn’t. Our mentality as players early on was, “OK, let’s make it through the next Tribal. Let’s just make it to the merge.” We all shared that mentality. It’s sad I didn’t get there, but I treated every cycle as a sprint. Do whatever I can to finish that race, then move on to the next one.

Throughout your time on the show, we saw that you were close with Laurel. Is it safe to say that she was your number one ally before that second swap?

It was a toss-up between Laurel and Donathan, and Libby is there as well. Us Malolo four were tight. You see the conversation Laurel and Donathan have on the beach [during the coffee reward]. Libby and I joined them soon afterward, and we had an incredible conversation that I’ll never forget. It was so deep and emotional. That’s when I knew they were truly my ride or dies; I was going to take them to the end. But if I have to choose one, it’s a toss-up. I would probably say Laurel. We just thought the same way, and she was such a calm, genuinely nice presence to have along with me on the beach. I knew she went to Yale; she did not know I went to Harvard. We forged Survivor’s first Harvard/Yale alliance. Fishbach confirmed that for us. That was an amazing run I had with Laurel.

Truly building bridges among the Survivor Ivy League community! In your Day After video, you talked about how in the real world you were a perfectionist, but the imperfections that happened in your game affected you profoundly. Can you elaborate on the life lesson you learned from that emotional journey?

I had such high expectations for myself coming into Survivor, and I thought, “Oh, I’m going to make at least the merge, probably the loved ones visit, maybe get to final six or something.” I think we all come in with that high bar set up for ourselves. It turns out that I choked in a challenge on national TV and was fighting from a minority spot for a long time. But those adversities helped me push myself beyond my limits. I’d say because I had to fight so hard and claw my way into the game, it made me grow as a person so much more than I would have if I had a cruising journey to the merge. In that sense, I’m sad those setbacks ended up having me becoming the sixth booth. But ultimately, in terms of a personal standpoint, it was a thrill to experience. It was humbling, and I am very grateful for it.