Somewhere just this side of the middle of nowhere, there’s a woman underground, enflamed with rage and rock salt, punching forward. She punches and punches until the board before her breaks, until she rushes up through six feet of soil and emerges in the night, alive in the world again. Tired and thirsty, she allows herself a brief time-out and a lukewarm glass of water, before returning to the desert to make the person who put her in a box pay. I don’t think Kelly Wiglesworth would have any idea what any of that means — word on the street is she’s not big on movies or television — but the original Survivor runner-up could certainly empathize with Kill Bill protagonist Beatrix Kiddo all the same. They were both scorned a long time ago, brutally buried by an old friend turned foe — and after years and years of waiting, Wiglesworth, like Kiddo, is finally back on her feet and ready to settle the score. Wiglesworth, a household name fifteen years ago as one of the first Survivor players ever, is the first person Jeff Probst officially confirms for the cast of Survivor: Cambodia — Second Chance at the Worlds Apart finale, but really, it’s a formality. The premise of the new season — bringing back past players who did not win for another shot at the title — all but guarantees the participation of the person who lost against original winner Richard Hatch, if only on a cosmic level. It sure looks like Kelly agrees, evidenced by the casual calm on her face and in her voice in the seconds leading up to her confirmation. When Probst asks her how long she’s been waiting to return to the show, she nonchalantly tosses out the numbers: “Fifteen years and… do you have a watch?” With that, Wiglesworth waits no more, as she rises to her feet and takes her rightful place on the Survivor stage. That cool demeanor remains alive and well when I see her in Cambodia. She walks through Ponderosa like Wonder Woman, prowling with power and purpose, every movement an event, every eye glued on the woman who was eaten alive by snakes, rats, vultures and Hawk back in Borneo. “She looks good,” says Tasha Fox, who once upon a time found herself chasing Wiglesworth’s unsurpassed immunity win record; close, but no Gervase Peterson cigar. “She looks strong.” Everyone who speaks with me about Wiglesworth shares the sentiment — like Stephen Fishbach, for instance: “Kelly Wiglesworth is a beast, obviously. You can see it in the way she walks.” You can hear it in the way she talks, too, not that she has much to say — although that’s sort of the point. Kelly Wiglesworth, coming back to Survivor with the longest layoff between seasons in the game’s history, isn’t here for interviews. She’s not here to chat. She’s not here for television. She’s not here to amuse you. She’s here for one reason and one reason only, the same reason The Bride went after Bill and the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad: Unfinished business. “Not to sound cocky or anything, but this is mine,” she tells me when she sits down across from me in my cabana at Ponderosa. “This is my time.” Indeed, there’s no time to waste with Wiglesworth. We share a laugh and a high five over the mutual ridiculousness of our last names, and then we hop right into the thick of it all — and over the next few minutes, the breeze from the cabana’s fan does most of the talking. ON THE NEXT PAGE: The Strong Silent Type



Whatever Wiglesworth’s television viewing habits are today, there’s no doubt that she was all over the screen fifteen years ago — even if she herself wasn’t watching. One day after our interview, Kelly and the 19 other Second Chancers officially begin the game, cruising up to the marooning and throwing themselves at a large vessel packed with food and supplies for the days ahead. Kelly, famously the river guide who once lost a water challenge against a man who could barely swim in Borneo (“You sucked on that game,” an ancient voice echoes), leads the charge as Ta Keo furiously races against Bayon in a quest for rice. All this action takes place on the 15-year anniversary of the Survivor series premiere, the first episode of one of the most widely watched television seasons of all time, and the beginning of what is now an institution. That feeling of history-in-the-making hangs heavy in the air as Wiglesworth dives right off of her raft and into the sea, swimming as hard as she possibly can to bring home the grain for her tribe. Wiglesworth is a woman of action, more bite than bark. If it wasn’t obvious from her low-profile in the years since her original season went off the air, and in the weeks of campaigning leading up to her second chance, then it’s obvious when contrasting our conversation against witnessing her gameplay. She is fierce and she is fired up in the heat of the marooning — but at Ponderosa, she’s quiet. She’s friendly, but reserved. Maybe it’s because the situation now is very different from the situation then. “The first time, nobody knew what we were doing, or what this was going to be,” she explains. “The first time, it was kind of just like going on a camping trip. Now, it’s a machine.” Kelly gestures at the world outside the cabana, her fellow Survivors and my fellow press members scattered across the beach, exchanging words across cameras and microphones. “We didn’t have any of this for my show,” she says. “There was no press. There were no photos. We just went out there and we did it.” Or, as Kelly’s fellow old schooler Kimmi Kappenberg put it when I spoke with her: “We didn’t have all this happy horse [expletive] last time!” It’s not just the pre-game that’s changed, either. Even though Kelly has not spent the past fifteen years watching every single episode of Survivor — she’s been busy with her own adventures, becoming a mother among the biggest ones — she knows that the game has grown tremendously, at least from a challenge perspective. “The challenges are bigger,” she says. “Last time, they brought out a board with fruit stuck to it and said, ‘Here! Shoot this fruit with a slingshot!’ Now there are water slides and mazes the size of small towns. It’s gotten bigger and better.” Kelly says she’s ready to ransack these small towns, and anything else that’s thrown her way. She has reason to be confident; she’s one of the most physically imposing people on the entire Second Chance cast, for one, and she also remains the record-holder for most immunities won by a female contestant, surpassed by none but tied by Season 6 and Season 24 winners Jenna Morasca and Kim Spradlin. “Absolutely,” she tells me when I ask if she’s feeling good about the physical aspect of Survivor. “That saved me before, and it’s probably going to have to save me this time. I think people see me as a threat.” Kelly thinks some of the other Second Chancers are intimidated by her athletic ability, but also the history she brings to the table, as someone who hails from the very earliest days of the game. “When you think about getting to the end, you want to sit next to someone you think people don’t like as much as you,” she explains. “And I’m not saying people like me more, but I’m saying that since I’ve been here the longest — that I’ve waited the longest — people might think that any jury will give me the win over them.” She also sees how her oldest of old school status could pan out as an asset: “It could go either way. People could be really excited to play with me and want to play with me, or they might want me out first. I’m hoping for the first option.” But Kelly doesn’t have a prediction for which way it’s going to go. Even with history in the air and in her heart, Kelly has no real designs on wielding her legacy as a weapon in this game. Really, she does not have much in the way of designs at all, except for one simple plan. ON THE NEXT PAGE: Old and New Bonds

Unlike other Survivor finalists, Kelly did not have to wait months and months to find out that she lost against her opponent. She learned the news right on the spot, sitting opposite the triumphant Richard. The following season, Tina Wesson and Colby Donaldson were forced to wait until a live reunion show to learn which one of them conquered The Australian Outback. So it has been for every season since. One season later, the game changed again; in Africa, three members from each tribe were swapped over to the other side, marking the first switch-up in the history of the show. Similar twists have become par for the course since then, not featured on every single season, but most of them. The list of examples goes on and on and on, but the bottom line is this: Production-wise, format-wise and gameplay-wise, Survivor has changed enormously in the time since Wiglesworth played. Social dynamics and relationship building remain an essential part of the experience, but the importance of hidden idols and watching out for blindsides has grown exponentially throughout the years. But Wiglesworth does not view it that way. When I ask her if she’s ready for the new pace of Survivor, I’m met with shrugged shoulders, the same nonchalance she threw at Probst in the moments before she became part of the Second Chance cast. “The actual game itself hasn’t changed,” she says, and leaves it there, hanging as a certainty. A beat later, I ask her if she really believes that Survivor gameplay has not evolved since she participated in the first season. She shrugs again and maintains the claim: “I don’t think so.” “You make an alliance and hope it works out,” she tells me. “Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, you switch sides. You try to stay until the end, and that’s it. It’s the same.” If Jeff Varner is to be believed, Wiglesworth has already leaned into that strategy. Talk of the town, as a former Survivor might say, is that there’s already a pre-game arrangement between Kelly, Varner and Terry Deitz, with Shane Powers once in the mix before he was cut from the cast, and Blood vs Water veteran Vytas Baskauskas now a new member of the squad. Kelly does not say one word about any of these people. Maybe she’s trying to protect her plan. “It’s all super secret and on the DL,” Varner warned me earlier in the day. Then again, maybe she’s less committed to the cause than Varner thinks. “I live my life moment to moment,” she says. “I don’t plan. I play fast and loose, and I see how it all shakes out. I’m very prepared for that. When you get too bogged down in strategy and planning, you miss other opportunities. You’re so focused on the big picture and the journey to get there that you don’t see other possibilities of how to get there.” To that end, Wiglesworth feels like she can partner up with a lot of the people floating around Ponderosa — and she’s surprised by that, honestly. “I’m getting some good vibes from people, and going into this, I thought I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell. I thought everybody would be out to get me,” she says. “I don’t feel that way now, being around these people. I think a few people might be out to get me, but I’m feeling more people than I thought are going to be willing to play with me and stand by my side.” There are definitely players who want to work with Kelly, like Varner, who told me a story about Kelly walking past him at Ponderosa and whispering her desire to get rid of Tasha Fox right away. “Kelly is very good,” an obviously impressed Varner said, smiling ear to ear. “She is so good.” But Kelly’s first instinct is also correct; there are numerous people who are out to get her. Consider Ciera Eastin, for one, very uncertain about the Wiglesworth of it all: “She seems very smart, and I think she’s going to be a big threat. I either have to get rid of her very early, or she has to be my best friend.” Consider also Kelley Wentworth, the other KW of the season, one of Wiglesworth’s future tribe mates; name rivalries aside, Wentworth has no problem coming after the Borneo legend. “You’re just another player to me,” she reasons. And then there’s Abi-Maria Gomes. The Philippines fifth-place finisher looks into the eyes of Kelly Wiglesworth and sees Denise Stapley, winner of her season, someone she did not get along with whatsoever. Abi is not shy about her feelings on Wiglesworth: “I had a lucid dream that it was her and I at the end, and she won. That cannot happen.” Wiglesworth wants an alliance — she might already be in one — and she’s getting good vibes from the other players around her. And yet, many of the people at Ponderosa are sharpening their knives and looking to plunge them directly into Kelly’s back. Is she flexible enough to anticipate and survive that kind of attack? That’s one of the great questions surrounding Wiglesworth, who claims Survivor has not changed much at all since the first season — but in her defense, few players in the show’s history have endured evisceration quite like Kelly. ON THE FINAL PAGE: The End of Mother Nature