‘Survivor Cambodia: Second Chance’ spotlight: Can Stephen Fishbach win it all?
We try to be as unbiased as possible in these “Survivor Cambodia: Second Chance” spotlights, but we should preface this one with a few things that we’ve said in past articles over the years: Stephen Fishbach is probably our favorite player of all time. He’s not only entertaining to watch, but he employs a strategy similar to how we would want to play (we’re not sure it would be done anywhere near as effectively) and is the sort of player we always want to root for. There’s also the fact that the first “Survivor” article we ever wrote was about the “Tocantins” finale, and that it was his gameplay coupled with people like Kenny from “Gabon” (who we also related to on many levels) that made us want to transition from being a viewer of the show to a writer about it online.
Now, it’s time to take a deep breath and talk about Stephen’s chances this season. We can’t just proclaim him the winner because we like him; we’re pretty sure that he’s a longshot to even make it to the end this time around. Despite some serious disadvantages going into the season, we do at least think he has a shot to make it further than some out there are projecting.
History lesson – 2nd place, “Survivor: Tocantins.” At times on the show he was known as the fish-out-of-water guy who came down from New York without any survival skills. The avocado scene is obviously super-memorable. However, what we remember him for is an incredible social game throughout, making strong alliances including the cross-tribal one that contained himself, Taj, Brendan, and Sierra. It didn’t end up going anywhere, but it was one of the more interesting threads of the season. Despite entering the merge behind in the numbers, Stephen, JT, and Taj managed to convince an eager Timbira tribe to cannibalize itself, eventually giving them the majority. Stephen only had one vote cast against him, and that was a throwaway vote by Erinn. Unfortunately, he could not get any votes for him at the final tribal council, as he struggled to relay his game to the jury and make them realize that he was a huge reason why he and JT were sitting there. (To be fair, it felt like many of the jurors had their mind made up before even entering tribal council that night.)
What worked last time – Being exceptional at reading people, contributing enough in the challenges to never be perceived as an enormous liability, and making alliances in the early going. Stephen’s strategic game gets a lot of attention, but he is just as good of a social player. He’s got a sharp wit and a good sense of humor about himself, and he’s one of those people you just want to have around. In a way, there was something endearing about his lack of survival skills the first time, because it gave people like Coach a chance to flex their ego a little bit.
What needs to change – Stephen’s one of the few people where going into this season, he doesn’t need to change much. His biggest failures the first time were simply not winning an immunity challenge against JT late in the game so that he could take him out, and then not expecting JT to be as aggressive as he was in the final tribal council. He needs to find a way to echo what he did well up until that point, which is going to be rather hard given the circumstances.
Potential obstacles – This is where it’s tough for Stephen. He’s not just the under-the-radar nerdy guy this time. He runs a strategy blog for People Magazine, and does a weekly aftershow with Rob Cesternino on Rob Has a Podcast, one of our favorite venues for all things “Survivor.” Everyone is well aware of him going into this season in terms of how he thinks about the game, and there may be some sort of underlying mentality of “let’s show him that he’s not so smart, after all.” It’s actually something that Rob encountered on “All-Stars” from Boston Rob and company. When you look at his Bayon tribe, it’s hard to point to who would be his JT this time around, even if we could see him getting along with Ciera and Tasha. (Remember, we did project yesterday the Ciera would be an early boot.)
Prediction – Obviously our heart wants to say that Stephen will make it to the end again, but with the target on his back we just don’t see it. We do think that he will find a way to make it to the merge just on the strength of his ability to communicate and formulate plans, but at that point, nobody’s going to want to take him any further. It used to be that you got rid of huge physical threats right away at this point, but that’s changed in recent history. He’s our pick at the moment for the merge boot.
You can check out the rest of our “Survivor Cambodia” spotlights now over here; there’s a new one coming every day! Also, sign up here to get some more TV news on everything we cover sent your way, courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)
