‘Survivor Cambodia: Second Chance’ exclusive: Woo Hwang on blindside, Abi-Maria, and much more

“Survivor” followed up a big blindside of Monica Padilla with another one this week, and it was none other than Woo Hwang who was sent out the door. His elimination ultimately just seemed to be almost collateral damage for Andrew Savage, as he was not posing a direct threat so much as being a number on the other side for Kass, who wanted to use Spencer for a while. We were sad to see Woo go at this time, mostly because he brings such a different energy to the show, and he’s also a really easygoing person to chat with. We’ve interviewed him twice, and found him pretty engaging on both occasions.

This time, Woo takes us through a little bit of how he was sent home from the game, whether or not his past votes against Abi-Maria came back to haunt him, and also if he’s still interested in going back, even though he fears he’ll never be asked again.

CarterMatt – I think I’m still trying to figure out exactly what happened. I was just as shocked as you were you went home.

Woo Hwang – Going into that swap and heading back to the old Ta Keo camp, back when we were still on the Angkor side, Tasha and Savage had approached me and say ‘hey, listen. If you join with us and make the merge, you’re going to be in good hands. We’ve got a lot of alliance members still from the Bayon tribe. If you come with us, you can sit really pretty.’ They named off a few people like Jeremy, Fishbach, Joe, Ciera, then [themselves], and they said ‘Woo if you jump on, you’ll be good.’ I felt great about it.

The next thing that happened is we get swapped, and we go to my original camp. From there, I remember having a conversation with Kass catching up on what’s been going on, how relationships were on Bayon’s side. She asked me ‘how do you feel about Savage,’ and I said I felt great about Savage. I said ‘I’m on his side and ready to play,’ and then she asked me how I was with Tasha and I said I’m great with Tasha. Later after that conversation I wondered whether or not I gave too much information about Kass, because I realized that Savage did not mention Kass as one of his original alliance members from Bayon! So I’m thinking Kass probably had that same feeling towards them, and I think that the reason that she went with Ciera to vote me out was because it was her strategy to pick off some of Savage’s numbers, get Spencer to come on her side, and [she thought] that taking me to the merge would be detrimental to her game. If I got aligned with Jeremy and Joe and Savage and those guys, we would have the advantage on our side.

It was definitely disappointing to leave the game blindsided, but when I sit back and have time to recollect my thoughts, that’s the conclusion I come up with: Kass is trying to pick off Savage’s numbers and build her numbers before the merge.

Do you think that there was any animosity potentially leftover for Kass towards you after ‘Cagayan’? If nothing else, your decision kept her from getting at least second place there.

Right after the show, there was definitely some tension and there could have been some animosity from her towards me. But Kass and I had a good relationship on ‘Cagayan.’ I’m sure that me not taking her to the end [hurt] our relationship. But afterwards, we really got a chance to speak over the phone and text message, social media, and I really felt that she understood where my head was at when it comes to taking Tony over her, and I felt she was at peace with it. I thought we were able to mutually respect each other and continue to be friends.

I don’t think that was a factor in why she decided to vote me out; maybe a little bit, but I think it was more strategy for this second time around that ‘if Woo is close with Tasha and Savage, I know they are close with Jeremy and Fishbach and Keith and Joe on the other side. This is not good for me.’

I want to ask you about Abi-Maria because she was a big part of the first few episodes, but we didn’t see much of her last night. How much of a factor do you think she was in you getting voted out?

I definitely feel like me putting her name down twice was a big factor in why she decided to jump on board with Ciera and Kass and Spencer to vote me out. That’s the name of the game, man. Me, Tasha, Savage, and Abi were feeling really close the day before; we had gone through a lot of tough times together at Angkor, we lost some players on our tribe, so to see ourselves there together we had a connection. Every day changes; certain things change, talks change things here and there … There are a lot of new opportunities that are presented to you, so for her to jump on board the numbers to get me out, maybe that was part of her game to help benefit her moving forward.

I know a lot of people were really impressed with how you fought against Varner at tribal council a few weeks ago. Had you caught wind of the plan to get rid of you beforehand, do you think you could have turned it around?

Definitely! If I was presented an opportunity to speak on that a little more, and I feel like I would’ve had a good chance to save myself.

If it would have meant turning on Savage and suggesting him as someone to get rid of, would you have been willing to do that?

Absolutely. If I knew that I was on the brink of leaving the game I would have threw everyone in to hopefully convince someone not to vote out.

This game started completely crazy and I know there are a lot of people talking about how the speed of the game was different this time. Did you feel that, or was it less for you because you played with someone in Tony who was always going 200 miles an hour?

There was a different tempo between my season and ‘Second Chance.’ I prefer to play with people who haven’t played before. It was cool to utilize your social game and how well you can build relationships with people and build their trust and alliances. This time around with social media everyone knows everyone, and there are relationships that [are out there]. It’s inevitable that you are going to talk and see each other and hang out here and there.

So this time around, I knew the game would be quicker. There was talk about ‘old-school’ and ‘new-school’ ‘Survivor’ players, and there were definitely new-school players who right off the bat, day 1, Shirin, Wentworth, Spencer, Abi, were all strategizing. I guess I’m part of the old-school, because I felt more comfortable building our shelter, getting our fire together, and [all of that].

As we start to wrap it up, here’s a few quick things. Who would you want to take to the end?

It’d be cool to go to the end with someone like Abi or Kass. Those are my obvious [picks]. They mean well, but they rub off on people a different way and I feel like I could have taken one of them and had a shot at winning.

Last thing: After going through all of this twice, is there any desire to do this again?

My friend, ‘Survivor’ was the coolest, the best experience and adventure anyone will ever have. The fact that I got to take part in it twice, I feel like the luckiest person on Earth. I highly doubt they will ever call me back for a third time because I doubt the viewers want to see me anymore. They could be a little bored of over me. But if Jeff called me to play for a third time, I’d drop everything right now and I would take him up on it.

Hey, you never know! You could bust out some ninja stealth mode and return.

Hopefully the show can stick around for another ten years, I’ll be 41 by then, and they can do a cool ‘Heroes vs. Villains.’ Instead of being young Woo I’d be old Woo, so it’d be fun to see how that turns out! (Note: This was a nice play on words by Woo, whose name is actually Yung.)

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In closing Woo wanted to give a shoutout to his Instagram; you can follow him here to see his future adventures.

If you want some other news when it comes to “Survivor,” including our interview with Terry Deitz, be sure to head over to the link here! Also, you can sign up here to get some other TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)