‘Survivor Cambodia: Second Chance’ exclusive: Stephen Fishbach on Spencer blindside, edit, Joe, and more

We’ve made it no secret on CarterMatt over the years that Stephen Fishbach is one of our favorite players in the history of “Survivor.” We appreciate his view on the game, we find him extremely entertaining, and personally we probably relate to him on a higher level than anyone. He plays similar to how we imagine we would want to play, though whether or not we’d be anywhere near as successful is something that we highly doubt. (We’d be lucky to not be evacuated before day 2.)

Suffice it to say, it was a thrill to speak with Stephen this morning following the Thanksgiving holiday. We covered probably as much ground as you can within our allotted time, though there is so much more great information out there! We recommend perusing all of the exit press today.

CarterMatt – I read your People blog (note: the most recent one is here) and listen to you on ‘Survivor Know-It-Alls,’ and it’s well-known you’re pretty [active] in your discussions about the game. How much did you get a sense beforehand that other people were targeting you, almost in a ‘he thinks he’s smart, we’ll show him’ sort of way?

Stephen Fishbach – I think it was hard. I had a big target on me. You saw it! Out of the gate, Savage said ‘I don’t trust Fishbach.’ Everyone had that perception of me. Out of the gate, I really tried to mitigate that. I went to everybody; I went to Savage, I went to Jeremy, I went to Joe, I went to Ciera, and I said ‘look, I write this blog and one of the things that I say is that it’s important for people to stick with their alliances, and if you’ve ever read my blog, you know that’s true. I 100% believe that solid alliances help you get to the end.’

I don’t think that worked, actually. (Laughs.) I think everyone still was like ‘yeah whatever, you’re a super-strategist and you’re going to screw over us all.’ To Savage’s credit, obviously at some point I did want to screw over them all. I think I [just] had a big target on me from the beginning, and I think it was hard for me to ever recover from that. I was always trying to do damage control.

Do you think that there are a lot of people who did not really understand the sort of game you played?

I totally think that. I think if you look at my game, I’m the perfect person [to work with]. I’m super-loyal to my alliance, almost obsessively so, and I think that this was probably true this time, as well. I think because of how people [think of] strategy, with flips and flops and blindsides and counter-blindsides, they immediately [attach my identity to that] without assessing how I play. It’s obviously wrong, but it ended up hurting me.

I haven’t really articulated this before, but I think Savage really contributed to my getting voted out. Even though he was long gone by the time I left the game, the fact that he was targeting me, the fact he added my name to the list of names who kept coming up to be eliminated. Everyone was discussed, but no one was really talking about getting rid of Tasha! It’s Fishbach, Ciera, it’s Wentworth, it’s Joe. It wasn’t Kimmi, it wasn’t Keith, it wasn’t even really Jeremy.

Hey, you can at least give Savage credit for learning how to pronounce your [last] name.

(Laughs) Yeah, exactly.

How did you react to the fact that it was Spencer who [betrayed] you and got you out? I don’t know how close you were before the game but I know you at least had to know each other a little bit.

We talked a lot before the game. We even made a fake Twitter account together to throw shade on some of the other pre-game alliances. I thought Spencer and I were friends going into it; he voted against me, but I had kind of thought that was an aberration because we had talked, and we were trying to stay away from each other because together we were such a threat. After that vote against me, we spent a lot of time talking and trying to hash things out, making our plans of how to move forward in the game together, and having really personal conversations, too. So I felt ‘okay, we’re back together again, the superpowers are here to stay, we’re going to run this game together.’

I absolutely didn’t see it coming. I don’t blame Spencer for the move; I blame myself. I made a bad strategic assumption based on sentimental reasons. Spencer was not blinded by that.

How much harder is it to make these moves when these are friends outside the game? I feel like it has to be about a thousand times harder than anyone who watches at home thinks.

It’s true. Watching it it’s like ‘who cares, vote Spencer out,’ and even watching Aras and Gervase [in ‘Blood vs. Water’]. Because you’re not in that situation you don’t know what it’s like to be Aras, trying to trust Gervase, your friend, and then be blindsided by him. I was personally hurt, but I wasn’t angry at him or anything. I understood it. I more blamed myself.

It is hard. I mean, I spoke to Spencer before the game and was like ‘no pre-game alliance.’ I want to be free of everything and I wanted to play the game with people I didn’t know. Then you can make decisions [without that burden]. I don’t think I would have been blindsided by Spencer had I not been friends with him. I would have voted him out instead of Monica. He was the biggest strategic threat, he’s a physical threat. [I would have thought] ‘why not get rid of this guy now,’ but because I liked him I made bad choices. That’s all on me. He is not culpable for my decision-making, I am responsible for my bad choices.

Going into this season I never imagined that I would be doing an exit interview with you talking about the weather (laughs), but here we are. How hard was it for you emotionally in all of that rain?

It just wears you down. It wasn’t even that it was raining; it was just that it was raining so hard for days. Tocantins it probably rained more than it did out [in Cambodia], but in Tocantins it would stop, it would be a light rain, we could make a fire and we could make food. I hadn’t slept or eaten in three days, and so by that point in the game you’re not making decisions. Your brain is shutting down, you’re not processing information. Those two days that I was out of it sick were like a big black spot for me. I never figured out what happened, and I always felt like I was scrambling, trying to put together the pieces of what went on. Someone said Jeremy said to vote for me, Tasha said Jeremy said to vote for me. So Jeremy told Tasha to vote for me and he played an idol? I never figured it out.

Has Dan Foley cursed the ‘Survivor’ advantage?

Here’s the thing. After that happened I was like ‘s–t, now everyone’s going to make Dan Foley comparisons.’ Not that there’s anything wrong with Dan Foley.

I think the problem with something like an advantage is that it puts such a huge target on you, and there is such a small chance that you are going to play it right. You can get blindsided with it in your pocket, you play it too early, you play it for the wrong person. The situation where you play it perfectly and it benefits your game is so much smaller than the situation where you misplay it or it hurts your game. It’s so hard to know with limited information, so much went into every decision, exactly where people are voting. If people want to fool you, they can fool you and it doesn’t take much time. It’s a 30-second conversation. The day of the Ciera vote, Joe and I had a long conversation about whether or not it should be Abi or Spencer. He spent a long time debating that with me, and that was really smart. You just don’t know!

How did you feel about your edit early in the game? You know, Joe was depicted almost as this god of ‘Survivor,’ and they were showing you struggling with the tree and having problems. To be fair, I would have been a million times worse.

You have to laugh at yourself. There is no other alternative. It’s funny! I thought it was funny. It’s exaggerated, but that’s what being on TV is about. Your best and worst moments make TV. I don’t love that I had clown music playing over me (laughs), but it’s funny too. The [hard part] comes when people come with hostility on social media, being like ‘you suck,’ obviously you try to brush that stuff off but it takes a toll. I was cracking up when I saw that.

I think I have time for two more questions. Let’s start with Joe. What made him so hard to get out? Was it just that he was never vulnerable, or is there something great that he was doing in the social game?

I actually think it’s a combination. I actually went into the game liking Joe, and obviously my mom likes Joe because everyone’s mom likes Joe (laughs). I went in wanting to align with him. But it quickly became apparent that Joe and Savage were targeting me very early on at Bayon. Jeremy told me that Joe and Savage were after me, and after that I was like ‘screw that, you’re out to get me, I’m out to get you.’ Obviously I didn’t, but that was my fear and that’s why I was targeting him.

I think that people actually think that Joe is beatable in the end, and I don’t agree with that, but that’s why they are keeping him in the game. They think that they can beat him later.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve said on Twitter that you’re done with playing ‘Survivor.’

I’m not [going back]. It was a wonderful experience, I am so grateful for it. ‘Tocantins’ was actually a transformative experience for me, and with ‘Second Chance’ it was so cool to play again, to get voted in by the fans, and play at the highest level with some of the best players. I’m grateful for all of that, but it takes a toll. I like a stable life, I’m kind of an introvert, so I would rather be in my apartment criticizing others than putting myself out there for criticism.

So what do we have to do to get you back on? Do we need to find a family member of yours to go out so you can be the family visit?

(Laughs) Yeah, that’s what it would take! I would go out for the family visit.

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We’re going to have an interview up later today with Ciera Eastin over at this link, so stay tuned! Also, you can sign up now over here to get some more TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)