cassidy clark made her game plan known from the first episode. Stay behind the louder voices, but don’t sit around and let others determine the rules. The fashion designer had sketched out a strategy that got her to the Final Three, impressively dodging bullets and becoming the challenge queen of the season along the way. But unfortunately, it came down to the others who «determine the rules»: The jury. Though they commended Cassidy for her game, ultimately they were not fans of what the fox had to say, giving her a runner-up finish.

Part of the successful Coco tribe, Cassidy remained largely under the radar the first third of the season. That is, until one thing happened that would continue to define her time in the game: Her name got brought up. She became the target of  geo and Ryan Medrano throughout the premerge. But the bullets they fired were purely blanks, as she was covered in a vest of protection from and . The trio soon took control of the game when the tribes merged, forming a solid cross-tribal majority. And though Cassidy lost her number one ally in James, she was able to cancel that out with a win when she survived over Ryan, feeling her revenge tour had completed.

But it had only just begun. People in the game saw her and Karla as a tight duo, and she could not escape the spotlight. Luckily for Cassidy, she started to win clutch Immunity Challenges, keeping her safe in very rough waters. And things were made even rougher when she found out that Karla was now targeting her, a seed planted that Cassidy had told others about Karla’s idol. Now estranged from her Day 1 ally.

she took aim at those louder voices she had been behind all season long, including a dramatic effort to dispose of her friend-turned-enemy. When Cassidy won the final Immunity Challenge, her plan was simple: Get jesse out. She was successful in that mission, using mike to do it. But it surprisingly left an odd taste in the jury’s mouth, as they felt it was once again her hiding behind someone else. Despite an effort to talk up her game at the final Tribal Council, only James gave her a vote in the end.

After the finale, Cassidy spoke with Parade.com about her surprise in losing to Gabler, the downfall of her relationship with Karla, and what she wishes we saw in the edit.

Yeah, it’s a lot. I think I have had some time to process it. But honestly, I go through a lot of cycles with it, where I like to think I come to terms with it., and then I like question everything again. And I mean, I think the fans’ reaction, it does give some solace, I guess. But it’s never going to feel the same way as if I had won.

Well let’s start with that end result. How confident were you by the time the final Tribal Council had finished, and did it surprise you when you saw seven Gabler votes come out of the urn?.

I think one of my mistakes in the game was underestimating Gabler and how much people liked him. And I think going in, me and Owen were both under the impression that it was going to be potentially between me and him, which obviously was our fatal mistake.

But when Gabler was at final Tribal and he was just so enthusiastic, and I could tell he was making people laugh. It just seemed like everything he was saying was being received well. Whereas everything I said felt like they were there was a wall up. It felt like it didn’t really matter; it almost felt like they had already made their decision before they even got there. And to see them so open with Gabler and then closed off to me. I wasn’t feeling super confident by the end. I thought at the beginning I had a really great shot of winning. And by the end it was like, «I honestly don’t know what’s gonna happen here.» But seeing it be such a landslide for Gabler, that definitely hurt.

I think that was the biggest moment where I felt a little bit like people were jumping to Gabler’s defense. There was a moment you didn’t see after I talked about the Ryan vote. And then I believe afterwards I had talked about how I had convinced Cody to vote Noelle out. And he agreed with me. That was something he was on the fence about

What I did do was, when Noelle took the other guys on the reward, I convinced Cody that Noah was a big threat and that she needed to go. And like that was the conversation, the decision, the moment, that was what convinced him. And I talked about that at Tribal and he agreed with me. So I was able to still give them that moment. They just didn’t show it. But generally having that reaction, I was like, «Damn!» Obviously we only see what we see, and we don’t always know what’s going on behind the scenes.

To me, it seemed unfair. Because the example we have is Chris Underwood, who got voted out really early. He wasn’t really involved in the game all that much. And he had to do that to be able to have any type of chance. And so to me, I feel like I’ve played a good game up to this point, I really do. And I don’t think that I deserve to give up my necklace and risk going out at Final Four. I didn’t feel that confident in my firemaking.

So it felt like a slap in the face that that’s what they needed for me. Because I really did feel like I played a great game, especially considering who I was sitting next to. Obviously, I didn’t play the best game of the season. But who you end up with and the game you play, it actually matters a lot. And I felt like against people I was with, I had a really good chance. And so I was like, «I don’t feel like I need to do that.» And obviously, there’s part of me that looks back and regrets that and wishes maybe I should have done that. Maybe that would have secured me in a million. But at the time, my perception was that Gabler was not getting any votes. And that was on me. But I do think that him winning fire was not going to be enough. And if I lose fire, how much would that suck?

It was tough because it didn’t really get shown. But I was considering Karla as a threat to my game midmerge. I knew she had the idol before Jeanine got voted out. I just held on to that information. Because first of all, if I told her that I knew, I had a feeling she was going to try to target me without me knowing, which is exactly what she did. But I also was like, «I feel like I could potentially use this information to get her out of the game.»

Because I was looking at our games, they were very similar. Atthat point, we had both had won immunity. But she had the idol. And she was really good at speaking and  being persuasive. So I was just worried about sitting next to her in the Final Three. So there were moments where I had talked to Sami about eventually doing a Karla vote. But the timing wasn’t right when he was trying to go after her. And I tried to explain that to him. And then whenever he got caught on the wrong side of those voting for Karla, that’s when he threw me under the bus.

So I wasn’t totally shocked that Karla was trying to vote me out after she heard that. But the way that she came after me, especially at Final Five, the conversation was a lot less intense than you saw. But things got really heated between us after the reward. And she was basically telling me, «If you vote me out, like I’m gonna slander your name to the jury.» And it really hurt to hear that. Because we had played so much of this game together. And we were really close up to the point where we started coming after each other. And so it was it was hard to watch that relationship crumble. And then to see her vote for Gabler, it really did hurt. (Pause.) I’m still processing that one, to be honest with you.

Oh, it was not coincidental at all. I mean, there may have been a smidge of luck involved that whenever I push these names that people were in agreement. I mean, that was also me actively positioning the people and putting them in other people’s minds as threats. But whenever there was a chance to get out anybody who talked about writing my name down or wrote my name down or whatever, I never forgot.

I was always like, «You’re a loose end in my game. You’re a threat. I have to cut you before you cut me.» Because if you’re coming after me once, it’s very easy for you to try to come after me again. And so whenever any of the Noelle, Ryan, Cody votes happened, I was pushing those names as hard as I could basically when the time came. Because I was like, «They’re just stuck to my game, and right now, that’s the best case scenario for my game at the time.» And it was, it was great that it aligns with other people’s gameplay as well. But those were intentional votes.

Yeah, watching it back, it was there was actually more times than I realized, how close I came to getting voted out. Whenever I heard my name and heard people talking about it, obviously you get nervous. But you don’t see the full edit. So I didn’t see how much of a consideration there was, especially at the Ryan vote. I mean, it even came up with the final Tribal, about how they had made that decision to vote either me or Ryan based on who was voted out first. I didn’t obviously didn’t know that; they didn’t tell me that.

So moments like that it was kind of shocking to hear. But at the same time, I had heard my name so many times that it was just like, «Oh my god, when are we going to find somebody else to go after?» I didn’t understand why my name was coming up so much. But at the same time, I was part of a powerful tribe at the beginning. And then there were the three of us working together. So I sort of understand at the same time. But I was a little bit surprised by how often my name came up.

Yeah, I think that it’s hard. It was tough to see very little of my gameplay, my strategic gameplay and my relationships, shown, because that was such a huge part of my game. And I feel like I had agency on a lot of the votes. And I never sat back once and said, «Just tell me who to vote.» Gabler did that so often. He’s like, «Just tell me who to vote for.» And so for me, in my mind, that’s just somebody who’s letting other people make the decisions and then just going with the flow. I was actively pushing the target that I had in mind every single time. And I’ve worked really hard. And so that’s another reason why I guess I didn’t perceive him as much of a threat.

But I worked really hard, strategically and socially. And then you obviously can’t hide the physical because I won three immunities. But I feel like I worked really hard in all of the aspects of the game. And so it was a little bit hard to see that I didn’t get very much of that content shown. But at the same time, I’m grateful for the moment that I did have. And I feel like I didn’t get an overall negative edit. But I do wish that people had seen that I had more agency in the game, because the viewers’ perception is just what they see. And I think that if they had seen more of what I had done, then I think people would have gotten it more.

Yeah, I mean, that was such a beautiful part of it. Just to know that people say to me, «You played an amazing game,» the fact that people can see that. Even though a lot of the stuff that I wish was shown wasn’t, the fact that they could still see the game I was playing, it meant a lo. So, so much to me. And I feel like just having that backing, having that support, it really made the whole experience so much more positive. And I’m super grateful for all the people that believed in me, even when a lot of other people didn’t. I mean, it really is just an incredible feeling. Of course ,everybody wants to feel supported and loved. But the overwhelming amount of love and support I got, even though I feel like I wasn’t a huge character in the show, it meant a lot that people could still see that in me.