Big Brother 11: Why Casey Lost

Last week I noted that the first two Big Brother evictees had not been who I would have expected. Casey’s eviction made it three in a row. I’m glad I’m not writing a prediction column! How did Casey end up the third to head out the door? Why did Casey lose?

To answer this question, we will of course look back at What Big Brother 11 Houseguests Should Have Learned. Let’s see where our journey takes us.

Of highest importance is the first rule, which tells players to scheme and plot. It’s safe to say that Casey was not exactly a schemer in this house – indeed, he disliked those who have been scheming the most (namely Ronnie and Jessie). But to his credit, he did make an early agreement with Jessie and, indeed, told me in my interview with him that he had a strategy to have an ally on “the other side of the house” so they could share information and secretly work together.

This was a good idea, but it relied on Jessie standing by the plan. Casey seemed to take a fairly low-key attitude toward reminding Jessie of their agreement, which can work in cases where both parties are confident that the other will stand by it. But as we saw on Survivor this past season with the Exile Island Alliance, allegiances need to be reaffirmed from time to time or else people get nervous and decide not to worry about it. The same is even truer in Big Brother, where paranoia reigns more than Survivor.

Besides that agreement, Casey pretty much stuck by his allies, despite the fact that they were dwindling in number. Indeed, he blamed Ronnie’s backstab for losing. He told me, “Ronnie is responsible for me sitting here right now. Two things: They came to me with a plan – hey we’ve got five votes, you’re going to be the sixth, we’re sending Chima home. He switches on us, it’s five to five, Jessie votes Braden out, and I’m on the short end of the stick. That move right there is why I’m sitting here. That backstab cost me a half a million dollars.”

But the fact is that Ronnie’s backstab happened two weeks earlier. Casey had plenty of time to turn his situation around (just look at Ronnie himself – he was on top, then on the bottom, then on top, and could well be headed back to the bottom again). Casey could have done a lot more scheming and strategizing to change his position in the house.

This would seem to give us an easy answer to whether he followed the second rule, pertaining to scheming and plotting too much. But while he certainly didn’t do that, he did fail in the portion of the rule that says to keep whatever scheming you do a secret. As indicated above, Casey was firmly ensconced with his allies in the house, and everybody knew it. The alliance that was ruling the house at the time recognized that he was not an ally – which made him expendable.

Surprisingly enough, Casey also failed at the third rule, which says to pretend to be nice. Don’t get me wrong – in general, Casey seems like a fun guy. But once the house turned on Ronnie, Casey was going at him full bore. He wasn’t quite as on top of him as Russell, but he was close. At the time, it probably seemed okay, since the whole house was apparently against Ronnie. However, when the tides turned, Ronnie’s allies remembered that Casey had been one of the most vocal in his attacks.

Also, Casey told me that he could not “sheep it up” and kiss Jessie’s butt. While I certainly understand the feeling, that’s pretty much the main point of this rule – you have to pretend to be nice.

Casey’s emotions wouldn’t let him do it, though – thus bringing us to the fourth rule. Those same emotions took the lead when he attacked Ronnie. It wasn’t strategy for him to lead the charge, it was emotion. As he told me, “I don’t have any regrets about how I treated Ronnie – I should have probably treated him worse!” He later added, “Ronnie wasn’t a nice guy and deserved everything he got, and I will say that until I’m blue in the face. He should have got worse!” Those are emotions talking – emotions that needed to be bottled up so strategy could rule.

The fifth rule says not to be too much of a threat. While Casey had not shown himself to be a huge challenge threat, he was a threat to the alliance that ruled the roost at the time. Jessie believed Casey was a bigger threat to him than Ronnie – and he was almost certainly right. Ronnie did lie a lot, but he had been loyal to Jessie. Casey was thus targeting a loyal ally of the HOH.

To add to that, once Casey was nominated, Kevin was correct when he mentioned that Casey would be great to keep around because he would be relentless in trying to get Jessie and Ronnie evicted. For that reason, though, Jessie, Ronnie, and company needed to get rid of Casey. Lord knows he was more of a threat than Jordan!

Sixth is to be flexible. In a way, we’ve already gone over this ground. Casey was not at all flexible in his allies. He was with his group, even when that group was being targeted. He wanted Ronnie gone and failed to note the change in the house’s sentiments. He stayed true to what he wanted, but that ended up sending him home.

Another factor was the seventh rule, which says to trust almost nobody. As Casey told Julie Chen after his eviction, “I trusted Jessie.” Yes, he did. He trusted Jessie so much that he made a huge strategic blunder and didn’t play hard for the Veto. Bad move.

Unfortunately, Casey made a series of bad moves. He started out on the wrong side when alliances formed and decided to stay there. He made a few strategic moves, but failed to reinforce them. Then he allowed his emotions to take control of his actions. Casey went from leading the charge to being charged at, and he totally missed the switch until it was too late to do anything about it. That is why Casey lost.

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