Survivor: Samoa – Why Brett Lost

Brett was the last Galu standing on Survivor: Samoa. How did he make it to that point and why couldn’t he take it just one step further? Could he have done anything differently to get to the end? Why did Brett lose?

Whether a player is one of the Foa Foa four or the last true Galu, I still answer questions such as these by going through What Samoan Survivors Should Have Learned to see what a player did right and where he went wrong. It’s easy to simply say that Brett lost because he dropped the statue in the final immunity challenge, but that ignores all the issues of how he got to that point and why he so desperately needed to win. So let’s figure it out.

The first and always most important rule for Survivor players is to scheme and plot. We certainly never saw Brett do that, but then we didn’t see Brett do much of anything! However, I do think we can make some reasonable conclusions by the fact that so many players talked about having alliances with him after they were voted out (at least Laura, Erik, Dave, and Monica come to mind – and probably others). Indeed, Brett specifically told me, “I was tied with Erik, Dave, Kelly, Laura, decently close with Monica.”

He got to that point by adapting the way he dealt with each individual player, being either strategic or playing more on emotions. This sort of behavior may appear to be more tied in to the social game found under the fifth rule, which deals with pretending to be nice, but it actually fits in better here. He changed the way he behaved in order to form alliances with people – that’s definitely scheming and plotting. Plus, some of these alliances were working against each other – such as the guys vs. the ladies – and Brett acted as a go-between, bringing information to Laura that she wasn’t supposed to know about. Sneakiness!

Mind you, none of these alliances had to be tested because there was never an opportunity (except for his alliance with Erik, and that vote was foisted on him by other allies with no real chance to fight it). He never had to make a true choice between the different players as he would have if the Galu would have been smart and dispensed with the Foa Foans before turning on themselves. But once the Foa Foans took over the game, it was a matter of voting out Galu after Galu, so Brett just hung with the Galu until he was the last one standing.

Brett’s actions even let him out of the criticism I leveled at so many other Galu members regarding their too-early backstabbing of Erik – because Brett was really given no choice in the matter and couldn’t do anything to turn it around. It seemed like he knew it was a bad idea, but it was also an idea that was going to happen with or without him.

As such, Brett did fine with the second rule. Even with his multiple alliances, he never came off as having schemed and plotted too much. Again, this is probably due to the fact that he never had to, but that’s the way things went.

Obviously, having multiple alliances like he did means Brett gave himself maximum flexibility, in accordance with the third rule. Not to beat a dead horse, but unfortunately for him, he never had a chance to use that flexibility, so the point became moot. But hey, the guy was trying.

The fourth rule says not to allow your emotions to control you. From what we could see, that wasn’t an issue for Brett. Yet again, though, he didn’t really have a chance to worry about it! Still, the fact is that he made alliances/friendships with people in his tribe who were on opposite sides of the fence, so he had to know that somewhere along the lines he would need to turn on one of them.

We already briefly mentioned the fifth rule, which talks about the social game and pretending to be nice. Brett certainly had that one down pat – I don’t think we need to say any more about it.

He also had the sixth well in hand, because until the end, nobody considered him a big threat. That’s what allowed him to be the last Galu standing – the Foa Foans weren’t nearly as worried about him as they were about Laura, Dave, John, etc.

According to Brett, this was by design. He told me that he knew at some point he’d need to win challenges. But until that point, he purposely didn’t win because he didn’t want the target on his back. Smart man!

Of course, once he became “the last true Galu,” he finally was the biggest threat. Everybody there knew, 100%, that if he made it in front of the jury, he would win hands down. This meant there was almost no chance any of the Foa Foans would agree to a deal that would involve him making it to the final three. While Russell seemed formidable, any of the others could at least try to argue against him (and in Natalie’s case, succeed!). They would have had zero hope of arguing against Brett.

So does that mean the Foa Foans made the right choice in voting Brett out? Heck, yes! No doubt about it.

It also means that if Brett had won just one more challenge, he would have won the million dollars. The proximate cause of his loss was indeed the fact that he dropped the statue – just as Rob Cesternino fell off a board or Stephen dropped a ball last season. But there were many factors leading up to that point. Brett played the game wisely and in a wily enough manner to make it almost to the end. But by doing so, he went from the least threatening to the most. There was no chance of him finding a way around it once he lost that challenge. The others were simply too scared of him, and rightfully so. That is why Brett lost.

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