Why Carl Lost

Well, this week marked several firsts for this season. It was the first time we said goodbye to a member of the Samburu tribe rather than Boran. It’s also the first time they sent home somebody who was healthy. This, of course, makes my job in writing this column a bit more difficult.

As regular readers know, these articles are written by taking a look at my article, What African Survivors Should Have Learned, and going through the recommendations to see what people did right or wrong.

The first stop for Carl is the question of whether he schemed and plotted. Indeed, he did. He was part of a four-person bloc of elders. He tried to bring Silas in to make it five against three. Silas promised his loyalty and then turned on them. So what could Carl have done differently?

Well, he needed to somehow find a way to keep Silas on their side. Silas got it into his head that he was going to be picked off like the other kiddies, so he decided not to join up with the old fogies. We don’t really know why he decided this, but if you’re the fifth person into an alliance, odds are the others are more solid than you. Still, he might have been persuaded because they could at least have made it to the merge together. Somewhere along the line, Carl (and Frank and Linda and Teresa) failed to make good on their plotting.

The second rule is not to plot and scheme too much. Indeed, this one may have been a factor, because the elders were often off in a corner whispering to one another. That may have been one reason that Silas didn’t feel terribly safe with them. The elders knew their four-person alliance was solid, they should have just stopped talking about it and making it so obvious. It might have helped get away from the “us vs. them” attitude of the camp.

The third suggestion is for the tribe as a whole and deals with the voting pattern. This early in the game, they should have voted off a weak link. The elders tried to do just this, getting rid of the sick Lindsey. But the kids weren’t thinking along those lines. They want to get rid of Dad so they can play all day. Given that they were definitely going to vote against an elder, they should have focused on Linda, who is probably the weakest of the four – and as a bonus they wouldn’t have had to listen to the “spirit” mumbo jumbo anymore. This one may come back to haunt the team, especially if they get rid of Frank next (which is likely). Voting off the strong guys when you need to win competitions is simply not the brightest thing in the world.

The fourth rule is not to backstab until you absolutely need to. This didn’t apply to Carl, although Silas may have thought he was getting set up for a knife between the shoulder blades. Indeed, it really applies to Silas, who swore loyalty to both sides. He had to stab somebody in the back, and he chose the elders. For now, he is in a position of power with the do-nothings. But if they lose more immunity challenges, and thus more people, they are going to end up weakened and on the losing end at the merge.

In the fifth suggestion, pretty much everybody has failed – pretend to be nice. It is extremely obvious that this tribe has split in two. It seems they are barely being civil to one another – except at Tribal Council where the youngsters pretended everything was hunky dory. Carl simply couldn’t bring himself to pretend to be nice to the kids who weren’t doing any work. It cost him.

The sixth rule, against forming emotional bonds, certainly did not come into play. The seventh says that a person shouldn’t be lazy. Under normal circumstances, this is true. In past games there have been one or maybe two good-for-nothings. I never thought there would be half a tribe of good-for-nothings! In this case, doing work was actually a detriment! The exception to the rule, I guess.

So, in the end, why did Carl lose? One problem not mentioned above is that Carl had money and he talked about it. Had he kept his mouth shut, the youngsters probably would have focused on their beloved Frank instead. But they decided to get rid of the guy who didn’t need the prize. He and the other elders failed to convince Silas that he was a valued member of their alliance, so Silas abandoned them. But it all came down to one thing, a single missed question in a final tiebreaker dealing with using hot water to get rid of a tick. Carl got it wrong, and Lindsey got it right. That is why Carl lost.

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