Why Zoe Lost

What to make of Zoe? She joined the Rotu-4 alliance, but then said she never really did. She agreed to vote against Kathy but then said she never really did. She lied horribly but wasn’t much better with the truth. She made it this far, but ended up as the second member of the jury. As always, let’s take a look back at What Marquesan Survivors Should Have Learned to see what she did right, what went wrong, and why Zoe lost.

First and foremost is that Zoe – like all Survivor contestants – needed to scheme and plot. And she did. Well, sort of. She did agree to be a part of the Rotu-4 alliance. She did vote with John, Robert, and Tammy to get rid of Gabe. She did appear to stick with them throughout the next few votes.

But then she voted against John. She told Tammy that she had never trusted or liked her, and was never really “in” the alliance. She tried to distance herself from Tammy and Robert. She made it clear to the Maraamu-5 that she wasn’t in an alliance anymore. But she didn’t appear to actually try to join the new ruling alliance – she just abandoned her old one. This was when she needed to scheme the most, and she just blew it off.

But even before then, she had blown part of the second rule. She had done a poor job of keeping the scheming secret. Admittedly, much of it wasn’t her fault, as John was too obvious and Rob went out of his way to show that Zoe was part of the alliance. But she was such a lousy liar that it quickly became obvious to anybody who was within a mile of her that she was in an alliance, she had been part of the group who promised to get rid of Kathy, Paschal, and Neleh, etc. Her lies to Kathy spurred Kathy into action to join the old and new Maraamu together. She stuck by the other Rotu-4 in the immunity challenge of the previous week, when all had been revealed to Paschal and Neleh. The unmasking of the alliance was in large part her fault.

Her poor acting abilities when it came to lying also hurt her in other areas. She didn’t do a very good job of pretending to be nice. Well, she tried with the shell jewelry and the hugs and kind words, but by then it was too late. And she stopped pretending altogether with Tammy and Robert.

It’s hard to say if Zoe followed the fifth rule about not letting emotions control you. Indeed, it’s hard to say if Zoe had emotions. We didn’t really see her angry, thrilled, sad, mad, or anything. I’d swear she was a Vulcan. So I guess she probably succeeded in that regard.

She also appeared to succeed in the area of not being lazy. We never heard a disparaging word in that regard with Zoe, and it played no role in her being voted out. On the flip side, we never saw her bring home the fish, either, which most of us expected her to do given her day job. But, again, since it played no role either way, it may have simply been edited out as unimportant in the overall scheme of things.

What about the others – did they vote the right way, given that Tammy had immunity? At this point in the game, the ruling alliance should be voting off the strong who are not part of their group. Still, that left both Robert and Zoe. Neleh indicated that Zoe was more likely to win immunity challenges. At first this seemed kind of strange to me, as Robert is certainly stronger. But Robert has also shown his inability to function competitively in water challenges (he couldn’t row a boat with John, and he had problems getting the coconuts out of the water this week). I figure Neleh knows them better than we do, so we’ll go with her assessment.

Also, while Robert was sulking, Zoe was kissing ass. She might have thought she was fooling the Maraamu alliance, but apparently she wasn’t. Still, I have to wonder if perhaps some of them might have been thinking it was best to get rid of her before she perhaps did manage to worm her way into something that might split the alliance as it stood. There was no chance of that happening with Robert (or at least right now it seems that way), so he is safer to keep around.

Zoe had hitched her wagon to the wrong horse – John. She stuck by that alliance even when it meant lying (poorly) to Rob and Kathy. When she left it, she had nowhere else to go, so she was alone – unallied.

Zoe decided to abandon that sinking ship of the Rotu-4 alliance. Unfortunately, she jumped into a lifeboat that had an even bigger hole in it. Without an alliance to save her, she was quickly disposed of. That is why Zoe lost.

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