Why Tammy Lost

So, the next member of the old Rotu-4 alliance (or, as the voiceover introducing tonight’s episode called it, “John’s alliance) is gone. Is this a surprise? No. Well, not now, anyway – I had picked Tammy to win back before the show started and then again just after the merge. Ah well. Who knew a few of the others would actually smarten up?

Those who got enlightened are still there, but Tammy isn’t. As always, let’s look back at my article, What Marquesan Survivors Should Have Learned to see what she did right and what she did wrong. Why did Tammy lose?

First and foremost, did she scheme and did she plot? Oh, yes! As already noted, she was part of the Rotu-4 alliance. She appeared to be second in command, and was probably planning to stab John in the back later in the game, after the others were gone. Certainly, she seemed to have Robert on her side, since he said this week that she was “like a sister.” But all of that went for naught when the others caught on and cut off the head of the alliance.

Even then, she tried to hook up with somebody else. She talked to Zoe to try to keep her in line. Didn’t work. She talked to Paschal and Neleh to claim that John didn’t speak for her and Robert. Didn’t work. She may have tried to get Sean and Vee on her side this time – we saw Sean and Vee talking about the possibility, but never actually saw Tammy talking to them. In any event, it didn’t work. So she tried, but she just couldn’t pull it off.

And why couldn’t she pull it off? Because she violated the second rule – the part that says, “Keep Your Scheming Secret.” The Rotu-4 alliance was far too vocal. And even worse, as we’ve noted in previous articles, they fell prey to Mark Burnett’s immunity challenge trap by telegraphing the order in which they likely planned to vote everybody else out. It should be noted that Tammy was the one who won immunity in that challenge. The awakening in Paschal and Neleh that it caused brought together people who otherwise would have opposed one another, and turned it into a counter-alliance that brought down John, then Zoe, and now Tammy. She couldn’t win immunity forever.

What about the fourth rule, pretending to be nice? Tammy definitely made some efforts to get along. Even when Rob and Sean were sitting around doing nothing shortly after the swap, she brought food to them. She’s a reporter and knows how to deal with people. But she’s also a competitor, and that always showed through. She did her best, and this wasn’t what did her in.

Similarly, she managed to control her emotions to a great extent. When she saw the danger of being voted out, she tried to turn it around. She did everything she could. Robert moped. She controlled herself well and, again, this was not the reason for her undoing.

Finally, she certainly was not lazy. She was one of the workers in the original love tribe, and from what we saw, she continued it right up until she was voted off. Even when she cast her vote against Vee, she was complaining that Vee didn’t carry her weight.

Did the others do the right thing in voting off Tammy? Absolutely. They are still in the stage where you want to eliminate strong players outside your alliance. Tammy is strong in the political arena, and she is strong in the challenges – shown by her having won the two previous immunities. Besides, Robert had immunity, and it is not yet the proper time to start turning on one another within the alliance, though Sean and Vee did seem to be contemplating it.

In the end, her downfall came for the same reasons as John and Zoe – they telegraphed their moves and showed their hands to the others. By making the alliance an open secret, they lost the edge they needed to move forward, and went from being the hunters to the hunted. One by one, they have been picked off, and unless he wins immunity again, I would put good odds on Robert being next. They made the right moves in forming an alliance, but made exactly the wrong ones by making that alliance obvious to one and all. That is why Tammy lost.

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