Why Kathy Lost

Kathy said it herself: What goes around, comes around. She stuck with Paschal and Neleh to get rid of Sean. But then she jumped ship to go with Vee against Paschal & Neleh (of course, with it being Paschal who got the boot). She specifically talked about going into the final two, but after she fell off the posts while trying to hide her breasts, Vee suddenly forgot about that part of the deal. Just like that, Kathy was gone. So let’s do like we’ve done for every other person voted out before, and take a look back at my article, What Marquesan Survivors Should Have Learned. We’ll see how she got to the final three, and why that’s where it ended.

For a while, I thought that Kathy was Rich Hatch #2. She looked to be the first person booted out, and likely would have been if Maraamu had ever gotten their act together enough to actually win a challenge. John was certainly gunning for her, and it wouldn’t have been difficult to get the others to go along. But she held out long enough to get into a good scheming mode. Yes, she followed rule #1. She plotted and schemed when it counted. She may have been a bit naïve to believe everything that Rob told her at the ambassador’s dinner, but she went with it and confronted Zoe about the plot to boot the ex-Rotus, beginning with herself. Zoe, for her part, blew it. Kathy used this information to approach Sean, Vee, Paschal, and Neleh. At first, the latter two were skeptical. Neleh had originally planned to stick with the other original Rotu, where she had been promised sixth place or so, and was going to hope that somehow, something would change. But the coconut-cutting challenge, plus probably what Kathy told her and Paschal, suddenly changed all of that. Kathy managed to put together an alliance of misfits. She changed the course of the game. She threw out those who thought they were in power, and placed herself into that position. Indeed, when they were down to five, she held the only vote that mattered – and she also had immunity, to boot! But before going in, she didn’t try to make a specific alliance. When Jeff Probst asked her about it, she said she was waiting for somebody to come to her. Well, that isn’t exactly the best way to scheme and plot. Then, she appeared to make the decision on the spur of the moment, based on the arguments going on around her. It was not an easy decision, and there were reasons to go in either direction. But she chose to go with Paschal and Neleh.

And then she made up for it. Vee won immunity, and Kathy jumped at the chance to stick around. She would pair up with Vee and go into the final two – or so she thought. It was a good bit of scheming, even if it was (pretty much by necessity) out in the open. So into the final three she went, so sure of herself that she even discussed the final two with Vee while Neleh was sitting right there.

But she was outschemed. Vee felt she had a better chance against Neleh (and it sure looks like she was right). When Kathy fell, that was the end of it. Vee had flipped allegiances many times before, and this was just one more opportunity.

But let’s move on to the other items. The second says not to scheme and plot too much, not to backstab too soon, and not to be public about your alliances. Kathy pretty much stayed within the bounds of all of these. They certainly were not the cause for her downfall.

So, going down the list, we get to the part about pretending to be nice. Well, at the beginning she had a bit of trouble in this area, but she recovered nicely. By the time it mattered, everybody loved her. So this was also a non-issue.

Similarly, she had no problem with the rule that you shouldn’t let your emotions control you (which was definitely a major cause for Paschal’s loss) – again, at least not at the end, when it mattered. She could have joined with Robert and Sean and Vee earlier on to get rid of Paschal and Neleh, but (besides the fact that Robert didn’t seem inclined to keep Sean instead of Paschal) she seemed to want to keep up her friendship and not, as she said to her son, be “a bitch.” Still, when it really counted, she abandoned Paschal and Neleh, no matter how friendly she was with them, and jumped over to where she thought she had the best chance. But again, Vee did the very same thing to her the next day.

The final rule is to provide food and not be lazy. Certainly Kathy excelled at both of these – she was one of the hardest workers and almost certainly the best food provider. I don’t think that either of these particularly helped overall, and certainly not at the end when it counted. But at least they didn’t hurt her.

So, Kathy did pretty much all of the right things (at least once she got situated – which she was lucky to have time to do). The problem is that Vee did them better. When Kathy schemed and plotted, Vee did so as well, and double-crossed her. When Kathy jumped out of an alliance without allowing emotions to get in the way, Vee did it right back to her the very next day. Kathy was outplayed, outwitted, and in the end, outlasted. That is why Kathy lost.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline, and can be reached at david.bloomberg@pobox.com.

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