Survivor: The Amazon – Why Did Rob Vote Out Deena?

In both my recap of the ninth episode and Why Deena Lost, I discussed the question of why Rob chose to vote off Deena instead of sticking by his super-secret alliance partner and getting rid of Alex. Basically, the answer I came to was a big “I dunno!”

E-mails started to roll in quickly, with a number of people putting forth suggestions on why Rob voted for Deena. Almost all had the same main point: Because that’s what he told Matt earlier in the episode, and to switch would have caused problems.

I must admit that I briefly thought about this while writing up the other articles, but I didn’t ponder it too long. Now I think it’s time to do so.

At the very beginning of the episode, Rob talked about how he would lead Matt on wild goose chases in order to keep his mind occupied and thus be unable to figure out what’s really going on. The chase in question this time was that some of the women wanted Deena gone. Matt gobbled down this information as eagerly as he would later swallow various insects, and passed it on to the next link in the chain, Butch. Meanwhile, Rob told the others his great story of how he was leading Matt on and how Matt had bought it hook, line, and sinker. They all knew Matt was going next, so there was no big deal, right? Wrong.

How bizarre was it that Rob’s fairy tale came true? So now Rob was left with a choice – tell Matt that plans had changed and that they would be voting for Alex, or just leave things as they stood and vote off Deena. Recall also that Rob had earlier been feeding Matt the story that it was Rob, Matt, and Alex in the final three, so telling Matt to vote against Alex would have necessitated some ‘splaining.

Let’s take a look at what a couple of the e-mails I received had to say, and I’ll add some of my own comments as well. We’ll begin with Alex (presumably not the one on the show!), who said:

Rob set Matthew up to scheme against Deena – this was the "wild goose chase" errand that he fed to Matthew. The dynamics of the game shifted after that point, and suddenly Rob was faced with his core alliance wanting to vote Deena off, plus the red herring plan he fed to Matt (and further to Butch) to vote Deena off. If Rob went back on the plan he fed to Matt, where would he be? He would have revealed himself as duplicitous and would have lost Matt's trust. Rob had no choice but to go along with the majority of his alliance, especially since he had already sown the seeds of Deena's ouster with Matt and Butch. This ended up being a brilliant back-up plan which improved Rob's position in the game, since he started it as a ruse, but ended up being able to use to his advantage (and to further gain the trust of Matthew). Now the question is, will Rob remain faithful to Alex, Jenna and Heidi, or will he use his power over Matthew (and by extension Butch) to pull a political coup over the power alliance? Rob still stands solidly in the middle of the tribal politics, and he will be the deciding vote in how the game plays out next week.

Rob would still have had his secret “to the end” alliance with Deena, he would have had Matt (and therefore Butch) on a leash, and they could have gotten rid of Alex – a major challenge threat – and then Heidi and Jenna. Christy and Butch have shown no indication that they scheme or plot at all, so they wouldn’t have been threats. Rob would have been in a great position. Instead, he is faced with being the fourth person in a four-person alliance (Heidi, Jenna, Alex, Rob). Sure, he could pull a political coup, as the e-mail suggests here, but will he? I don’t think so. For as much as Rob has talked about strategy, in almost every case he’s taken the easy way out. He did it with Roger early on, he did it with Deena here.