Survivor: The Amazon – Why Matthew Lost

Fourth is not to let your emotions control you. Frankly, it was hard to tell if Matthew even had emotions! He was so intense all the time. He never really seemed upset, but never seemed emotionally happy either. So I guess we can count this one as a success – he certainly didn’t let emotions get in the way. Even at the end, after Rob had tutored him all along, Matt might have taken Jenna to the final two. He knew at that point he had to play the game and couldn’t worry about loyalty.

The fifth rule was where Matt blew everybody else away. He was never lazy and he was always providing food. He was valuable to the tribe and provided a service that people didn’t really want to lose. Indeed, this was one reason I thought he would do well at the end – he supported these people for weeks. But also as I noted in the article, “In theory, food providers and other hard workers should be held in higher esteem. But, overall, it still ranks at the bottom of the list as compared to the more ‘political’ issues discussed earlier.” Matthew found that out.

So after all of this, why did the jury vote for Jenna? I’ll address this more in “Why Jenna Won,” but there are some things that Matt did in the jury phase that may have worked against him. One of the jury members told me that while we didn’t see it on TV, Matt went on and on and on to the jury. He did not give succinct answers to why they should vote for him and not Jenna. He had some good answers about why they should vote for him (because he worked hard) and not her (she didn’t), but that wasn’t enough. He needed to tell them all what they wanted to hear.

On the flip side, he also, in my opinion, should have stood up to some of the crap the jury, especially Alex, slung about not being honest. Give me a break. Alex was lying around as part of the majority alliance while planning to vote out Matt. Matt managed to turn it around (with Rob’s help, of course) and Alex is mad about that? Get over it! It was like he was misdirecting his anger at the way Rob played the game. But Matt gave in to the anger and in his final words talked about how he realized he hadn’t played as clean as he thought, etc. Frankly, if I had been on the jury, I think I would have respected him more if he’d stood up to questions like that.

I realize this runs counter to the advice in “What Amazonian Survivors Should Have Learned.” There I said, “Apologies, in general, are good. Say you’re sorry to those you ran over to get there. … Point out that it was nothing personal, but you only acted that way for the game.” He could have apologized for voting out Alex while still insisting that he played the game without unnecessary lies and deceit. Then again, Alex is the one who earned a Hall of Shame Moment for being too honest with Rob, so I’m not sure that anything would have convinced him. Still, other members of the jury might have been swayed – though admittedly, it would have taken three of them!

The jury generally said that they voted for Jenna because they felt she had played the game the best while Matt had just tagged along until the end. The past could not be changed by that point. Matt might have been able to focus more on his game play and how “playing” is not just strategy but also working, but it’s impossible to know if this would have worked on anybody.

The die had been cast earlier in the game. Matt, through his own admission, didn’t really know how to play. The jury decided to vote based in part on personality – certainly in the cases of Heidi and Alex, probably Dave as well – and in part on game play – in the cases of Rob, Christy, and Deena. Matt was unable to outdo Jenna in either area for the right jury members. That is why he lost.

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

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