Survivor: All-Stars – Why Jenna L. Lost

The first time Jenna L. (Jenna M. has been gone from the game so long now, I almost forgot we needed to call this one “Jenna L.”) played, she and the other Pagongs ended up like lambs led to slaughter. This time, she had a new chance to use information from six newer Survivor series and change the way she played. Rather than worrying that she might be targeted by an alliance – but doing nothing about it – she formed alliances immediately and ended up helping to Pagong a different tribe. She made it to the final episode, but that wasn’t quite enough. Why couldn’t she go farther? Why did Jenna lose?

The answer to this question looks obvious if we look at the Final 3 – the only way Jenna could possibly have continued onwards was to win immunity. The lovebirds were not going to turn on one another. However, we need to look back a bit further to fully examine Jenna’s situation. This we will do, of course, using What All-Star Survivors Definitely Should Have Learned.

Jenna knew from experience that the first rule needed to be scheming and plotting. When she was on the first series (which is going to be out on DVD this week!), Jenna suspected there might be a Tagi alliance, but didn’t act on it. Thus the origin of the term, “Pagonging.” This time, she knew better. Right away, she allied herself with Jerri to take out the previous winners. That plan changed a bit when Rudy was shown to be a liability, but the alliance held until Saboga was split up. Then, she stuck by fellow Sabogan Rupert and formed a Final 4 alliance with Amber and Rob. Beyond that, she also ingratiated herself with the couple by forming the other end of a Rob sandwich in their sleeping arrangements. It was a good plan to get her to the Final 3.

But she didn’t have a way to get beyond that, other than winning immunity, which was unlikely at best. Thus, Jenna had the same problem that Rupert did, and Tom before him – she didn’t act to make alliances outside her main Final 4/3 alliance. She had to have known that there was no way Rob and Amber were going to break apart going into the Final 2, yet she merrily went along with that plan, despite knowing she would come in third. She ignored possible alliances with Lex, Kathy, Shii Ann, Tom, and Alicia – any of which could have potentially helped her to make it to the Final 2.

It might be pointed out that it’s unlikely some of these people would have allied with her, due to personality issues, but we’ll get to that later.

In the second-to-last episode, Jenna had one more chance. She and Rupert could have joined with Tom to vote out Amber, and then hopefully Rob after her. Indeed, she brought up the subject of voting off Rob to Rupert – unfortunately, she did so when Rob was standing right there! Later, as shown in Survivor Insider, she claimed that she didn’t even think about the fact that Tom was a swing vote. If so, I don’t understand how she thought they could vote out Rob – but beyond that, it shows a remarkable lack of strategic insight to not think about the most obvious way to get rid of an opposing duo!

In any case, the point remains that Jenna had opportunities to plot and scheme outside her core alliance in order to potentially get a better position, but she failed to do so.

Thus, Jenna did not plot and scheme too much. However, she did fail at keeping her scheming secret – as we already discussed with her plotting to oust Rob while Rob was listening. This caused Rob to realize that there was a plot against him, which then sparked him to instigate the fight between Tom and Rupert, thus breaking any possible trust between them and therefore also affecting Jenna since if Rupert would not trust Tom, there was no way the three of them could enter into a new alliance together.

With regards to the third rule, pretending to be nice, Jenna didn’t do so hot. We heard from several people about how she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, about how she ordered people around and told them what they could eat, etc. These are the personality issues I spoke of above, which made it difficult for others to want to be in an alliance with Jenna, even if she had entertained the possibility. Alicia, Tom, and Shii Ann certainly were not big Jenna fans. Hell, even Rupert was sick of her and at one point wished that he weren’t in an alliance with her!

Also, even if she wasn’t interested in allying herself with them, making that many enemies is not smart, in case you end up asking them to vote for you at the end. Jenna was close, and it would have been interesting to see how it turned out if she went against Rob or Amber at the end (against Rupert, she would have lost easily, in part due to her personality issues).