Big Brother 5: Why Lori Lost

Lori wanted to leave. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to leave. She didn’t want to leave. We just wanted her to make up her mind! Finally, the other contestants on Big Brother 5 made it up for her – she left. Now it’s time for us to look at why that happened.

As we do each week, we will look back at What Big Brother 5 Houseguests Should Have Learned to see where Lori went wrong, where Lori went right, and why Lori lost.

The first rule, of course, is to scheme and plot. Lori did a fair amount of this and was the ringleader of her own little alliance with Will & Karen for sure and Nokomis & Adria/Natalie & Diane as probables. If Holly had remained on the block against Lori, it seems likely that Lori would have stayed and I would be writing “Why Holly Lost” instead. However, once Jase won the Veto and removed Holly, with Marvin putting Lori’s ally Karen up in her place, it took away Lori’s ability to stick around by scheming.

Could she have tried to plot Karen’s exit? Sure. But what could she have done? Promise the Four Horsemen that she would side with them? They’d never believe her. They would simply think she was desperate to stay (which would have been exactly right). Even if she had convinced Will, Adria/Natalie, Nokomis, and Diane to vote for her, that’s still only four votes. She needed one of the Horsemen or Holly, and it just wasn’t going to happen at that point.

Indeed, if she had tried, I might be writing about how she schemed and plotted too much. Instead, I will talk about how she failed to keep her scheming secret, because that is part of the reason Lori was voted out. She was, as Jase so modestly put it, a female version of him. She had pretty good control of her alliance. The problem is that the opposing alliance knew it. To quote Rule #2: “This also leads to a corollary to this rule, which is that if any alliances do get out in the open, do not let it be known that you are the decision-maker.”

Furthermore, as both Lori and Karen recognized, Karen was put on the block because she was part of what appeared to be a partnership. And what did I say about partners? “Let’s face it, open partnerships … are just begging to be split up, especially in a game where each week two people are nominated.” They were an open partnership. And Lori paid the price.

In general, Lori did okay with the third rule in that she did a good job of pretending to be nice. Even Michael, one of the Four Horsemen, said she was “like a sister.”

However, she failed in the fourth – not letting emotions control you. As noted in the first line of this article, Lori went back and forth about whether or not she wanted to stay in the game. She was on an emotional roller coaster, but it was everybody else who got nauseous. When she was up against Holly, her allies convinced her to stick around because they had the votes. But when she was up against Karen, she was all over the map as to what she wanted. She was friends with Karen, so she didn’t want to campaign against her (though, as I’ve already noted, I doubt it would have made a difference). So she wanted out. But then she wanted to stay. She was conflicted and let it show. Even if people had been considering letting her stay, her behavior pushed them towards a vote for eviction.

The fifth rule says not to be too much of a threat. We heard from both Jase and Scott – neither of whom is known for their small egos – that Lori was a threat to them. Marvin nominated her for the same reason. As already mentioned, Lori was known as the ringleader of the second alliance in the house. That made her a threat to the Four Horsemen. Marvin also felt that she would target him, which made her a threat in his eyes as well.

Lori was not lazy and didn’t appear to have any particularly bad habits, so the sixth rule is not applicable here.

Seventh is to be flexible. Lori really didn’t have much chance to jump alliances, since the Four Horsemen seem to trust nobody but themselves (and maybe not even all of them). But one place she did have a shot was in the very first food competition, when she was offered $10,000 to make everybody in the house eat peanut butter and jelly. She took it, thereby putting a big target on her. To be honest, I was somewhat surprised she made it past the first week. But after that, it was something that continued to weigh on the minds of some people. Marvin, for one, hated the PB&J diet, and almost certainly hated the fact that Lori profited from putting them through it.

On the other hand, Lori won $10,000 for playing for three weeks. It will take the second place winner three months to end up with $50,000. And all the others make much less. So in terms of time and money, Lori didn’t fare too badly. If she had not taken the money, the option would have passed down the line. Would somebody else have taken it? It’s impossible to know.

So in terms of an investment, maybe taking the $10,000 wasn’t too bad – it was money in hand as opposed to a possibility of money later. But this article isn’t about investments, it’s about winning it all. So when Lori took that money, she gave the others 10,000 reasons to want her out of there.

Finally, we have the rule that says to trust almost nobody. Lori trusted Will and Karen, for certain. Others she talked to and obviously some of that talk made it around the house. That’s how the Four Horsemen knew she was the ringleader. That’s how Holly heard that Lori didn’t want to leave before she did. Loose lips sink ships.

One of the things about Big Brother that differentiates it from its cousin Survivor is that having the numbers on your side doesn’t always mean you’ll win. Nobody has ever Pagonged another alliance on Big Brother, because as long as one person remains, they can win HOH and put up two of the opposing alliance members.

However, first they have to win HOH. So far, the Four Horsemen have done a good job of preventing the opposing alliance from doing that. Jase and Scott, though obviously ringleaders and obvious partners in crime, have to date avoided going on the block because their allies have controlled the nominations.

Lori was not so lucky. Her alliance has yet to win an HOH. Indeed, they have yet to win any meaningful competition. She made herself a target by being so obviously the leader of the second main alliance in the house. She didn’t help her cause by taking the $10,000 PB&J bribe or by going back and forth about whether she wanted to stay or leave. However, both of those are somewhat ancillary to the fact that her potential power was a threat to the Four Horsemen and to Marvin. They couldn’t let her even have the chance of acting on it or of organizing a solid counter-strike. She was simply too much of a threat. That is why Lori lost.

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

Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site! And take a look at the rest of the site. You can find out about some other popular shows at our The Amazing Race 5 page and our Last Comic Standing page; and don't miss The Reality TV Hall of Shame. You can even buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store!

For more news about reality TV, be sure to check out SirLinksALot!