Big Brother 5: Why Scott Lost

It was a glorious day as a stunned Scott was voted out of the Big Brother house! He was so absolutely certain that he had power in the house, that he was the most well-liked in the house, that he could convince anybody to do anything in the house. Now he’s out of the house. Of course, that means it’s time to examine just why Scott lost.

As always, we will be looking back to What Big Brother 5 Houseguests Should Have Learned to see where Scott went oh so wrong.

The first, and most important, rule is to scheme and plot. Scott did a lot of this, as he was one of the Four Horsemen – an alliance that had a pretty solid control of the game early on. The four members of this alliance were not quite on the same page, but they followed the rule of quickly gathering an alliance so as to avoid being isolated: “The key is to find some way to create alliances that will keep you around until you can figure out your full strategy later.”

The problem is that Scott never moved on to figure out any other strategy besides, “The Four Horsemen Rule!” Meanwhile, the members of the alliance have been drifting apart. They all voted to keep him in, but the real drift happened the week earlier, when Drew stood up to Jase and they all agreed to get rid of Holly.

Which leads us directly to the second rule, specifically the portion that says you shouldn’t backstab until you absolutely need to. Even Julie Chen, not exactly a master of strategic discussion, pointed out to Scott in his exit interview that Holly could have been the vote that saved him if she had still been around; of course, Jase mentioned it as well in his goodbye video.

Sure, Holly wasn’t actually a part of their alliance, but she was a vote in their favor. On the other hand, she was, in some of the Horsemen’s minds, getting in the way of the alliance. Indeed, later in the game it could have become a problem. But Scott won’t ever see “later in the game” – other than from his own living room like the rest of us.

Scott also blew the other portions of the second rule. He schemed and plotted too much and he did not keep it secret. Indeed, he pretty much rubbed it in people’s faces by the various threats and promises he made. In his final interview, he even admitted to Julie Chen that the power went to their heads. Ya think?

Scott and Jase became the power “couple” in the house. No, they weren’t that kind of couple (though sometimes you sort of wondered), but they were an obvious partnership. Plus, the other alliance felt that Scott had a lot of influence on Jase and Michael, meaning he was at least partly viewed as a decision-maker. All of these are bad signs if you want to stay in the game.

Scott also failed pretty miserably in the third rule. He did not pretend to be nice. He did not act like an adult. And he did drink too much. When his alliance was in power a couple weeks ago, he rubbed it in people’s faces. He interrupted a discussion involving other people to tell Diane that she had as much power as Saddam Hussein had over his own people. (As I noted at the time, if Saddam Hussein had no power over his own people, why didn’t they overthrow him? Why did they need the U.S. to come in and take him out? But let’s ignore that for these purposes.) Diane told Scott that they were having an intellectual conversation before he walked in, and he interrupted again to say if they were having an intellectual conversation, what was she doing there? He then went on to call her trailer trash. This was only one example of Scott’s behavior.

Anybody who watched the show, not even to mention the live feeds, knows that Scott did not act like an adult, either. He was like a kid on a sugar high, often bouncing off the walls or doing bizarre things. And the way he acted about Holly liking Jase instead of him harkened back to junior high.

Do we even need to mention the alcohol? I mean, to Scott, beer was more important than any food item. ‘Nuff said.