Big Brother 5: Why Diane Lost

Diane looked like she was a lock to make it to the Final 2 – and straight into second place. She had schemed and smooched her way past many other players who had trusted her. But in the end, it was her own in-house boyfriend who sent her packing. How did Diane go from a sure second to exiting a few days early? Why did Diane lose?

As we get down to the final days of Big Brother 5, we still will use What Big Brother 5 Houseguests Should Have Learned as a blueprint to look at what Diane did right and what she did wrong as she made her way to third place.

Diane followed the first rule well – she schemed and she plotted plenty. Early on, she was part of the anti-Horsemen/we like boys/pinky swear alliance with Nakomis, Karen, Will, Karen, and Adria. Meanwhile, she was sharing a bed with a Horseman.

Once two of the Horsemen were sent home and Natalie came into the house, she was part of the secret twins alliance with Adria, Natalie, and Drew. But she never separated herself from the pinky swear group. She knew Will, as one of the leaders of the other sub-alliance, had to go. But when Adria put him up, suddenly Diane didn’t like the idea so much (we’ll talk about that more later) and permanently switched away from the twin alliance – all the while keeping Drew, though. So when Adria and Natalie were tossed, Diane was never associated with them, and actually helped get them evicted.

For a while she appeared to ride with Karen and Nakomis, but her true colors became obvious when she formed a plan with Drew and Michael to “backdoor” Karen. She felt – quite correctly – that Nakomis and Karen would stay together til the very end, and she would never have a chance to make it to the Final 2 with them. She figured her chances were better with Drew and Michael – though it didn’t turn out that way.

Whether viewers liked Diane or not (and many didn’t), the fact is that she did a hell of a lot of scheming to get where she was. She didn’t sit back and let other people do it. She didn’t automatically assume the status quo was the best way to go. She worked at it.

But did she work at it too much, in violation of the second rule? In a few cases, yes. For example, when she was allied with Drew, Adria, and Natalie, she could have worked with that secret alliance to knock out the other sub-alliance. Instead, she helped the sub-alliance knock out Adria and Natalie. I’m still not convinced that was the right thing to do.

But most of the time, she was right on the money when it came to this rule. She kept most of her scheming secret, even managing to convince people – to some extent, anyway – that her relationship with Drew would not get in the way of her plans in the game. Ironically, Drew really didn’t let his relationship with Diane get in the way with his strategy!

One key move was when Karen was surprisingly sent out the door. It should have been obvious to Karen and Nakomis from the challenge when Michael and Drew helped Diane win. But she managed to convince them, more or less, that she was keeping Karen. Surprise! The result likely would have been the same either way, but she prevented problems inside the house by keeping it a secret.

The third rule is to pretend to be nice and act like an adult. Diane failed here multiple times – most noticeably with Adria and Natalie. I continue to believe that Diane was mad at herself for wanting Will gone, but she took out her anger on those with whom she plotted his demise. She was simply hateful towards them – it was not a pretty sight. However, in the long run, that didn’t hurt her. It could have hurt her if she had made it to the Final 2, as many people expected. Her nasty behavior was one reason most viewers had her pretty much pegged for second place – she was the one you wanted to be up against in the finals. But she never got that far, so it didn’t matter.

Speaking of the hatred she showed for Adria and Natalie, we’re at the fourth rule – don’t let your emotions control you. Diane battled between strategy and emotion throughout the game. It was a good strategic move to evict Will – she even agreed at one point. However, then she allowed her friendship with Will to enter into the picture and she became conflicted. Simply put, she let her emotions interfere with evicting Will. After Adria took care of that task anyway, Diane directed her negative emotions in that direction rather than continuing on with the twin alliance plan.

Sometimes she was able to control her emotions, as when she decided to keep Michael instead of Karen despite the fact that she liked Karen more than Michael. However, I have to wonder if her emotions got the better of her at the end.