Survivor: Vanuatu – Why Lisa Lost

Rory was the odd man out. Eliza failed miserably in the reward challenge. Leann failed even more miserably in the immunity challenge. And Lisa? Well, Lisa was voted out. What the heck happened? Why did Lisa lose?

Believe it or not, there is actually an explanation. And of course we can find it by looking back at What Vanuatu Survivors Should Have Learned!

The first rule we find there is to scheme and plot. Lisa did some of this throughout her stay on the show. First she was a member of the youngin’ alliance, despite the fact that her age really should have put her with the elders. Then, when she saw that her alliance had an unreliable member in Eliza, she created a backup plan to jump ship before Eliza could, thus avoiding the possibility of a tie.

However, such behavior could be taken as a violation of the second rule – scheming and plotting too much. She was on an alliance and made a big deal about how Eliza had double-crossed them in voting off Dolly. But then she turned around and did the same thing. This obviously didn’t put her in good stead with Eliza, who hypocritically whined about it for much of the following episode. And in voting against Lisa, Eliza said (as seen on Survivor Insider), “Cross me once, shame on you. Cross me twice, shame on me.” So obviously she was still upset about it.

The way Lisa switched sides might also have stuck in Ami’s mind. Under normal circumstances, an offhand remark like Lisa made when Ami was going to get the manioc should not have set somebody off. We’ve already seen that it doesn’t take much to set off Ami (since she works in a coffee bar, perhaps her problem is caffeine withdrawal), but going off on Lisa for that little comment seemed a bit over the top… unless she already didn’t trust her, which was apparently the case. It’s not 100% clear why, but we’ve seen before that people who jump ship from one alliance to another might not be fully trusted by everybody on the new alliance – witness Brandon on Survivor: Africa.

Another part of the second rule is to keep your scheming secret. Immediately after Ami had obviously gotten upset with her for the comment she made about going with to get the manioc, Lisa opened up her mouth again and answered the question of who she wanted to vote off. She might have thought she was among friends, but it’s always better to listen before talking. If she had found a way to turn the question to Ami, she might have realized that Ami didn’t want Eliza gone, and could then have perhaps gone along with whomever Ami was thinking about (presuming Ami wasn’t going to say “Lisa” right then anyway – though as blunt as Ami is, maybe she would have). It was at least worth a try, rather than blurting out an answer that might upset one of the people she was talking to.

The third rule is to pretend to be nice. Lisa appeared to do a good job of that – at least until her slip of the tongue was misinterpreted by Ami. The one time that we saw when she really didn’t keep her feelings inside was in her repeatedly saying she didn’t trust Eliza after the Dolly vote. That wouldn’t really have been a big deal if she hadn’t then done the exact same thing Eliza did by jumping alliances!

Fourth is the rule to not let emotions control you. While Lisa did get upset at Ami saying she wanted to vote her out, and Ami tried to blame her for that, I don’t really think it was an issue here. Ami seems like the kind of person who would have taken the other road just as easily – if Lisa had not shown that she was upset, I could have seen Ami saying, “Well, you sure don’t seem too upset about me saying I don’t trust you, so I bet I’m right not to do so!” This didn’t play a role here.