Survivor: Vanuatu – Why Scout Lost

Scout seemed an unlikely person to get past the first vote, let alone to the Final Three! Despite her physical hurdles – or perhaps in part because of them – she almost made it all the way. In the end, though, she seemed happy to go out in third place. How did Scout make it so far? Why couldn’t she take it that one last step? Why did Scout lose?

As you all know by now, we will answer that question by looking back at What Vanuatu Survivors Should Have Learned. Scout might not have been the best physical competitor, but we can learn some more about her by going through the rules listed there, one by one.

Scout said she came into the game planning to be honest, but once things started happening, she knew there were times to lie. In other words, Scout knew that she had to follow the first rule, about scheming and plotting. Scout particularly knew she had to do something when it became apparent (and Leann was foolish enough to admit) that Julie had replaced Scout in the women’s Final Four alliance. I don’t know if Ami and Leann just expected Scout to lay down and die at that point, to be happy with fifth place, or what. But Scout was not about to do either.

Instead, she set out to figure out a way to dethrone the queen. Her first couple attempts were unsuccessful, but she persevered. Eventually, she and Twila saw the opportunity when the others decided to vote out Eliza. Thus, the game was turned around.

Scout did not have to worry about scheming and plotting too much or backstabbing too soon. However, there was one part of the second rule that hurt her – she failed to keep her alliance with Twila secret. Everybody knew that they were a pair that was sticking together as long as possible. Because of that, certain options were not available to Scout.

For example, Eliza never even bothered to approach Scout with an offer of allying to get rid of Twila (she did joke about it, but I doubt it ever went beyond that). We can say (and have said, in Why Eliza Lost) that Eliza should have given it the ol’ college try anyway, but it’s not like Scout was exactly showing herself to be open to the idea.

More importantly, it gave Chris pause. He could have easily sided with Julie and Eliza to take out Scout and Twila, knowing that the elder women were going to stick together. Also, if he hadn’t been so worried that Twila would take Scout to the Final Two, he might not have had quite as much incentive to win final immunity (yes, he probably would have anyway, but you never know).

Suffice it to say Scout could have had more opportunities if she had not so obviously linked herself to Twila.

The third rule is to pretend to be nice. Scout had a few problems in this area – nothing like Twila or Eliza, but she wasn’t as good as Chris, either. From the get-go, it was obvious that Scout did not particularly like Eliza. For example, maybe she felt that “Little One” was a term of endearment, but personally I would have found it condescending if I were in Eliza’s shoes.

Also, Scout was close to Twila and from what we saw always took Twila’s side. As one example, when Eliza and Twila tried to see who could be more childish about the buried bananas, Scout made snide remarks about Eliza’s retorts.

So although Twila and Eliza were the most obvious in their failure to be nice, Scout had issues of her own.

Similarly, Scout had issues with the fourth rule, against letting emotions control you. There was no way, no how that Scout was going to turn on Twila, period. That was obvious. Because of that, it seems unlikely she would have ever even considered creating an alliance with, say, Eliza to get rid of Twila. Even though it meant Scout would not win the game, she was going to be true to her friend. That is an admirable quality in real life, but not so much when playing for a million bucks.