Survivor: Palau – Why Katie Lost

For a long time now, Katie has seemed like a lock for the Final Two – and just as much a lock for second place. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened, though it certainly didn’t occur as anybody would have predicted! But why did that outcome seem so certain? Why was Katie destined to lose?

As always, we will discover the answers to all our questions by looking at What Palau Survivors Should Have Learned. And also as always we will start with the first rule, which says to scheme and plot.

Katie seemed to have a plan for plotting in mind from the beginning. She said several times that her goal was to always stay with those who were making the decisions. When those people were no longer in charge, she would jump to the people who were. Thus, she hooked up quickly with Tom and Ian and swore loyalty to them until the end. Of course, she didn’t really mean it – as she apparently planned to jump to Gregg and Jenn when it looked like they were controlling the game, or to a women’s alliance if it looked like they could control the game.

That type of game play can work in some instances. However, in this case she happened to pair up with two people who truly valued a promise (though Ian wavered on that later on). So they were not particularly pleased when it looked like Katie was making a jump. Still, if she had stuck to her idea and formed a women’s alliance, it still might have worked.

Instead, Katie slipped and showed her true stripes the same time Gregg did, in the reward challenge where she knocked out Ian and Gregg took her along for the ride. Basically, she violated the second rule by backstabbing too soon – though it was not the type of backstab we normally think of in that context. In essence, she showed Ian that she was not as trustworthy as he thought. Furthermore, she was scheming and plotting too much and Tom and Ian could smell it.

However, Katie didn’t pay the price for it. Gregg did first, then Caryn, and eventually Ian. Even in the final jury, Katie didn’t have to pay for her game play – only one question of the seven jurors addressed the way she played as opposed to the way she behaved or other issues. Only Jenn asked Katie about playing the game as a strong woman. Katie said several times that she played the only card she had in the game, but most of the jurors didn’t seem to really care about that.

They were much more concerned with her violations of the third rule, pretending to be nice. We saw how nasty Katie could be, such as when she was making fun of Janu. But it seems we only got a glimpse. In my interview with Caryn, which has not yet been posted to the site as of this writing, I asked Caryn if we saw the real Katie. Caryn said no, “the TV portrayal did not show the true day-to-day, minute-to-minute mean-spiritedness of Katie... it only gave a glimpse.” Yikes! No wonder the jurors were hard on her!

This was what really guaranteed Katie second place. She could have done just about anything for the latter half of the game, and she probably would have been taken to the Final Two. People knew that they could point to her as somebody who just rode coattails. But beyond that, they also knew how the other players saw her. Janu was not going to vote for her no matter what. Gregg called her “pathetic.” Caryn said she was phony, cruel, lazy, mean, and unkind. Even Coby, her lone vote, verbally smacked her around when he addressed her.

So we know the jurors had plenty of negative emotion about her – did she let emotions get in her way? It’s hard to say. Some people believed that Katie was using emotions as leverage over Ian, but I think the finale pretty much made everybody discount that. I think that Katie did get overly involved at an emotional level, which in my mind makes her behavior worse. She criticized Ian for doing – or thinking about doing – all the same things that she was doing. She was a hypocrite. And in the end, I don’t think it was strategy that made her grasp on to Ian, I think it was the same emotion that made him grasp on to her.

At least Katie certainly didn’t have to worry about the fifth rule, being too much of a threat! She was quite the opposite of Ian and Tom in almost every way. Unfortunately for her, that also went for the sixth rule, which says not to be lazy. We didn’t really see much of it leading up to the finale, but both Gregg and Caryn mentioned in their jury questions just how worthless Katie was around camp. It was obviously weighing on their minds.

Katie did know, however, that she needed to follow the seventh rule and be flexible. As we already discussed, she planned to jump alliances when the time was right. She had the right idea, just poor execution.

Katie was the perfect foil to take to the jury. Not only did she do horribly at challenges, not only was she lazy at camp, not only was her strategy the same as a parasite’s, but she was disliked by much of the jury! It was the perfect recipe for somebody to take her to the Final Two. It was also the perfect recipe for a second-place finish, not a million-dollar win. That is why Katie lost.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other Survivor: Palau Finale articles:

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

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