Big Brother 6: Why Rachel Lost

A few short weeks ago, I predicted that Rachel had a pretty good shot of going all the way. What happened to change things so drastically for her? How did she get evicted when going up against her own partner who had rampaged through the house? Why did Rachel lose?

As we do every week, we will answer this question by looking back at What Big Brother 6 Houseguests Should Have Learned. Did Rachel play the game well and fall prey to the mistakes of somebody else? Was her ousting her own fault? Or was it a combination of the two?

The first rule takes us to a place where Rachel did a pretty good job – scheming and plotting. Rachel was the first HOH and managed to nominate two people without suffering any repercussions whatsoever, a definite rarity this season. What’s more, she even ended up allying with one of the people she nominated and the partner of the one who was evicted under her reign.

A lot of this can be attributed to Howie becoming friendly with Kaysar & Co., but at the same time, Rachel was busy being friendly with what would later become the Fiendship alliance. It was a smart play to have one partner in each major group of allies. It would have been smarter to continue it, but when the partner secret was quickly revealed, nobody would have believed that one friend was in each alliance.

Between Rachel and Howie, Rachel was definitely the brains of the operation. She understood who should be targeted, how people should be played, what promises should be made, etc. Howie played more by shooting from the hip.

So when Rachel was put up against Howie, it made perfect sense for the Fiendship to target her. Part of the second rule says, “if any alliances do get out in the open, do not let it be known that you are the decision-maker.” While Rachel wasn’t so much the decision-maker (if she had been, some things would have definitely turned out different, as we’ll get to in a moment), she definitely should have been.

Rachel herself pointed at another issue related to the second rule that ended up leading to her eviction: Howie’s bad decision to target James and Sarah – allies – rather than going after sworn enemies. Howie made promises to Maggie and others before consulting with Rachel, and then he was unwilling to go back on it (the very next week, Jennifer had no such qualms). Even though it was Howie making the decision in that case, Rachel participated in scheming and plotting too much and backstabbing too soon.

Was James a threat? Yes. Was he such a big threat that they needed to take him out right then when they didn’t have a numbers advantage? Hell no! They battle lines were drawn and Howie had won HOH – he should have targeted a member of the Fiendship. By not doing that, it put his group at a numbers disadvantage, which eventually helped lead to the exact situation he was trying to avoid by targeting James: Howie and Rachel on the block together.

The third rule says to pretend to be nice and act like an adult. If this were “Why Howie Lost” instead of “Why Rachel Lost,” we’d have a lot to discuss here. But Rachel really didn’t have any problems. Oh, sure, Ivette seems to think Rachel is some raging bitch, but we certainly didn’t see any of that (and indeed, general opinion seems to point quite the other direction as to who the raging bitch really is). Rachel lost not because of the third rule, but in spite of the third rule.

Fourth is to not let emotions control you. Again, Rachel did fine here while Howie did not. Rachel wanted to nominate and vote based on strategy, and probably would have done a better job of it if Howie had not been around pulling the alliance in the wrong direction. But we’ve already gone over that, so let’s move on.

The fifth rule says not to be too much of a threat. Here is where Rachel faced a problem, especially up against Howie. Because the Fiendship knew who the brains of the partnership was, Rachel was more of a threat than Howie. They had already persuaded Howie once to do something that was against his interests. They knew that Howie reacted emotionally rather than rationally. While this could be annoying and downright disgusting sometimes from their perspective, they were able to put that aside and realize that Rachel was a more formidable player than Howie, which made her more of a threat.

Sixth is to be flexible. As already discussed, Rachel did a good job of this early on, with her being friendly to one group while Howie did the same with the other. And I think Rachel could have continued it, such as when she and the other members of her alliance talked to April and Jennifer about the idea of voting out Ivette rather than Sarah. However, Howie’s behavior when things didn’t go their way – starting with Jennifer breaking her promise – caused even more of a split than there already was. This limited Rachel’s flexibility significantly.

The seventh rule says to trust almost nobody. Again, Rachel didn’t have a problem here, but Howie definitely did. Since she didn’t stop him from trusting Maggie and nominating James and Sarah, that problem affected her as well.

Finally, we get to the rule that says not to be lazy or show bad habits – which had nothing whatsoever to do with Rachel’s eviction.

When Sarah lost, a large part of the reason was due to her partner, James. With Rachel leaving, we can’t pin quite as much of the blame on her partner, Howie, but he definitely deserves some of it. However, some of the very reasons that Howie would be blamed for leading them down this path that ended with her eviction are the very same reasons that the opposing alliance chose to keep Howie over Rachel! I should mention that Rachel told the others flat-out that she wanted to go instead of Howie, but if they had felt that their interests would be better served by evicting Howie, I doubt they would have paid much heed to her request.

Out of the remaining members of her alliance, Rachel was the most strategic-minded and probably the best overall player. When she failed to stop Howie from making the mistake of plotting and scheming too much and backstabbing too soon, she allowed them to change the direction of the game. Yes, it was Howie’s decision, but she had the opportunity to convince him otherwise. After that, her own strength came back to haunt her as the opposing alliance saw her as more of a threat. That is why Rachel lost.

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

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