Big Brother: All-Stars – Why Will Lost

Will came into Big Brother: All-Stars with a huge target on his back. By all rights, he should have been gone within the first few weeks, tops. But against the odds, Will hung on and took control, planning and executing one eviction after another. Just when he and Mike thought they were right where they wanted to be, the rug was pulled out from under him. How did his world turn upside-down so quickly? Why did Will lose?

Every week, we compare evicted contestants to the guidelines found in What All-Star Houseguests Should Have Learned. But this week is a bit different, because many of these rules were based off of the game play of one Dr. Will Kirby! Sure, there have been many seasons since then, but the basics have stayed pretty much the same. So let’s see how Will lived up to, well, himself.

It will come as a surprise to nobody to find out that Will knew how to scheme and plot, succeeding easily at the first rule. He came into the house with an alliance he knew was absolutely secure – Mike Boogie. Nobody else had that, and they all suffered for it. Sure, there were other alliances and friends, but none others who knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that their partner had their back.

But there is certainly more to scheming and plotting than that. After all, one of the keys of the second rule, which we’ll get to in a little bit, is not to form duos because they are so easy to nominate together. Yet somehow, week after week passed without Mike being put up against Will. It was incredible.

Will never won an HOH competition. He never won a veto. He controlled the game completely from the shadows. How many alliances did Will have? It’s a bit difficult to count. We know for sure about Chill Town. Then there was the Legion of Doom. And we can’t forget the flirtmance, Janelle. At various times he also told George and Erika they were honorary members of Chill Town. And there were probably others I’m forgetting – not to mention his various promises to people that they were safe when, in fact, they were headed out the door.

Will made and broke promises and alliances as necessary. The only “to the end” alliance he intended to honor was the one with Mike Boogie. He made others, but those promises were empty. In fact, let’s quote from this rule, looking back at Will himself in BB2: “Will started with Chill Town in BB2, but then made various different promises to different people after Chill Town was busted up and made it all the way to the winner’s circle.” Sound familiar?

As I’ve discussed at length in the just-posted Reality TV Hall of Fame induction for Will, Will is simply the best plotter and schemer ever to enter the Big Brother house.

But is it possible Will schemed and plotted too much? Could the master have been undone by overdoing it?

Well…

I don’t know that we can really say Will plotted and schemed too much. He did what he needed to do in order to get himself to the final four, after all. And in his first stint on the show, he actually became the exception to this rule, which notes: “If you spend all your time scheming and plotting, and you try to scheme and plot with everybody, everybody will know what you’re up to. In the end, nobody will trust you and they’ll turn on you. Well, in theory, anyway. As we’ve already discussed, it worked for June and Will. But that is mostly because they always managed to direct the target elsewhere.”

And that is a perfect description of what Will did – he pointed people in other directions. It was kind of like a magician – don’t look at the hand doing the work, look over here instead.

Anyway, another part of the rule says, “Will was honest in saying he would lie, but … he managed to make people think he was lying to everybody but them, so in his own way he was keeping his scheming secret.” Will managed to pull this trick again in All-Stars. A perfect example was shown earlier this week, in Sunday’s episode. Will and Mike told both Erika and Janelle the same thing, but also said they were misleading the other woman. In theory, even if the two had talked, it shouldn’t have mattered. After all, Janelle believed Chill Town was misleading Erika, while Erika believed the same about Janelle.

Here is where the problem came in. Will went a little too far in telling them both the same thing. He even used the same terms, such as mentioning ninja stealthiness. I think this is part of what did him in. When Erika and Janelle sat and talked, and each of them had virtually the same stories to tell, it began to sink in that they were being played. It’s one thing to believe your alliance partner is misleading another player. It’s quite another to hear almost the same exact words coming from that other player and quoting your own alliance partner! At that point you are forced to wonder if perhaps you are the one being played!

The third rule tells players to pretend to be nice and act like an adult. While some people might point to Will’s speech about hating everyone or his early-game whining and moaning, this was all part of his strategy – and in some cases was done for humor value rather than as serious gripes. He did act rather child-like at times, such as with the trampoline, but it was not in a way that would turn people against him, like, say, the way Howie sometimes behaved.

Will always had the best attitude of anybody about being nominated. Of course, that was largely due to the fact that he always believed he would be safe. But even when the tables were turned on him and Janelle sent him home, he seemed completely okay with it. Will managed a smile for almost everybody, and he even sent some very nice goodbye videos, probably knowing it was good preparation for the jury in case he made it that far. Will was not voted out because he was disliked.