Big Brother: All-Stars – Why Erika Lost

Erika tried to claim a lot of credit in the closing days of Big Brother: All-Stars, but it appears the jurors didn’t buy it. Should they have? Did Erika play more than anybody thought? Or was she really the coattailer the jury thought? And regardless of what her actual game play was, why did the jurors think that? Why did Erika lose?

We’ve been here all summer long, looking at each All-Star as they were voted off. Each time, we looked back at What All-Star Houseguests Should Have Learned to see what they did right and where they went wrong – usually there were more wrongs than rights. Now we’re talking about Erika, the last loser of the season. Let’s see where this takes us.

As everybody knows, especially this season, the key rule is to scheme and plot. And by the end, Erika certainly knew that was the #1 important factor in determining a winner. While many finalists on shows like Big Brother and Survivor plead with jurors, apologize for voting them off, etc., that was not the case this time around! Both finalists were proud to proclaim themselves the master strategists. Both claimed to have made numerous alliances in getting to the final two.

But did Erika’s claims stand up to scrutiny? She indicated that she manipulated Mike as much as he manipulated her. Who did we see in the diary room saying it was all for the sake of the game? That would be Mike, not Erika. She was proclaiming it true love. What about her claim that she orchestrated Danielle’s ouster but made it look like Chill Town did it? Oh please. We saw absolutely nothing to make us believe that one.

There were many other examples of such claims, but more important than whether we believed it is whether the jurors believed it. Maybe Erika knew damn well that she was lying to the jurors and was just doing it to try to get votes. Time will tell on that front. But is it possible that Erika did such a masterful job of playing people that they didn’t believe it when they told her? I suppose it’s possible, but I just don’t think so. The jurors knew what they saw and they knew how Erika played the game – or was played by the others in the game. She did not come across as somebody who schemed and plotted, but rather somebody who was used as a pawn.

Therefore, it seems fairly obvious that Erika did okay when it came to the second rule, which says not to scheme and plot too much. Similarly, Erika didn’t backstab before she needed to because, well, I don’t think it was something she planned ahead!

The third rule says to pretend to be nice and act like an adult. I think in general, Erika did a good job of playing well with others around the house. In fact, I believe she was counting on this to get her some votes. Look at the way she talked to George – I’m sorry, “Georgie” – in answering his final question. She was kissing up to him bigtime, hoping their friendship would lead to his vote. Nope. Not in All-Stars.

It seems that only one person voted with their emotions – Marcellas. Big shocker there, I know. Still, being nice to him at least won her that vote. And she didn’t lose any votes due to not being nice, which is usually the way this rule works (or, rather, you gain votes to go home earlier in the game!). So she did okay, it just didn’t matter a whole lot.

Erika mostly did okay with the fourth rule as well, which says not to allow your emotions to control you. By this, I don’t mean she was unemotional. Rather, she had plenty of emotions running around, but she still generally did what needed to be done. For example, she had promised Danielle safety, but when push came to shove, she believed Danielle needed to go and so she sent her, despite how upset it made her. Similarly, she sent George packing when he needed to go.

Of course, Erika did allow her emotions to run away when it came to Mike. She believed they were in love and tended to do just about anything he told her for most of the game. On the one hand, we can say she allowed emotions to control her. On the other hand, sticking with Mike and Chill Town was really not such a bad strategy. She was stupid if she thought Mike would actually take her to the finals instead of Will, but he never had the chance. It’s difficult to know what was going on inside her mind, and therefore difficult to know how much she let emotions play her rather than the other way around. But I’m going to say overall it was not a bad showing.