Survivor: Fiji – Why Michelle Lost

The none-too-bright host on The Early Show claimed that Michelle lost because she was an unknown quantity – that is, Alex didn’t know her as well as the others. That is flat-out wrong. Another way to answer it is simply that she got screwed. That’s true, but doesn’t come close to fully addressing the situation. So that leaves us with the question: Why did Michelle lose?

The Early Show host basically took what Alex said in Tribal Council at face value rather than actually thinking about it and looking at it more deeply. We don’t work that way around here, and we know that is not the correct answer. So what does thinking about it and looking at it more deeply mean? Well, it means we go over What Fiji Survivors Should Have Learned of course!

The first rule tells players to scheme and plot. Michelle seemed to understand the necessity of this, as she told me in my interview with her that she did several sneaky things. For example, she allied herself with Earl and Yau-Man, and acted as Earl’s spy, getting “pretty close with Boo and Stacy to get a feel for what their strategy was and their plans in order to counteract any plays they were trying to pull.”

Both of these were great ideas, and had there not been such a drastic twist, they likely would have worked well for Michelle. But her plan was not perfect by any means. She allied herself with big, strong Earl, who could potentially do well in individual immunities, and with Yau-Man, who has been surprising everybody as one of the strongest competitors in group challenges. She also believed she had Cassandra and Dreamz on her side.

But even if that groups was the final five, where did she fall? Was she certain Earl and Yau-Man would vote out Cassandra and Dreamz before her? She seemed to be. I’m not so certain it would have gone down that way, given that she allowed others to do much of the alliance-building for her.

As she told me, she did the dirty work for Earl, and felt she “would be taken care of” by him in return. But Earl and Yau-Man were the ones courting Cassandra. And Cassandra had her hooks in Dreamz. Michelle was, to some extent, an outsider in all of these match-ups.

While it might have still worked out for her later, being an outsider did hurt her this time. She felt Dreamz would be in her alliance later, but she was not really the one working on him – Yau-Man and Cassandra were. So when suddenly found herself in a situation where she needed Dreamz’ vote, she couldn’t count on it because she did not have a personal alliance with him, just sort of an alliance by proxy.

Yes, it’s true that Michelle could not have foreseen this particular twist. But with the possibility that somebody (or bodies) could be sent to Exile Island during a vote (as one example we’ve seen before), she should have recognized that the tide could turn when you’re talking about a slim majority. Michelle should not have relied on scheming with others who were plotting with somebody else.

Moving on, it seems fairly obvious that Michelle did nothing wrong in terms of the second rule, scheming and plotting too much. But the third rule, which says to be flexible, brings us back to a similar discussion. Michelle relied upon Earl and Yau-Man. Period. She had no backup plan. But what does this rule say in big, bold letters? “You cannot simply tie yourself to one alliance and hope that it survives.” That’s exactly what Michelle did.

We can gloss over the fourth rule as quickly as the second, since Michelle didn’t allow her emotions to control her in any way that affected the game. Similarly, she always played very well with her fellow contestants, which put her in good stead with the “pretend to be nice” requirement of the fifth rule.

The sixth rule says not to be too much of a threat. Certainly Michelle was not thought of as a big challenge threat – in the group challenge this time, she was the only non-rower, sitting in the center of the boat yelling for people to “stroke.”

But when it came to this particular vote, she was a different kind of threat. Alex had an alliance with Dreamz and Mookie. Alex also had an alliance with Stacy. Doing the math, that only left Michelle, or else it would have threatened his entire game plan. Mookie felt that Stacy was more of a threat to his long-term plans, and thought Dreamz would have as well. But as we’ve seen several times over in this season, trying to figure out what Dreamz is going to do is nearly impossible sometimes.

The seventh rule tells players not to be lazy. No issue there. So we arrive at the eighth rule, which talks about whether the other members of the tribe did the right thing in voting off Michelle.

It’s a no-brainer to say that Alex and Stacy voted the right way. So that only leaves Dreamz. As I said above, it’s hard to say what he’s thinking. He decided to stick with the allies from his tribe, even though he had every right to dislike Stacy as much as he disliked Lisi. Interestingly, Michelle told me, “I suspect he knows what he’s doing.” Given that she’s been on the jury and has seen the outcome, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and say Dreamz had a strategic reason. I just cannot fathom what it is at this point.

So was Michelle screwed by the twist? Absolutely. While she might not have been in a perfect position without the twist, she at least would have very likely still been around! But there were ways she could have protected herself against something like this happening.

Michelle needed to do more scheming and plotting herself rather than doing it to help Earl and relying on him and Yau-Man to support her. That left her in a vulnerable position. Similarly, if she had been talking more to the others herself, she could have considered side plans rather than locking herself in.

Michelle’s game demise was definitely hastened by the twist. On a personal note, I’m still not happy with it and feel it was unfair. But Michelle failed to prepare for all alternatives and allowed herself to rely too much on others. When those others were not there to support her, she fell easily. That is why Michelle lost.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Survivor: Fiji articles here on RealityNewsOnline:

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

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