Survivor: Fiji – Why Alex Lost

Alex was my pick to win it all – at least before the competition started. Frankly, once it got going, I still thought he was doing pretty well… for a while. But somewhere along the line, the world of Survivor was turned upside-down for Alex. What happened? Why did Alex lose?

You know the drill by now – we’re going to figure out the answers to these questions by looking back at What Fiji Survivors Should Have Learned. So let’s get to it.

Alex understood the importance of the first rule, scheming and plotting. As he said in his interview with me, he intended to “let others take the limelight and do as much maneuvering in the background, waiting until an opportune moment.” It’s interesting that he thought he did well at this, because Edgardo told me, in our interview a couple weeks ago, that his plan was similar, and he used Alex as an example of somebody with whom he would plot, and then Alex would go out and be the point person rather than the background one. I think Alex was more in the foreground than perhaps he realized, but we’ll address that more later under the sixth rule.

In any case, Alex knew he had to be in a strong alliance, and he looked for allies he could trust. He found them early on at his original tribe. When he was shuffled to new Ravu, he again found trustworthy allies. Unfortunately, one of them – Lisi – was also nuts and had to be voted out. That left him relying on Dreamz.

Alex could be criticized for trusting Dreamz, but as he told me, he had little choice – especially after Mookie told Dreamz about the hidden immunity idol! The die had been cast, and in this case there was little Alex could do when Dreamz backstabbed them all.

But still Alex tried. First he went along with Mookie’s plan to stir things up. That didn’t work out so well. So when he was on his own, he tried another plan. It went better, with people actually listening to him, but there was only so much he could do. As I type this, I don’t know how the Earlliance will break down, but break down it must. As Alex told me, he expected people on Survivor to think more than one step ahead. Many of them don’t seem to be doing that. If they had been, perhaps they would have taken Alex up on his offer. But maybe not – they may have their own plans that we just aren’t aware of yet. In any case, he almost convinced Dreamz and Cassandra to keep him, but almost wasn’t enough.

Certainly Alex didn’t have a problem with at least part of the second rule, which says not to scheme and plot too much. He needed to do anything he could by the time his last few days came around. One problem was that he didn’t keep his scheming secret enough. If he had only worked with Cassandra and Dreamz, and kept Earl out of it, perhaps he could have gotten somewhere. It’s difficult to say.

The third rule says players need to be flexible. Alex seemed to do okay here. He formed an early alliance, but then saw the need to change things up after the tribal switch-up. He recognized, for example, that Mookie was a better ally than Boo. Things didn’t end up going his way, but I don’t think I can fault his behavior in comparison to this rule for that.

And I know we can’t fault him for problems with the fourth rule, which says not to let emotions control you. A perfect example was his vote for Mookie. He saw an opportunity to stay at least an extra week, and even though it meant turning on his sole remaining ally, he did it. Good job!

Furthermore, he didn’t worry about whether he was friends with people. Dreamz wanted to be pretend friends after he double-crossed them. Alex ignored it. Stacy wasn’t to make up with him and be friends. Alex ignored it. He was playing the game, not looking for a best friend forever.

At the same time, he wasn’t a jerk about it, thus keeping in tune with the fifth rule. He pretended to be nice to Dreamz and Stacy – they might have been useful, after all. Sure, he could have gotten all pissy about being the last member of his alliance, about having been double-crossed by both of them, etc. But he didn’t, thus giving himself the opportunity to use them later (even if it didn’t end up working out).

Sixth is to not be a threat. In discussing the first rule, I mentioned that we would address Alex’s play and whether he was a background or foreground personality here. Considering both the way he came across on our TV screens and the fact that Earl and others kept mentioning him as a strategic threat, it seems clear that he was out in front. Indeed, he was the original target as the first person from the Horsemen alliance to go, until Stacy double-crossed Dreamz’ double-cross and they picked Edgardo instead, just in case. Then Alex was the target again, instead of Mookie, but Boo had the stupid split-the-vote idea that Alex capitalized on.

So yes, Alex was definitely seen as a strategic threat. While we don’t know for sure, I suspect that also played a major role in the decision by Dreamz and Cassandra to stick with their alliance instead of going after Yau-Man. Alex was very convincing, but he would also be very convincing in the future, making him a huge threat if he stuck around.

Alex’s loss had nothing to do with the seventh rule, which says not to be lazy, so we’ll skip right past it and address the question of whether the rest of the tribe did the right thing in getting rid of him. This is actually a complicated question that we can’t fully answer until Sunday night. Yau-Man was obviously correct in getting rid of Alex, given that he was the alternative! Earl was probably correct as well. But it’s hard to say for the others because I just don’t know what their plans for the future might be.

Certainly, Alex was unable to convince the others that their future was brighter with him in the picture. Was that his fault or theirs? Probably a little of both. By the time he tried to work with Cassandra and Dreamz, it was obvious that he was desperate and would say or do anything to stay around longer. Alex understood that alliances were important, but he was caught on the short end of the alliance stick. He hoped the Four Horsemen were solid, but only three of them were.

Alex knew what he had to do, but things didn’t work out for him like he expected. Sometimes, the game just turns against you. He knew he couldn’t fully trust Dreamz, but found himself with little choice and little maneuvering room. Once he was the last of his alliance, he did all he could to stick around, but it simply wasn’t enough. He was simply too big of a threat to keep around. That is why Alex 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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