Survivor: Fiji – Why Boo Lost

Boo did not exactly appear to be a strategic genius throughout the run of Survivor: Fiji, but he did try to make some moves near the end. Was it simply a case of too little, too late, or were there other factors involved? Why did Boo lose?

We just saw the finale and we have five contestants to talk about. Boo is the first, and we’ll go straight up to Earl’s win. For each one, we will use What Fiji Survivors Should Have Learned to see what happened along the way. Let’s take a look at Boo.

The first rule of course covers scheming and plotting. We didn’t see much of that from Boo until the very end – but Boo told me that he had been having various strategic discussions along the way, and Cassandra even told me that he was doing so much that she considered his game play to be “reckless.” Wow. We never saw any of that!

It is good to know that he was indeed playing the game and making maneuvers, even if they were not considered important enough to the storyline to make it to broadcast. But on the other hand, if they weren’t, as Boo told me, “relevant,” then just how good a job was he doing? Yes, he made it to the top five, but was it because of scheming or just being in the right place at the right time – and winning immunities? I suspect the latter.

Interestingly, Boo told me that he did not rejoin with Alex and Edgardo at the merge because it was obvious they had replaced him with Mookie. Yet they told me Boo had already made the choice to stick with the Earlliance and that’s why they needed to rely on Dreamz. It seems like if these guys would have just talked to each other instead of relying on their impressions, the game could have turned out very different. In order to scheme and plot, discussion is definitely necessary.

A small portion of this rule also notes, “Part of plotting and scheming can also be making good use of sneakiness.” Boo tried to carve out a little listening position near the water, but was never able to use it. It was an amusing idea, though.

The second rule says players should not scheme and plot too much. While, as noted above, Cassandra suggested Boo was reckless in switching alliances too much, we didn’t see that. He was with the core Moto group. Then he kind of hung on in the new Moto alliance. Then he placed himself firmly in the Earlliance after the merge – though “firmly” as the first person to be voted out. I don’t see that as reckless at all.

As for backstabbing too soon, as Boo told me, he’d have been happy to be in a position where he could backstab somebody, but he never was! In other words, this rule had no effect on him being voted out.

In a way we’ve just addressed the third rule, which tells players to be flexible. From what we saw, Boo was certainly not wed to any particular alliance – he was happy to join up with whomever could get him forward. He did well in that regard.

And he similarly did well with the fourth rule, which says not to let emotions control you. Certainly Boo had made friends, but he was willing to stab them in the back – if only he could have! He even said he would have respected Dreamz at the end if he had simply come to Tribal Council and told Yau-Man that it was all part of the game and that’s why he wasn’t giving up immunity, rather than tearfully showing the inner conflict and then rationalizing it later. This shows that Boo was ready and willing to follow this rule, if only he’d had a good chance.

The fifth rule says players need to pretend to be nice. Boo seems to have generally done this, though he admitted he sometimes rubs people the wrong way, which may have caused a falling out with Stacy. It wasn’t something we really saw, though, and in any case had nothing to do with his ouster.

But the sixth rule definitely did have a lot to do with Boo being voted off. It says not to be too much of a threat. But that’s just what Boo was when it came to individual challenges. He and Yau-Man were the two best competitors. Thus, when it came time to vote somebody out, Yau-Man naturally wanted to get rid of the person he saw as the biggest challenge threat. That wasn’t Dreamz, it was Boo.

The seventh rule played no role here, as Boo was not shown to be lazy – and even if he was, it didn’t affect this vote. So then we ask if his tribemates were right to vote him out. It’s difficult to say, even though we know the outcome! Frankly, I suspect it would have turned out the same way, though with considerably less drama. If they had booted Dreamz instead, I think Boo would have won the final immunity challenge (he describes why in my interview with him, and I tend to agree). Earl and Boo would likely have banded together to vote out Yau-Man. So the only change might have been that Boo could have gotten a few votes. I don’t think he could have stolen the win, though we’ll never know for sure. With that possibility, though, at least Earl was certainly better off having gotten rid of Boo.

Boo kept himself in the game by winning immunity challenges. But then when he failed to win one, he had to rely on convincing Earl and Yau-Man to keep him around. The problem was that, well, he kept himself in the game by winning immunity challenges! Yau-Man, in particular, wanted to face an opponent he was more likely to beat. Boo made a case to stay, but he was never part of a truly solid alliance, and had to rely on the others believing he was the better choice. However, Boo was simply too much of a challenge threat to keep around. Combine these two facts together, and that is why Boo 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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