Survivor: China – Why Sherea Lost

For Sherea, the tribal switch didn’t seem to be as big a problem as it was for Aaron. She figured she was next to go on Zhan Hu if they lost again, so moving to Fei Long gave her a shot at a new lease on life. But that new life didn’t last long. What happened? Why wasn’t she able to stick around? Why did Sherea lose?

As with last week, we cannot ignore the fact that Sherea was put into a difficult position due to the tribal swap. But also as with last week, that doesn’t mean she was automatically doomed. Indeed, Sherea certainly had a better shot at sticking around than Aaron ever did. So with that in mind, we’ll look back at What China Survivors Should Have Learned to figure out where Sherea went wrong.

The first rule – and always most important – is to scheme and plot. Due to the editing, we really didn’t see much of Sherea after she went over to Fei Long. But we do have information.

In my interview with Sherea, she indicated that in her first day on the new tribe, she was approached for an alliance with Amanda, Todd, and Courtney. We also saw how attached Courtney had become to Sherea, to the point that she voted a different way than the rest of her supposed alliance. So obviously, Sherea did do some alliance-building.

But let’s look at this a bit more closely. First, Sherea told me that the others approached her and asked her to be in an alliance. So she wasn’t really doing anything at all – they were the ones who took the initiative.

Second, and more important, is the fact that she should have been rather suspicious of this invitation. She comes over from a different tribe and on the very first day, the core group offers her entrance? Hmmm. Sounds awfully suspicious – almost like they wanted to get to her before anybody else and make her feel comfortable.

But Sherea did attempt some plotting of her own. Once she was told by Courtney that she had become the target (and perhaps sooner), she worked on both Courtney and Todd to try to change things around to focus on Jean-Robert. Indeed, this was discussed by the others in the alliance. In the end, though, she was not able to make a good enough case for herself.

We also need to talk about the way Sherea ignored Peih-Gee during the reward challenge. This was a prime opportunity to scheme and plot, and Sherea totally blew it. She even told me that she had talked about Zhan Hu throwing a challenge before she left, and she said she knew that was what had happened. Yet when Peih-Gee gave her an opportunity to acknowledge it and cement their alliance, Sherea ignored her.

I know Sherea also told me that she didn’t want her Fei Long allies to see her talking to Peih-Gee, and also that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to stick with her new allies or go back to her old, but frankly, both of those are poor excuses. The way she and Peih-Gee were positioned, her tribe could only see their backs. If she had simply said a few quick words like, “We’re with you, keep it up,” Peih-Gee would have known they were still allies and the plan would have continued (well, at least until Tribal Council, when Jaime would have been surprised to find she’d been voted out, but at least Sherea would have still been there). And the fact that she hadn’t made up her mind should not have played into it one bit – she would not have been hurt in any way by telling Peih-Gee they were still together.

This was a major mistake on Sherea’s part – one that completely changed the game. Zhan Hu went from being a tribe that wanted to lose the immunity challenge to one that felt they needed to win. And because they did, Sherea ended up in the hot seat.

Let’s move on to the second rule. Considering that Sherea told me, “I think that’s one reason they were worried about me – because I tried to flip the tribe and get Jean-Robert out,” does that mean she schemed and plotted too much?

It’s a bit difficult to say for certain. The timeline is a bit confused, but it seems she might have been trying to push for voting off Jean-Robert before she became a target herself, as an attempt to save Frosti (whom she had been told would be targeted). If indeed she pushed for Jean-Robert and that is one reason the others didn’t feel comfortable with her, then yes, she did scheme and plot too much. But it seems like the others felt more comfortable with Frosti anyway, especially after he wriggled his way in to find out about the immunity idol.

Frankly, as I said in my recap, in their shoes, I would have had to give serious thought to voting out Frosti once he learned of the secret. But they went in a different direction, choosing to trust him and bring him into the fold instead. In all likelihood, there was more that went on to lead to his earning their trust. If there was, then it wasn’t necessarily Sherea’s attempt to get Jean-Robert booted that turned things against her, and thus she was not guilty of scheming and plotting too much for this reason.