Survivor: Micronesia – Why Joel Lost

Joel seemed to be somewhat in control of the voting on his original, all-Fan tribe. After the shuffle, he still took the lead in discussions with Ozzy about how the voting should go. Plus, the guy was built! So how did the weak overthrow him? How did he go from dragging Chet around to getting voted out by Chet? Why did Joel lose?

Fan or Favorite, original tribe or shuffled, we treat everybody the same when we’re trying to answer questions like these – we look through What Micronesia Survivors Should Have Learned and identify where they went wrong as well as what they might have done right. Let’s see where that leads us with Joel.

First and foremost, Joel should have known how to scheme and plot. And from the looks of things, I think he did. Mikey B thought he had the game in the palm of his hands, but twice Joel helped lead the charge to turn the tables on him.

Joel seemed on the show to be a man of few words (with some threats and grunts thrown in), but when I interviewed him, he explained himself pretty well. He obviously understood the need for strategy, as he told me, “My strategy was to align myself with people who saw whatever attributes they thought I brought to the game as a necessary to go further.”

Joel also understood the need to make alliances quickly. As he told me, “I made an early alliance with Alexis, and then we had Natalie and Erik in it by day two.” And we also saw how, after the shuffle, he took the lead role in talking to Ozzy about how the voting would go. It seemed he knew what he was doing.

What happened next? Joel had a big problem with the fourth rule, that’s what. That’s the rule saying contestants cannot allow their emotions to control them, yet that’s exactly what Joel did. We saw him boiling over in the reward competition as he dragged Chet around and became progressively angrier.

That anger carried over far beyond the challenge and fogged his vision. As he told me, “I started playing the game emotionally instead of logically.” He later added, “I tried to do my own thing, but my own thing was no longer based on the numbers, but on my emotions. If I had continued to play the way I had been playing, I would have gone to Tracy and Chet and said the two of you, Erik, and myself will agree to never vote each other. Worst case scenario we’ll have a four-four tie at Tribal Council. But emotionally I didn’t allow myself to view things that way, that got the best of me and that was my downfall.”

That sums it up pretty well. Joel could have kept playing the same numbers game that he did in order to evict Mary and Mikey previously. But because he became so angry at Chet, he lost his objectivity and his vision for the rest of the game.

Getting back to the second rule, it says not to scheme and plot too much or backstab until you need to. It’s pretty clear that Joel violated this rule as well. By switching up the proposed plan, he schemed and plotted a bit too much. But more importantly, the change-up involved stabbing original tribemate Chet in the back before it was necessary. As we’ve already discussed, and as Joel himself said, he should have aligned himself with Chet, not turned against him. If he had done so, he might have convinced Ozzy to vote out Cirie and taken control of the numbers. (It’s also true that he might not have, but we’ll never know now.)

Instead, by turning against Chet, Cirie figured out that the weak would be targeted and she was not considered one of the strong. Then, of course, Cirie turned the vote against Joel.

The third rule tells players to be flexible and notes especially that you cannot just tie yourself to one alliance and hope that it survives. Early on, Joel was doing well in this regard as he kept Mikey guessing. And then he did decide not to stick with his alliance. Unfortunately, he did it at the wrong time. Being flexible means, among other things, “You need to have your finger on the pulse of every member of your tribe.” Joel assumed everybody would want Chet gone because of his weakness – but that’s just what Mikey assumed for two Tribal Councils in a row. Joel should have known better.

Since we already addressed the fourth rule, we’ll move along to the fifth, which says players need to pretend to be nice. Um. What is there to say about Joel? It’s not terribly clear how nice he was around camp, but we know about the comments he made to the camera, and they were not so nice.

We also know how he dragged Chet around during the challenge, smashing him into fence posts along the way, which was not exactly nice either. Then there was his behavior in the immunity challenge, yelling at Chet from the sideline and screwing things up. That attitude certainly did not endear him to Chet and Tracy, and others saw his behavior as well. It wasn’t the main reason for his ouster, but it sure didn’t help.

The sixth rule didn’t help his cause either. It says not to be too much of a threat. Joel was a threat in a couple main ways – neither of which I would have originally expected. He wasn’t voted out because he was a threat to win challenges after the merge. Quite the opposite – Cirie convinced the others he was a threat to cause them to lose challenges before the merge! And really, from what we saw, she was right. First he refused to work with partner Chet, likely causing their loss of the reward (especially given that until that round, the chasers had won every time). Then he interfered with Chet and screwed up the puzzle-solvers. He may have been muscular, but that doesn’t always equate to winning.

The second way he was a threat applied specifically to Cirie, Chet, and Tracy – especially the former. His idea to target the weak meant they were on the firing line. Cirie recognized it and sprung into action. It was the direct threat Joel posed to her that caused her to emphasize the first threat we mentioned to the other Favorites.

At least Joel did okay in terms of the seventh rule, which says not to be lazy. Joel seemed to do fine, while Chet was the one who sat around. Indeed, according to what Joel told me, he even tried to help Chet and encourage him – until the tribal switch-up, that is.

The eighth rule deals with whether the rest of the tribe made the right decision in voting out Joel. I think it’s clear that Chet, Tracy, and Cirie definitely did. For that matter, the rest of the Favorites did as well, since they now have the numbers advantage. That pretty much covers it there.

Joel had a good position in the game and turned it around. Sometimes turning the game around is good – as it was for Cirie – but it isn’t when you’re the one on top! Frankly, Joel himself now understands what he did wrong and why. As he told me, he lost his objectivity and allowed himself to leave logic behind in favor of emotion. Everything else stemmed from that act. He violated several important rules, but all of it can be traced back to the fourth. Joel got it right – after the fact. He allowed his emotions to take control. That is why Joel lost.

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

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

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