Survivor: Micronesia – Why Ami Lost

What we saw on TV and what we then heard from Ami seemed to be two rather different things when it came to strategy. Was she working with the Fans or against them? Was she supporting Ozzy or targeting him? And if it was all an act, how did it end up being used against her? Why did Ami lose?

We have some confusing questions to answer, but they all lead to the main one. And we can get at the heart of things by following our usual path through What Micronesia Survivors Should Have Learned.

We know from Ami’s first stint on Survivor that she certainly understood how to scheme and plot. In Vanuatu, she controlled the voting through most of the game, later telling me she did so through logic. But this time around, we saw a very different Ami. She most definitely was not in control of the votes and instead was at the mercy of another alliance.

As she told me when I interviewed her this time around, “When Yau-Man was voted out, my strategy went straight to Hades.” She did have an alliance, and she thought it was a majority alliance. But then Cirie switched to the couples and that was it. Ami tried to crack that group, but she was always somewhat on the outside, looking in.

It was at that point that Ami should have been trying to make plans with the Fans to overthrow the ruling Favorite alliance – and as far as we knew up until her final episode, that’s indeed what she was doing. However, we later found out, after Ami’s tearful defense of herself, that she wasn’t really doing that after all. She was just leading them on, she said. As she told me, “I didn’t want to vote Ozzy out ever.”

Even after talking to her, though, I’m still somewhat confused as to what her strategy was in this regard. She told me, “You saw me listening to the Fans. I would listen to their plan and the plan sounded intriguing. But it was to vote off Ozzy, I wouldn’t go with that. I wasn’t for voting off Ozzy. If it had been Amanda, I could have gone with that.” And I have to say, I just don’t get it. Strategically, I don’t see why it would have been okay to turn on Amanda but not Ozzy. I mean, Ozzy might be a challenge god, but they’ve been losing anyway, so who cares?! It seemed to me that Ami was against voting out Ozzy more out of loyalty or friendship, which we’ll address later.

There were several times when Ami said plans were available to turn on the other Favorites if she had wanted to, but I’m not sure that what she has said stands up to scrutiny. She told me, “when the mix-up happened, if I was to vote against Ozzy, I had the numbers, the players, I would have done it.” This echoed something similar she said at her final Tribal Council, but is it true? We saw that Joel turned into a raving lunatic who could only focus on getting rid of Chet at that point – does Ami think she could have turned him around and gone after Ozzy instead? I don’t think she could have. Then Chet refused to help turn on Ozzy before leaving. And finally we had the opportunity for a triple play, but it seemed like Amanda wouldn’t vote out Erik without telling Ozzy about it, which killed the whole plan. So when, exactly, could Ami have turned on Ozzy?

If I seem to be arguing against myself, you’re partially right – but that’s because the picture is so unclear. If Ami was trying to turn on the Favorites, then good for her! She should have done a bit more, but at least she was headed in the right direction. If she was only pretending or only wanted to turn on them if it didn’t involve Ozzy, then not so good for her.

The second rule warns players not to scheme and plot too much. Because of what we just discussed, it might seem difficult to determine if Ami fell prey to this rule. But in fact, we can make a determination. We just need to remember that it’s not only what you actually do but what you appear to do as well when it comes to this rule.

We know Ami appeared to be considering or making deals with the Fans on her tribe. Erik may have had every reason to make up stories about Ami, but everything he said was true and I think the others could tell he was being sincere. Some things, you just can’t make up, and Erik had details aplenty for his Ami stories. Why? Because they had actually happened.

But we’ve seen situations in Survivor history when it was appearances alone that did somebody in. To quote from the second rule, “Kelly in the third series did not necessarily try to plot with everybody, but because she was friendly and spent time with some of the others, she was seen as a potential traitor. While she did not actually jump ship until it was obvious her shipmates were going to make her walk the plank, the seed had already been planted in Lex's mind (or gut) when Brandon helped it to grow.”

Obviously, the seed of distrust for Ami was already present among the Favorite alliance. Erik just gave it sunlight and water to allow it to grow.