Survivor: Micronesia – Why Eliza Lost

Just as the tribal switch-up saved Eliza, the merge doomed her. She was once again back with those who wanted her gone, and it seemed nothing would change their mind. You might say they were sticking with their plan (not that I would ever resort to such puns, of course). But why were they so adamant about her leaving? Why not pick on a Fan instead of their fellow Favorite? Why did Eliza lose?

First, let’s state the obvious: Eliza knew the stick was not the immunity idol. However, she had to play it, because… well… what if it was?! (The producers should make the immunity idol next time around a rock or a shell or some other totally mundane item, just to screw with the players.) So if gullibility can be ruled out as the reason Eliza lost, it’s best to go through What Micronesia Survivors Should Have Learned in order to find out what the real reasons were.

Eliza certainly understood the importance of the first rule, which says players need to scheme and plot. She made an early alliance that followed her plan for the game, and would have been in a good position had it not been for Jonny Fairplay quitting and Cirie switching sides. Unfortunately for her, once that happened, she was in a position similar to the one described to me by Ami last week: “My strategy went straight to Hades.”

Eliza somewhat lucked out that Cirie insisted upon voting out Yau-Man as the price for her loyalty, but she was definitely next if the switch-up had not occurred.

However, after that point, Eliza’s story kind of disappeared. Her tribe kept winning immunity challenges, so there was no need to focus on whatever scheming she might have been doing. When we did see her tribe, the camera mainly paid attention to Jonathan and then Kathy.

When we did see some storyling on her tribe, Parvati had stepped in to align herself with Alexis and Natalie, and we were left wondering what the heck Eliza had been doing for all this time. She answered that question in my interview with her:

What you didn’t see was I had formed an alliance with them and Jason. When Jonathan was there, it was a very solid alliance, with us telling them we were the four and we’d use Jason’s vote as we go because they didn’t really like Jason much. Having Jonathan leave didn’t make that offer very appealing anymore. They said, “We have a better offer on the table, we’re going to take it.” There wasn’t much I could do, though I spent a lot of time talking to them. We even planned to possibly throw an immunity challenge at one point [before Jonathan left].

Parvati approached them long after Jonathan and I had, and I’m convinced if he had stayed, they absolutely would have gone with us.

So it seems proper to say Eliza tried to scheme and plot, but kept hitting dead ends.

Moving to the second rule, it might seem obvious that Eliza failed because she was caught scheming and plotting too much. After all, Parvati noted that Eliza had been trying to vote her out since the beginning and then came back to claim loyalty after the merge.

But I can’t really chalk that up to scheming and plotting too much – it was simply doing what she should have been doing in trying to target a member of the opposition. Let us not forget that Parvati was targeting Eliza too!

As Eliza told me, she didn’t at all expect Parvati to align with her after the merge – but she hoped she could find an opening. “It was a last ditch effort,” she said.

So the real problem was in failing to keep her scheming secret. But again, that goes back to her former allies switching sides. Cirie had been in on the anti-Parvati plan, but then joined with her. Alexis and Natalie likewise. She trusted her allies to keep information secret, but then they jumped ship and shared all that information for their own benefit (as well they should have!).

The third rule talks about the need for flexibility. Eliza was kind of forced to be flexible, as nothing seemed to go her way. But little of that flexibility mattered or helped her. She was certainly willing to align herself with whomever she needed to in order to survive, but she just ran out of room.

The fourth rule was not a problem for Eliza – she didn’t let her emotions get the best of her. But the fifth rule may have been a bit of a problem. While we didn’t really see it so much this season, Eliza in her first time around told her own mother that other players found her talkative and annoying. This time, Eliza told me she “tried to just talk a little less and be friendly with everyone. I think I wasn’t as annoying as I was last time. But you know, I think I just I’m a little intense for some people.” Indeed, even this time around, at Tribal Council, Alexis complimented Eliza’s mental and physical game, but said she didn’t so well socially. And even Eliza herself said twice at Tribal Council that she did not think the others particularly liked her.

It’s hard for us to judge on this point. We didn’t hear why Alexis and Natalie chose to go with Parvati & Co. instead of Eliza and Jason. It could very well have been what Eliza told us, about how they needed to go with the solid numbers and didn’t like Jason much. Or they might not have liked Eliza much either, contributing to the situation.

Sixth is not to be too much of a threat. Eliza tried to make the case that she would not be a threat if somebody wanted to take her all the way to the finals, trying to use the situation of being disliked to her advantage. But she also told me that she actually thought she could win if placed in front of a jury, because “that’s my strong suit, talking my way out of situations and being persuasive, making good arguments.”

The problem for Eliza was that she was an immediate and ongoing threat to Parvati, and Parvati knew it. And of all people, Parvati is the central nexus of two alliances involving a total of eight people! So Eliza was pretty much up a creek without a paddle.

The seventh rule says not to be lazy – not an issue here. And the eighth discusses whether the others should have voted the way they did. That’s a tough call to make. Amanda wanted to turn the vote in a different direction, but she wanted to do so due to personal reasons, not strategic ones. Just about everybody else seems to think they’re on the alliance that’s going to the end, so they had no reason to change their vote.

Indeed, Eliza was in many ways the perfect target. She had only one ally and many other people had reasons to either want her gone or at least not care if she left. Eliza admitted her personality can be a little intense, and I think several of the Fans (especially Alexis and Natalie) seem to be playing too much of a personality-based game. Eliza did have support from some people, but in a series of unforeseeable circumstances, they all left her, one by one.

Eliza’s a smart player, and under slightly different circumstances might have been a major game power. Instead, she was left standing virtually alone after having had her original plans exposed for all her targets to see. She was a threat to those people, especially the one who seems to be at the hub of everything right now, and was an easy target to pick off right after the merge. That is why Eliza 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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