Big Brother 9: Why Natalie Lost

Natalie never saw it coming. Even after being called out, she thought she had managed to convince the guys to keep her around. She sucked up to them, and then ironically her fate was left to Sheila, whom she had (to coin a phrase) thrown under the bus. Natalie had completed her original purpose in getting James out of the house, but then she immediately followed. What happened to change her position so drastically? Why did Natalie lose?

The answers to these questions are actually quite obvious if we simply look through What Big Brother 9 Houseguests Should Have Learned. So let’s get right to it!

It might have taken Natalie a while to figure out the importance of the first rule, but eventually she realized that she needed to scheme and plot. Matt tried to teach her this pretty much the whole time he was there, but never really succeeded. But it was only his departure putting Natalie into vengeance mode that caused her to realize she needed to work the other players in order to actually play the game.

And play she did. Natalie schemed and plotted (in between flights of utter looniness), making several different deals and, for a while, convincing people that she was serious in her promises. For a while, it worked. After all, there was a clear enemy, and he kept hanging around. So as long as she kept the focus on James, things were good.

But then things started to change. Once it was obvious that James was on his way out of the house, the others started comparing notes. The sides in the house were gone and it became a much blurrier situation.

This is where the second rule kicked in, and Natalie broke at least two major portions of it. She schemed and plotted too much and she failed to keep her scheming secret.

Many of her problems were hashed out in her final episode, but Natalie actually began much sooner – Ryan even noted that at one point she was trying to make deals with James!

Natalie’s lies and double-dealing were the main reason Sheila decided to target her for a surprise backdooring and eviction. And they were also the reason Adam and Ryan called her out.

The fact is, Natalie had been lying about more than just her alliances. She was even caught lying about the oral attention she gave to Matt. When they saw her lie about that and knew she was giving them falsehoods – not to mention how irate she appeared to get about it – I think they realized (if only subconsciously) how easily Natalie could lie about the game. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about here, that means you only watched the shows and didn’t see her in live feed action, because the producers saw fit to edit Natalie without showing that side of her.)

All of the other contestants agreed that Natalie was playing them. Her reassurances to the guys didn’t convince them otherwise. She claimed she had been keeping the target off her back by playing both sides. But if that were true, she should have let them know this sooner. They should have heard from her about the supposed all-girls alliance. The fact that they heard it from Sheila and Sharon instead showed that Natalie was, in fact, trying to cover all the bases, not just pretending.

Natalie compounded her problems by flat-out – and publicly – saying that she would side with the guys against Sheila. Sure, she was trying to save herself by using the obvious ploy of kissing up to the voters, but it made things that much worse with Sheila. Obviously, Natalie didn’t think it would matter how Sheila felt – after all, if she got the guys’ votes, then the HOH was irrelevant. But that’s not how it turned out.

Moving on, the third rule tells players they need to pretend to be nice and act like an adult. Natalie was generally nice – she wasn’t overtly attacking people like Joshuah, Chelsia, and James had done. But the way she talked about people wasn’t all puppies and flowers either. Anybody who stood against her was an “evil-doer” – including even Sharon. I’m not really a good one to judge who is a good Christian and who isn’t, but I do think most Christians would side with Sharon on this one. For one thing, she doesn’t go around giving oral lovin’ to a guy she just met and then lie about it later.

But Natalie had determined who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. She was part of (or even the leader of) Team Christ. Sharon, not a part of the team, was obviously not as good a person.

As the weeks went by, that attitude began to wear on Sheila. In the live feeds, we heard Sheila talk about how upset she was at Natalie for saying things along the lines that Joshuah wouldn’t get into Heaven because he’s gay, and similar for James because he’s an atheist. As much as Sheila wasn’t an ally of either man, she also did not have as many personal issues with them, so Natalie’s attacking of them was not taken well by her.

As for the part of this rule that speaks to the need to act like an adult – where do we begin? The only time Natalie really acted like an adult was when she was acting like she was in adult movies. Otherwise, she tended to babble childishly and come up with all sorts of craziness.