Big Brother 9: Why Ryan Lost

Ryan played a pretty solid all-around game, and even seemed to do better in front of the jury. So how did he get clobbered in a landslide vote? Why did Ryan lose?

Coming into the finale, I truly had no idea who would win. Ryan and Adam were two sides of the coin, but there were no more factions or big enemies in the house. After the jury questioning, I was pretty sure Adam had blown it, so imagine my surprise at the 6-1 vote in his favor! But was it all because of positive things Adam did, or were there some Ryan negatives too? As we’ve done all season, let’s look through What Big Brother 9 Houseguests Should Have Learned to determine the positives and negatives of our final loser.

I think it’s pretty clear that Ryan understood the importance of the first rule, scheming and plotting. He was one of the best this season and certainly deserved to make it to the final two (though I must admit, calling him one of the best schemers this season is like saying he was one of the fastest snails).

Ryan made a number of alliances throughout the game, including a group alliance (Team Christ) and various individual alliances (Joshua, Sharon, and Adam, at the very least – and I think there were more). He caused perhaps the biggest surprise nomination in the house when his first HOH nomination was vetoed and he put up James rather than Matt – after he had convinced Josh it would go the other way. And by using these alliances, he made it to the final two.

The problem, though, is that Ryan may have violated the second rule by scheming and plotting too much. While the jury comments and questioning we saw was highly edited, it was apparent that they had definitely compared notes and realized that Ryan had been dishonest with a number of them.

Ryan was treading a fine line, and he appears to have crossed it – at least as far as the jurors were concerned. I fully expected Sharon to vote for him, but when she saw his knowing eye contact with Adam after she had been evicted, she realized that he had been playing her. Apparently, rather than give him credit for doing so, she may have blamed him instead.

In the pre-vote discussions, Josh said Ryan was a smooth-talker and was thinking ahead. Matt said he was a good liar who made deals with almost everybody and then double-crossed them. Matt went so far as to admit Ryan was a better player. But somewhere along the way, that appears to have been turned around on him.

Ryan did well in terms of the third rule, pretending to be nice. Or more likely, he is just a decent guy who was in a house full of slime. He acted like an adult, he noted in his discussion with the jury that he did not advance in the game by ripping other people apart, and he wasn’t going to start then. He said he was a stand-up player as much as he could be. I believe he was talking about his overall behavior, but I think the jurors might have taken it another way, referencing back to the second rule and thinking that he wasn’t nearly as “stand up” as he was making himself out to be.

Just as Ryan did okay by the third rule, he was fine with the fourth as well – not allowing his emotions to control him. He tried to make the right strategic move each time, and didn’t let himself get swayed by emotional arguments like some others in the house did.

On the flip side of this, though, I think William Hammon hit the nail on the head when he said, in his Thursday live feed recap, that Ryan “came off as cold and uncaring sometimes.” And while Adam got perhaps overemotional during the jury questioning, I wonder if some jurors saw Ryan and thought he was once again not making that emotional connection.

The fifth rule, which discusses not being too much of a threat, is irrelevant at this point. So let’s get to the sixth, which talks about the need for flexibility. One part of this indicates that you can’t tie yourself to one alliance and hope it survives. Given the number of alliances Ryan made, he would appear to have been successful here.

But I have to wonder if the others with whom he made those alliances feel the same way. In the end, Ryan did tie himself to one alliance, and he went all the way to the end with it. So did the others even have a chance? They might have convinced themselves that, no, they really didn’t. If Sharon felt that way – that Ryan was planning to bump her off the whole time and was being completely dishonest with her – I can certainly see why she would turn against him.

As it turned out, Ryan didn’t need to be flexible to make it to the final two. However, I think he might have needed to appear like he had been more flexible to convince Sharon and others that he wasn’t flat-out lying to them – that he really had viable options and it was just the way the game ended up.