Big Brother 10: Why Michelle Lost

Michelle was the first houseguest voted out on double-eviction night, but she certainly was not the first member of her alliance to go. Was that alliance the cause of her eviction, or could she have saved herself? Why did Michelle lose?

Single eviction or double, we still handle the answering of this question the same – by looking back through What Big Brother 10 Houseguests Should Have Learned to figure out what Michelle did wrong and what she might have been able to do differently in order to save herself.

The first rule is something every player should know: Scheme and plot. And indeed, Michelle came in knowing she would need to do this. In my interview with her, she said, “My plan was to lie and deceive everyone.” That was a good plan! Unfortunately, she didn’t go through with it, as she added, “but it changes when you enter the house and meet the houseguests.” Apparently, even though she planned to lie to people, she didn’t consider that it would be, well, people she’d be lying to. As such, she failed to understand the part of this rule that specifically says, “Note that I have been talking about making alliances, not making friends.”

So instead of lying and deceiving, Michelle “was brutally honest as much as I could be that wouldn’t get me in too much trouble.” But honesty is not the best policy in the Big Brother house. Brutal honesty is even worse.

Michelle did make alliances. But the problem was that those alliances were based on her friendships, not on strategy. She was very close to Jessie, so she aligned with him. Memphis was also in that alliance, but she seemed to forget that point when Jessie and Memphis were nominated against each other. So when Jessie went, her alliance with Memphis essentially dissolved as well – despite Jessie specifically encouraging her to stick with Memphis!

That vote was a key time in the house. The majority alliance had broken up and Michelle could have used that opportunity to put herself in a good position. Instead, she reacted emotionally and tethered herself to the duo against whom the majority had revolted, April and Ollie. Indeed, she did this despite the fact that April had promised safety for Michelle and Jessie, and April had been the one who nominated Jessie! This made no logical sense whatsoever, but Michelle wasn’t thinking logically or strategically.

Heck, we might as well just jump to the fourth rule right now, given everything we’ve already touched on regarding her emotional play. That rule specifically tells players not to allow their emotions to control them. Michelle obviously ignored that one completely. When I interviewed her, she told me she actually held back on a lot of the things she wanted to say, but we saw plenty emotion come from her anyway. And it wasn’t necessarily things she said but things she did.

Michelle played an emotional game throughout. As I mentioned already, she aligned herself according to other players she liked rather than those who could best help her game. By failing to see the big picture, she put herself in a position where she was likely to lose. Near the end of her time in the house, she wondered aloud why she was paying the price for Ollie’s deal. She failed to understand that a big reason was that she was his ally, and she was April’s ally, and she was Jessie’s ally. She chose to stand with those people due to emotional reasons, and they were the targets.

Going back to our usual order, the second rule warns against plotting and scheming too much. While Michelle claimed to me that she “made an alliance with almost everyone in the house,” I don’t really think that’s quite true. Certainly, she didn’t make any solid alliances with the majority of the house. So with that in mind, along with our previous criticism that she didn’t scheme and plot enough, it’s safe to say she didn’t violate this particular rule.

The third rule talks about pretending to be nice. For the most part, Michelle managed to do that – as noted earlier, she kept most of her comments to herself. People didn’t go after Michelle because of her mouth.

Since we already addressed the fourth rule, we can go to the fifth now. It says to not be too much of a threat. While Michelle seemed to think she was voted out because of this rule – telling me, “between the competitions and getting along with everyone, I was the biggest threat,” I don’t think I can really agree. Michelle was a threat to the majority simply because she was in a different alliance. And sure, if she made it to the final two with one of them, she could have been a threat to win it all due to the number of her allies in the jury. But both of those are simply outgrowths of the two-alliance structure, not anything really particular to Michelle herself.

The sixth rule tells players they need to be flexible. A large part of that is ensuring that you are always with the majority of the house. But as we’ve already discussed, Michelle wasn’t interested in playing that game. Instead, she went with her emotions, even when that led her to align with a minority of the other players.

Finally, the seventh rule reminds players to trust almost nobody. Michelle found her fate hanging on a deal Ollie made with Dan. Ollie seemed to (stupidly) trust that Dan would truly stick to his word, and was very upset when Dan went back on it. Michelle was the victim, but really, it had nothing to do with the deal. If Dan had been HOH without the deal to protect Michelle, the outcome would have been the same – she just would have known about it for a longer time.

Truly, the keys to Michelle’s downfall came from the first and fourth rules. While Michelle says she had the intention of playing Big Brother the way it should be played, she allowed her emotions to take over instead. She then wouldn’t lie or deceive, and aligned herself according to her heart rather than her head. Others playing the game with their heads took advantage of those mistakes. And that is why Michelle lost.

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

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