Big Brother 10: Why Keesha Lost

Keesha was a tight ally with Memphis, Dan, and Renny who saw her closest friend in the Big Brother house leave just a few days earlier. Should that have been a sign to Keesha of things to come? Could she have done anything differently? Why did Renny lose?

We’re in the home stretch now, but we still analyze these questions the same as we have all season – by looking back at What Big Brother 10 Houseguests Should Have Learned to arrive at our answers.

We begin at the first, which discusses the necessity of scheming and plotting. Keesha came into the game apparently without much of a strategic clue. When I interviewed her, she indicated that her “strategy” (if you can call it that) was, “before I went into the house I figured that I would just try to get along with everyone and not cause any waves.” As much as I’ve heard statements like that this season, I’m sorry, that is not a strategy! You want to see a strategy? Watch Memphis! But that will be an article for a later day.

At least Keesha quickly realized her oversimplified plan wasn’t going to work, as she told me she quickly entered an alliance with Libra and April. When that didn’t work out, she ended up with Renny, and then moved into the foursome (though she admitted that Renny was more a friend than an ally, again indicating a problem with this rule, which specifically addresses the difference between the two).

I’m not quite sure what Keesha thought the plan would be when things got down to the end. She had to know that at some point, the alliance would have to break up. Yet she apparently had been bamboozled by Memphis into thinking he would take her to the final two. And that was ever after Jerry told her and Dan that Memphis was making individual deals with everybody! She fell for the strategy of one player making deals with everybody and everybody assuming that theirs was the only real deal.

I should note that Keesha did show some strategic moments, such as turning around the vote when it became clear that her alliance with April was on the rocks. But I didn’t see much in the way of long-term planning from her. For example, I really don’t think she had a plan for what would happen in the final five, four, or three. She just seemed to assume she and her group of friends would stick together and move along, while they’d get rid of that nasty Jerry as soon as they could.

Keesha needed to have made some real final two plans – and with more than just Memphis or Renny. She needed to have an idea of how she would actually make it to the final two. Witness Dan and Memphis – they had a plan and have pretty well stuck to it. Frankly, it’s worked better than I expected it to! That’s why they’re still in the game and Keesha is not. As Memphis showed her quite clearly, this game is a business for good strategic players, not a place to make friends.

It seems clear that Keesha did fine by most of the second rule, since it involves scheming and plotting too much and we just said she didn’t do enough of it. However, like Renny before her, she broke the rule warning against open partnerships. Dan and Memphis have gone to great lengths to not appear to be paired up. Renny and Keesha, however, were clearly a duo. That was one reason Renny lost, and it also affected Keesha because her closest ally in the house was removed, thus leaving her hanging.

The third rule talks about pretending to be nice. Keesha didn’t have a problem there – if anything, she was perhaps too nice at times (at least when April wasn’t around). So we can move on.

Keesha did have a problem with the fourth rule, which says players should not let their emotions control them. Keesha’s overall plan seemed to be to hang out with the people she liked rather than thinking about those she could beat. After all, let’s say her final two deal with Memphis was real – did she really think she could beat him? If so, then did she think about whether he realized that, and what he might do to prevent it? If not, why go to the final two with him instead of, say, Jerry? These were the types of strategic forward thinking that was blotted out by emotion.

And it leads us to the fifth rule, which warns against being too much of a threat. If Keesha thought she could beat the others, then it was a good bet that they thought the same – meaning she needed to try to convince them otherwise. But we never really saw any of that from her.

I should point out that she told me she thought Memphis voted out her out because, “I think that Memphis was threatened by my relationship with Dan.” We know she was wrong, but it was a different type of threat. The guys likely felt that, as with Renny, Keesha had a decent chance of beating either of them as compared to going up against each other. Plus, the Renegades figured Keesha would certainly be much more of a threat in the final HOH competition than Jerry!

But Keesha didn’t appear to think about such things, which brings us to the sixth rule – being flexible. One major point of this rule is, “you can’t tie yourself to one alliance and hope that it survives.” Once the foursome formed, that’s exactly what Keesha did. She didn’t appear to look for alternatives or other ways of approaching the endgame.

And of course the seventh rule is one that Keesha herself knows she failed at – it says to trust nobody. Indeed, when I asked her what decision she would have made differently if she could go back, she said, “I wouldn’t have trusted Memphis so much.” That is indeed a key, as she expected her ally to do what was best for her instead of what was best for him (or them) – always a mistake in this type of game. Of course, we watching at home also know she trusted Dan too much as well, but even she doesn’t realize that yet. It will be interesting to see how she reacts once she finds that out (I hope she finds out during the finale, rather than afterwards).

I know I’ve been pretty hard on Keesha throughout this article, and it feels like I’m hammering on her a bit. However, that’s because Keesha seems to be a very nice young lady. Being a nice, friendly person got her to where she was in the game – but it usually only takes you so far in Big Brother. Keesha had some of the basics down, such as finding a solid alliance, but she needed to take the next step in being a strategic player. Getting to the final four is one thing, but winning is quite another. Keesha was not ready for that next step. And that is why Keesha lost.

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

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