Survivor: Gabon – Why Matty Lost

Matty came onto Survivor without a strategy and indeed without having even really seen the show before. So we should be too terribly surprised that he lost. But he did make it to fourth place, which is quite a feat for anybody! How did he do so well? And what eventually happened to him? Why did Matty lose?

Of course you know the answer is not going to be as simple as, “Matty couldn’t make fire as quickly as Bob,” because that would ignore everything that led up to that point. Therefore, we have to follow our usual path of looking through What Gabon Survivors Should Have Learned to answer our questions.

While Matty might not have known it coming into the world of Survivor, the most important aspect of the game is scheming and plotting. That means having a strategy and making it work. But when I interviewed Matty, he told me, “I really didn’t have a strategy.”

OK, so he came in without one, but what about as the game developed? Matty told me, “My strategy was to play in the moment and not plan the future out and think about the past. I just wanted to be in the present moment and focus on the task at hand. And my strategy was to be true to myself and not to sell out.”

Hmmm. That really isn’t much of a strategy either. No planning for the future? Just being true to himself? How was Matty not eaten for lunch on Survivor?!

I should note that Matty did a little bit of scheming, whether he recognized it or not. Matty was originally part of an alliance with Ken & Co., and then he and Susie jumped ship to join with Randy just before the first tribal switch-up. Matty also sided with Ace against Ken & Crystal, writing Crystal’s name down in an attempt to vote her off when Ace went home instead. And when he and Sugar became split from Ken in the second tribal switch-up, Matty told Sugar about how Ken had duped her into dumping Ace, which set the stage for her later swing from Ken in favor of Matty, in part because of Ken’s earlier lies. At the time, though, I thought Matty was wrong to divulge that info to Sugar, as it would hopefully be necessary for both of them to re-align with Ken later, as it indeed happened.

And yet, again, Matty survived all three of these instances of what might be considered violations of the second rule by scheming and plotting too much. In the first two cases, Matty was welcomed back into the fold, mostly due to necessity of those doing the welcoming, though he was never fully trusted again. In the third, Sugar just filed away the info for later use and it surprisingly helped Matty. I say “surprisingly” because he already admitted that he didn’t plan for the future, so it was mostly luck that Sugar kept that in the back of her mind and let it sway her thinking when Matty needed it most.

Frankly, though, the lack of trust from the first two instances didn’t hurt him – because he outlasted those who might not believe in him! And the third actually helped him! Should these have hurt him? Perhaps. I still think Ken and Crystal should have eliminated Matty, with Bob and Corinne’s help, when they had the chance. That decision definitely helped Matty, as did their decision to keep him in their alliance before that point. While we think mostly of somebody like Susie as a coattail-rider, Matty did a bit of it as well – he was kept around because he was needed for numbers even though he had tried to turn against his allies earlier in the game.

At least Matty definitely followed the third rule, which says to be flexible. As I noted above, he jumped around a couple times, but was smart enough to come back to his main alliance when it became necessary. But I have a hard time giving Matty too much credit here, as I don’t think he was being flexible on purpose. Instead, I think his actions just stemmed from his “play in the moment” credo. That is, he didn’t plan to be flexible, but he just moved in the ways that seemed like good ideas at the time.

It’s also a bit hard to address how well Matty did in terms of the fourth rule, which says not to allow emotions to control you. I think some of his alliances were made based on the emotions he was feeling at the time. On the other hand, he didn’t target somebody just because he didn’t like them or try too hard to save somebody because he was friendly with them. He did try to keep Randy around a bit longer, but recognized when it quickly became a lost cause and didn’t expend any political capital on the idea.

And Matty certainly did well by the fifth rule, which says to pretend to be nice. In his case, I don’t think there was any pretending going on – Matty just seems to be a really nice guy. Indeed, that’s how he connected with Sugar and eventually convinced her to go against the alliance she had formed on Day 10 with Ken. As Sugar said, Matty was like a brother to her out there.