Survivor: Tocantins – Why Sandy Lost

Last week, we had a player voted out due apparently to illness, but also due to a lack of proper plotting and scheming on his part. While there weren’t any health issues for Sandy, there was the standard “you’re a lot older than we are” situation. Did the youngin’s pick her off for that reason? Or was it her various annoying habits? Or something else entirely? Why did Sandy lose?

When the RealityNewsOnline writers made our predictions in the RNO Roundtable article, I predicted an early exit for Sandy. It didn’t really seem to be a tough call, given what we knew about her age and personality. But although I was correct in the timing of Sandy’s departure, was I also correct about the reasons? The way we answer that question is by looking through What Tocantins Survivors Should Have Learned.

We’ll begin, as we almost always do, with the first and most important rule – scheming and plotting. We didn’t see Sandy do any of this type of strategic planning on the show, so I asked her about it when I interviewed her. I have to say, I got a completely unexpected answer.

Most players tell me they talked to this person or that person, made alliances, etc. But Sandy told me she planned to poison her tribemates! That was her strategy – causing her fellow contestants to get sick so they would be voted out like Jerry (don’t worry – she wasn’t anywhere near Jerry, so she wasn’t to blame for that). She told me:

If there’s a way I could get different types of water in their bottles, I could get them sick, it would be a great strategy. I was trying to get water from other places and thinking I could give them belly aches enough to not to kill ‘em but to make ‘em sick enough like Jerry.

I also looked for critters I could gather up. There was a big boa constrictor in the tree and I made it a point to let them know. I was trying to find spiders to put some of those around camp. It’s awful, ain’t it!

Getting back to the type of strategy covered by this rule, Sandy was apparently too busy worrying about how to sicken the competition to think about how she could knock them out through the usual means. When I managed to convey to her that my question about strategy related to the making of alliances and such, Sandy said:

The only thing I plotted was the night I thought I might be leaving, and I was really going towards Sydney and I worked really hard to get there and I didn’t want to leave this game. I pushed hard trying to get them to keep me and it just didn’t work. Strategically, I didn’t do real good, obviously.

While I could suggest that she broke the second rule by scheming and plotting too much when it comes to the whole water situation, that rule specifically covers dealing with people. Since she failed to scheme and plot enough, it’s obvious that she didn’t do it too much.

The third rule tells players to be flexible, and I don’t think Sandy really knows how to do that. She told me that when it came to her personality, she “should have knocked it down about five or six notches instead of two or three.” But really, that was knocking it down two or three notches? I’d hate to see it at full speed! Sandy needed to realize that her much younger tribemates would not want to deal with somebody who was acting the way she was.

Fourth is the rule that advises against allowing emotions to get in the way. While we might accuse some of the other players of playing this way (presuming “lust” would be considered an emotion), I think it’s pretty clear Sandy doesn’t know any other way to play – or live – other than by her emotions. She made friends, said what was on her mind, and did what she wanted to do. But that play didn’t really affect anything in the game – that is, it’s not like she voted to keep somebody around because they were a friend, and then was backstabbed by them.

Sandy did make friends in Brazil, though. Listening to the players as they voted her out, none of them had a bad word to say about her. Indeed, after seeing those videos on the CBS website, Sandy told me, “I had tears in my eyes because each of my tribe members were so kind – they had nothing bad to say when they voted.”

Why am I pointing this out? Because the episode had us believing that Sandy’s tribemates voted her out due to some of her annoying habits, which would have appeared to violate the fifth rule. While Sandy definitely needed to tone down her annoying behavior, she was indeed nice and I don’t think this played much of a role in her being voted off.

The same can be said of the sixth rule, which warns about being too much of a threat. While the initial view of Sandy was that she could have been a threat to the tribe’s potential challenge success due to her age, she showed that she could be a strong competitor. At this point, the only thing Sandy really threatened was the ability of some of the guys to flirt with Sydney.

So did the guys’ sex drives cause them to vote the wrong way? Or did the tribe follow the proper guidelines in terms of the seventh rule? Frankly, I would have to say that… they did the right thing.

The initial thought would naturally be that they were thinking with something other than their brains. After all, hadn’t Sandy proven herself in challenges better than Sydney? Hadn’t she proven herself around camp better than Sydney (well, except in the area of shoulder massages)? Yes on both counts.

But the key area where Sydney proved herself much better than Sandy was in the social game. Call it flirting, call it sex appeal, call it whatever you want. But Sydney talked to her tribemates and likely made alliances with them. Sandy, on the other hand, admitted that she never made any alliances and didn’t really politic to stick around until Tribal Council was imminent. Plus, we saw her isolate herself on several occasions – such as when she was going to look for the immunity idol. Yes, she had a purpose, but she might have been better off in the long run by trying to get to know her tribemates better.

So from her cohorts’ eyes, it made more sense to keep Sydney, with whom they at least had some sort of relationship, as opposed to Sandy. Their relationship with Sydney might be superficial and Sydney might be flirting with multiple guys, but at least it’s something.

The two most obvious reasons for Sandy to have been booted were her age and ability to be annoying. But as we’ve seen here, neither of those was the main reason for the vote going against her. They might have been slightly contributing factors, but we need to look at Sandy’s failure to properly scheme and plot as the key. She should have known that with the age difference between her and most of the rest of the tribe, she would need to try harder to form social and political connections. But she was more worried about trying to slip something into their water! Her failure to create alliances that could support her led to her departure from the game. That is why Sandy lost.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Survivor: Tocantins articles here on RealityNewsOnline:

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

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