Survivor: Tocantins – Why Tyson Lost

Just a few days before being voted off, Tyson helped engineer the defeat of Brendan. He thought he was on top of the world as far as the game went, but ended up following his previous target right out of the game. How did his fortune change so drastically? Why did Tyson lose?

Tyson may have been blindsided and viewers may have been surprised, but it’s the most shocking votes that deserve a good look at What Tocantins Survivors Should Have Learned. So let’s see what happened to Tyson.

Tyson certainly understood the importance of the first rule, scheming and plotting. Indeed, in my interview with him, he said, “I knew I would have to lie and cheat, so I didn’t have a problem – I planned on lying and cheating.” Good for him! He formed an early alliance with Coach and Debbie, and they essentially had control of their tribe – though that control was not really tested prior to the merge.

After the merge, he and Coach immediately aligned with J.T., Stephen, and company to eliminate Brendan – even though Brendan already had an alliance with Stephen and Taj! If they had eliminated Sierra, the plan, as he told it to me, was to get rid of Erinn next. “Then I knew those three had an idol and didn’t know where it was. I figured I would make them think I was voting for one of them and vote for another, thereby flushing out the idol and ousting somebody.” Solid strategic thinking.

So where does that leave us? Well, that was only the first rule, so we have plenty more to look at.

The second says not to scheme and plot too much. That wasn’t an issue here – the only part of that rule I’d say Tyson had a problem with was making his alliance obvious. Everybody knew he was aligned with Coach and Debbie. But even that didn’t play into the decision a whole lot.

The third rule deals with flexibility. In some ways, Tyson was flexible and it helped him. For example, the natural inclination of many players at the merge is to target the opposing tribe if your own tribe has the numbers advantage. But Tyson wasn’t thinking along those lines. As he told me, “I had known that Brendan was up to something with the other tribe on Exile.” Because of that knowledge, Tyson also knew he had to turn on Brendan much sooner, rather than waiting for all of the Jalapao to be voted out first. And it’s a good thing for his alliance that he and Coach saw this, because otherwise, Brendan would have sent Coach packing immediately.

Tyson was definitely okay in terms of the fourth rule, which advises against allowing emotional entanglements to get in the way of good game play. Tyson knew this was a game and treated it as such. Indeed, we can see by his behavior at Ponderosa after being voted out that he holds no grudges from the game and has left that all behind (well, maybe except against Sierra, but that’s another matter). The point here is that he didn’t, for example, target Sierra because he disliked her – he knew Brendan had to go first, and then Sierra needed to follow not because of emotions but because she was not, for his side of the game, trustworthy or loyal.

The fifth rule talks about pretending to be nice. It may seem like he blew this completely in dealing with Sierra, but, frankly, that really didn’t matter. As he noted to me, “Even J.T., the sweetheart of the South, had negative things to say about her last night.” We have to remember that Tyson was the clown of the group, making them laugh and generally keeping the mood light. So even when he was being nasty behind the scenes – or to Sierra’s face – that wasn’t what caused him to be voted off.

Instead, what played a much bigger role was the sixth rule. It says not to be too much of a threat, and that’s exactly what Tyson was. Heck, Tyson himself knew that. He told me, ““I was so bad-ass in the challenges that I really didn’t have to lie and cheat that much.” He added, “my plan a would have been to win every challenge. As long as it was a challenge that required a small amount of skill or talent, I probably would have won. … I think anything that would have relied on any amount of skill I would have won, unless they had a roller skating challenge – I’m not very good on roller skates. Or the same exact weight lifting challenge where J.T. held up 220 pounds.”

What he didn’t count on was that his new allies were allies of convenience and could see the same thing that Tyson himself saw – he would win all the challenges, given half a chance! They saw that they had a chance to eliminate him when he wasn’t wearing the immunity necklace and they acted.

And that’s where we encounter the seventh rule, which discusses whether or not the rest of the tribe did the right thing in voting Tyson out. Sierra, of course, voted for him out of anger at his behavior, having no idea that he was heading home. But her vote was meaningless. The important votes came from the others in the tribe who saw a way to change their fortunes. They decided that they were not going to just sit around while Tyson won immunity and, with his allies, picked them off one by one.

They were all smart enough to see that after Sierra’s departure (if things had gone Tyson’s way this week), the group would have to turn on itself, putting them all in danger. By making the first move, they got rid of the biggest challenge threat of the game and potentially give themselves two more weeks of easy votes. Tyson and Coach seemingly forgot that each player is playing for him/herself, not the group (or the “warrior alliance,” in Coach’s case).

Tyson did well in many regards. He schemed and plotted. He won challenges. But he also became a threat and didn’t realize that his bonds with newer allies were not as strong as he thought they were. They saw an opportunity to better their own position in the game and they took it. That is why Tyson 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.

Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site! Don’t forget to take a look at the rest of the site and buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store!

For more news about Survivor, be sure to check out SirLinksALot: Survivor: Gabon, Survivor Fever, and The Source: Reality TV Headlines!