Survivor: Tocantins – Why Debbie Lost

The J.T./Stephen alliance had the chance to take out their nemesis, Coach. Furthermore, they could have voted out Debbie instead of Sierra the week before. So why did they suddenly decide to get rid of Debbie at this point? What did she do wrong? What could she have done differently? Why did Debbie lose?

I tried to figure out the answer to that particular question at the end of my episode recap, but the answer was not immediately clear. Indeed, I wondered:

they didn’t vote out Debbie last time in part because they didn’t want the wrath of Coach falling upon them. But now it’s okay? They could have just ditched Coach and been done with it. Sure, it would have meant keeping Debbie, but did they really think Debbie was that much of a threat? Was she going to convince Taj to turn against J.T. and Stephen? No way. So why not keep her? I don’t get it.

First and foremost, we have the rule saying Survivor contestants need to scheme and plot. According to what Debbie told me, she did have a strategy going in – to avoid taking a leadership role while letting her social game take the lead. It’s not a bad plan, except I have to question why she immediately formed an alliance with the guy she admitted was taking a big leadership role – Coach. If she wanted to avoid the spotlight, it might have made more sense to go with Brendan. On the other hand, with the light shining on Coach, that meant Debbie could stay safe but also hang out in the shadows. So there were pros and cons to it.

Within her alliance, she was mostly the follower, not the leader. Coach or Tyson would tell her how to vote, and she would loyally do so…

…Until last week! She decided to step up her game and take aim and loyal ally Coach. Things apparently weren’t quite as forceful on her part as it appeared on the show; Debbie told me Taj and Erinn were sick of Coach and had pushed Debbie to turn on him – so it wasn’t her idea. But whether it was her idea or not, she did decide to turn on him. Had the others gone along with it, it would have been a good idea. Sure, she might have figured at one point that she was destined for the final four with Coach, J.T., and Stephen, but once discussion of ousting Coach came up, she had to know that possibility was dead. So the only way for her to advance at that point would have been to turn on Coach – as such, I applaud it.

But did the others think she was plotting and scheming too much, in accordance with the second rule? It’s possible. They did make statements indicating that she was stepping up her game, which worried them. But surely they had to have thoughts along the same line as I did and as repeated above – Debbie wasn’t going to be able to convince Taj or Erinn to turn on Stephen and J.T., so there was no fear from that standpoint.

She did have a problem with one part of the second rule, though – the portion that says to keep your alliances hidden. Debbie was obviously an appendage of Coach until those last few days. As such, J.T. and Stephen knew they could never really trust her to the same extent as, say, Taj. She had let Coach speak for her during the early stages of the alliance, and that contributed to a lack of certainly from Stephen and J.T. when she began making new promises.

Debbie tried to accommodate the third rule and become flexible when she decided to turn on Coach. However, by that point it was too little, too late. Until then she had done everything he asked and, as I said above, she was considered too tight an ally with him.

She generally did okay with the fourth rule, keeping her emotions in check. We did, however, see her reaction to Sierra, which could have hurt her. It turned out not doing so, though, so we’ll skip right past it.

Debbie did a great job in the fifth rule, pretending to be nice. OK, so she probably is nice, in general, but she also knew she had to emphasize that aspect of her personality. As she told me, “I love to have fun and I knew my social part of the game would be easy because I really do like people.” She later added, “I was very well-liked by my tribe, they really did love me and I feel the same about them.” From that standpoint, she avoided the problem of being targeted for being unlikeable.

But as the number of contestants shrank, this sort of positive sometimes turns into a negative because the person can be viewed as a threat – and I think that’s what happened in Debbie’s case. She added to her second statement, “You already had three Timbira members of the jury and me making it towards the end, they knew the possibility of Timbira staying with a Timbira member was pretty strong.” In other words, she was well-liked by her tribe and a lot of her tribe was on the jury!

I do think she overstated it somewhat. I highly doubt Sierra would have voted for her and I’m not so sure about Brendan. Coach, who would have been there in Debbie’s place, probably would have voted for her, though. That would be two automatic votes. By getting rid of her, the others leveled the playing field somewhat for themselves.

But that wasn’t the only way in which Debbie was a threat. She noted to me, “I was a physical threat and I did well in the challenges. Even at Tribal Council last week, Jeff made the statement asking, ‘How does it feel to be such a threat out here?’ I was a physical threat and a social threat.” In that regard, at least as compared to Coach, she was correct. I haven’t really thought of her as a huge challenge threat, but compared to Coach, she’s a monster! So if the plan was to get rid of both Coach and Debbie anyway, it makes sense to toss her first, as she is more likely to win immunity than Coach is, which would force an early split of the planned final four and could even have given Debbie the power to be the decider of who would go next.

Does that mean the others made the right decision? I would say Stephen and J.T. definitely did. Taj – well, that depends on whether she thinks there will be a final two or final three and whether she thinks Stephen would stick with her over J.T. If there is a final two, I think Taj is toast. With that in mind, she would have been better off pairing up with Erinn to save Debbie and toss one of the boys. The same goes for Erinn – under the current game plan, she gets no higher than fourth place unless she wins immunity. So aligning with Debbie would have made sense.

But Erinn and Taj clearly are not calling the shots, nor are they apparently interested in doing so. From the standpoint of J.T. and Stephen, Debbie or Coach had to go next. Debbie was a bigger threat from the standpoint of jury votes, social game, and challenges. Even taking everything else into consideration about scheming and turning on allies, this is what it came down – and it is why Debbie 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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