Survivor: The Amazon – Why Matthew Lost

Going into the finale, and even into the final vote, many people assumed that Matt was going to win. Jenna had been portrayed as a bitchy, spoiled, self-centered brat. Matt as a kind of psycho guy who was at least likeable. But instead, the jury voted in a landslide to give the big prize to Jenna. What the heck happened? Why did Matt lose?

As always, we’ll look back at What Amazonian Survivors Should Have Learned to see where he went wrong and what he did right.

The first rule, of course, is to plot and scheme. Matthew came into this game not knowing what to expect. He joined with Ryan and Daniel early – an alliance that was doomed to failure almost from the start. After that, he was constantly on the outside of alliances. Rob led him on, making him think he was a part of alliances and a valuable link in the chain with Butch, but until near the end, Matt was disposable.

Luckily for Matt, he didn’t get disposed of, though, because the main alliance was too busy tearing itself apart from the inside. Each week it seemed like it was going to be his week to go, yet each week somebody else went instead. It was not until Alex made the mistake of telling Rob how the final four vote would go that Matthew suddenly became a player. He figured out that Rob was the most likely to be on the outs of the core alliance. Rob approached him and said he needed Matt and the other outcasts to get rid of Alex. Suddenly, Matt was a player!

From there, he helped get rid of Christy and then Heidi. And I do mean “helped,” because Rob was obviously still in charge. It was only during this time that Matt really began to play the game of Survivor as opposed to just being a survivor in the wild. Matt made final two plans with both Butch and Rob. He later made a secret alliance with Jenna that he told us he might or might not honor. He was definitely picking up more the game through Rob’s tutelage, but, to be honest, he seemed to think he was more of a strategist than he actually was. Throughout most of the game, Matthew came as a tag-along with Rob.

So, did he scheme and plot too much? No – with one possible exception. When he threw the final immunity challenge, it was a very Rich Hatch-like thing to do. But as Rob pointed out to me when I mentioned this to him later, Rich Hatch won. Hatch did it because he felt either Rudy or Kelly would bring him to the final two because he was the least likeable of the three remaining. Matt did it because he had agreements with both Jenna and Rob to go into the final two. He knew it was a risk, but it was one that appeared to pay off. The problem is that he might have gotten into the final two, but he didn’t win. Rob told me that he didn’t vote for Matt in part because he knew Matt had thrown the final challenge. Plus, if Matt had held on to win, he could have chosen who to take into the final two with him. Maybe he would have taken Jenna. If so, might he have gotten more votes because he at least worked to get there? Maybe he would have taken Rob. If so, he might have gotten anti-Rob votes from Heidi, Jenna, Alex, or Dave (to go along with Butch’s). He wanted to get to the final two without appearing to stab somebody in the back, but Rob still knew what had happened, and the others on the jury might have as well.

The third rule is to pretend to be nice. Matt took a different direction with this and pretended to be a psycho! Well, he says he pretended. Alex, at the reunion show, was obviously not convinced, nor were others. That said, when Matt was not being a psycho, he was nice. He gave up a visit from his mom so the others could spend time with their relatives. Under normal circumstances, I would say he must have known that the producers would reward him, but Matt didn’t really seem to know much about the game, so I believe he really thought he was giving up his visit. In any event, it was a definite act of kindness that those who were there would hopefully not forget. It made Rob wonder if his position at the end had changed. It was a good move and helped fulfill this rule.

Fourth is not to let your emotions control you. Frankly, it was hard to tell if Matthew even had emotions! He was so intense all the time. He never really seemed upset, but never seemed emotionally happy either. So I guess we can count this one as a success – he certainly didn’t let emotions get in the way. Even at the end, after Rob had tutored him all along, Matt might have taken Jenna to the final two. He knew at that point he had to play the game and couldn’t worry about loyalty.

The fifth rule was where Matt blew everybody else away. He was never lazy and he was always providing food. He was valuable to the tribe and provided a service that people didn’t really want to lose. Indeed, this was one reason I thought he would do well at the end – he supported these people for weeks. But also as I noted in the article, “In theory, food providers and other hard workers should be held in higher esteem. But, overall, it still ranks at the bottom of the list as compared to the more ‘political’ issues discussed earlier.” Matthew found that out.

So after all of this, why did the jury vote for Jenna? I’ll address this more in “Why Jenna Won,” but there are some things that Matt did in the jury phase that may have worked against him. One of the jury members told me that while we didn’t see it on TV, Matt went on and on and on to the jury. He did not give succinct answers to why they should vote for him and not Jenna. He had some good answers about why they should vote for him (because he worked hard) and not her (she didn’t), but that wasn’t enough. He needed to tell them all what they wanted to hear.

On the flip side, he also, in my opinion, should have stood up to some of the crap the jury, especially Alex, slung about not being honest. Give me a break. Alex was lying around as part of the majority alliance while planning to vote out Matt. Matt managed to turn it around (with Rob’s help, of course) and Alex is mad about that? Get over it! It was like he was misdirecting his anger at the way Rob played the game. But Matt gave in to the anger and in his final words talked about how he realized he hadn’t played as clean as he thought, etc. Frankly, if I had been on the jury, I think I would have respected him more if he’d stood up to questions like that.

I realize this runs counter to the advice in “What Amazonian Survivors Should Have Learned.” There I said, “Apologies, in general, are good. Say you’re sorry to those you ran over to get there. … Point out that it was nothing personal, but you only acted that way for the game.” He could have apologized for voting out Alex while still insisting that he played the game without unnecessary lies and deceit. Then again, Alex is the one who earned a Hall of Shame Moment for being too honest with Rob, so I’m not sure that anything would have convinced him. Still, other members of the jury might have been swayed – though admittedly, it would have taken three of them!

The jury generally said that they voted for Jenna because they felt she had played the game the best while Matt had just tagged along until the end. The past could not be changed by that point. Matt might have been able to focus more on his game play and how “playing” is not just strategy but also working, but it’s impossible to know if this would have worked on anybody.

The die had been cast earlier in the game. Matt, through his own admission, didn’t really know how to play. The jury decided to vote based in part on personality – certainly in the cases of Heidi and Alex, probably Dave as well – and in part on game play – in the cases of Rob, Christy, and Deena. Matt was unable to outdo Jenna in either area for the right jury members. That is why he lost.

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

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