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scorch99
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Joined: 09 Oct 2003
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 Posted: 11/07/03 - 18:36 Post subject:
From Reality News Online:
Survivor: Pearl Islands – Why Andrew Lost
by David Bloomberg -- 11/07/2003
Andrew led the Morgan tribe back from the brink of doom and into a merge with a 5-5 tie. But the problem was that one person in Morgan’s 5 never really felt a part of the tribe. Was it the twist that did Andrew in, or was it something more? Why did Andrew lose?
Well, we’re back down to just one column on why a person lost, and I’m happy for that. I was actually planning on doing columns on why each Outcast was voted back in, but we don’t exactly know that, so there’s little point in speculating too much. So presuming you’ve read our recap, we’ll just concentrate here on Andrew, the lawyer who was sent packing just before he would have reached the jury. As always, we’ll look back at What Pearl Island Survivors Should Have Learned to see where he went right, where he went wrong, and why he lost.
As always, the first – and most important – rule is to scheme and plot. Frankly, Andrew did a great job in this department. He pulled together an alliance of four or five (it’s never really been clear if Darrah was a solid member or an outlier) and held them together through thick and thin – mostly thin. He managed to lead his tribe without being targeted until the merge – something that is not often accomplished. He saw where there were people his alliance could target and focused in that direction. Were it not for the big twist, he would have been in an excellent position going into the merge. The four others with him would almost certainly never have turned on him, and if he could have picked off one Drake, they’d have been in it for the long run. But, of course, things have a way of changing quickly on Survivor. The best laid schemes of mice and men…
What about scheming and plotting too much? Burton didn’t seem to have a problem with that. Nor was there an issue with backstabbing before he needed to – although one might suggest that he should have kept Ryan S. or Lill around rather than holding on to Osten or Darrah. (Indeed, as Professor Sadow noted in his Strategic Overview article, if Andrew had sent Osten packing earlier, Lill might not have harbored so much resentment and they might have been able to bring her back into the fold when she returned.) But that’s not really part of this particular discussion. However, the fact that he was in an alliance with Ryan, Tijuana, and Darrah was certainly no secret. While normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal at the merge, it was for the returning Lill. When she came back, she saw immediately that she was a fifth wheel. She knew that even if she joined with the Morgan Four, she could never get higher than fifth place – if that. Because his alliance was so obvious that he apparently couldn’t even argue against Lill when she pointed it out, she was already on a path to look for another solution.
The third rule is to pretend to be nice. While Andrew often seemed like a nice enough guy, we have heard from both Ryan S. and Lill in their interviews with RNO that he never really accepted them into the tribe. Ryan told us that he felt out of place, the rest of the tribe was superficial, the five of them (Andrew, Tijuana, Ryan O., Darrah, and Osten) had a tight social bond and wouldn’t let him in, etc. Lill said that Andrew seemed to “have it out” for Ryan. None of these are conducive to keeping fellow tribe members happy. (For the record, we will be asking Andrew his side of the story on this issue and others in our interview with him.) Mind you, Andrew might not really have worried too much about this because he certainly didn’t expect them to come back once they’d been voted off! But if what Ryan S. and Lill have said is correct, it started from the very beginning, not just when Andrew and his alliance were going to get rid of them. So he had no idea how long they might be around. All in all, it’s just not a good idea to treat somebody so poorly that you alienate them. You never know when you might need them to be on your side.
The fourth rule is to not let your emotions control you. Andrew was good at this for most of his time on Survivor. However, when they lost the challenge to the Outcasts and knew somebody would be coming back to haunt them, he lost his composure. Even his alliance-mate Tijuana saw that he was upset and worried that somebody might try to take away part of his leadership.
But had he just vented to those on his tribe at the time, that might have been okay. However, he couldn’t seem to hold back his anger when Lill returned. His talks with her when she returned were awkward, at best, and she saw right through his claims that he had told her they love her prior to booting her out, as if that made it all okay. No matter how hard he tried, it was obvious that he didn’t want her there, he didn’t feel she had the right to be there.
Compare this to the way Rupert, the de facto leader of Drake, acted when Burton returned. Rupert welcomed him with open arms, told him exactly why the votes had gone against him, mended fences, and even took him into his confidence to explain that Jon would be going next. Rupert handled the situation well. Andrew did not.
The fifth rule, which really begins to come into play now that the tribes have merged, is to not be too much of a threat. By taking the leadership role, Andrew put himself out in front of the Morgan alliance. Even though Ryan did better than Andrew in the first individual immunity challenge, it was Andrew who was targeted. He was voted out first because the Drakes saw him as a threat that had to be neutralized immediately.
Sixth is that providing food wins allies. Well, Andrew certainly failed in that area – as did all of the Morgans. But that’s not really why he was voted out, so we’ll move along.
At #7 we arrive at one of the most important rules for this particular series – be flexible. Quoting from the rule: “Besides the usual scheming, producers will throw in more twists and turns because they think viewers find it more interesting… . Players have to be ready for anything. If they get tunnel vision, they’ll likely find that the tunnel has a train heading right in their direction.” That is precisely what happened to Andrew. Now, should we have expected him to predict that Mark Burnett would bring back a ghost? Probably not – but then it’s not unheard of. It happened on Big Brother 3, after all. But Andrew needed to be able to go with the flow a bit more. Instead, as we saw when we discussed his emotional state, above, he was locked into the way he thought the game should go. He didn’t want any Outcasts back, and he made it obvious.
Let’s be honest here. Andrew was definitely screwed by the twist. But he's not the first one in Survivor history to have that happen. Remember Silas from Africa? Remember Shii Ann from Thailand? Both of them thought they were in pretty good positions, only to have the rug pulled out from under them. The one difference I see is that neither of them really had a chance once the rug had been pulled. Andrew still had an opportunity to make a bit of lemonade with the lemons he’d been handed, but he was unable, or unwilling, to do so.
So, did the Drakes-plus-Lill do the right thing in getting rid of Andrew? Absolutely. This is the phase of the game in which strong players need to go. Andrew was a leader. Beyond that, they knew he had it in him to do well in challenges – witness the amount of weight he held in the earlier immunity challenge. It was also best that he be sent packing before the jury phase. He was far too pro-Morgan – if somehow a Morgan managed to make it into the final two against a Drake, Andrew’s vote would almost certainly be for the Morgan. From Lill’s perspective, she faced the same issue, but worse. If she made it to the final two at all, even against a Drake, there is little chance Andrew would have voted for her to win.
So Andrew faced a mountain of problems. First, and perhaps most important, was the twist that brought back somebody he thought he’d gotten rid of. But beyond that, he might have been able to avoid the wrath of Lill if he had treated Lill and Ryan S. better to begin with. While Burton was able to re-integrate quickly because the tribe leader talked to him about the situation, Andrew was not able to do the same with Lill – and indeed he didn’t really seem to try. Andrew allowed his emotions to get away from him and was not flexible enough to handle this new wrinkle. So the twist sent him packing, but Andrew’s own behavior was an accomplice. That is why Andrew lost.
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