Strategy and Personality As a Winning Combination: Tina Wesson

Many people don’t give Tina Wesson nearly as much credit as she deserves for the way she played – and won – the second Survivor. But the fact remains that she came out of one of the most difficult Survivor series with the big prize. And she did it by using a combination of strategy and personality to beat one of the most overpowering performers the game has ever seen.

From pretty much the very beginning, Tina was a part of the core Ogakor alliance that also involved Jerri, Amber, Colby, Keith, and Mitchell. She showed that she wasn’t simply the nice mom-type early in the game when she helped vote out Maralyn “Mad Dog” Hershey after they had been getting along so well. She further demonstrated her tactical skills by pulling Keith and Colby into a new sub-alliance and getting rid of Mitchell, but still managing – with a lot of help from Colby – to keep Jerri and Amber on a leash. As she said when she voted out Mitchell, she didn’t come to the Outback to starve herself and face the elements just so they could keep the weakest person.

That three-person alliance, of course, took her the rest of the way. While she made occasional mistakes – such as voting off Jerri before they could be completely certain that they had a majority, because Amber could have sided with the Kuchans to turn the game around, though she didn’t – Tina mostly played the game extremely well.

One key example occurred when the two tribes merged and they had their first individual immunity challenge. Tina stepped down and allowed Keith to win. She knew she wasn’t in danger, but Keith could have been if everybody had stayed true to their tribes, resulting in a tie vote, because of the previous votes cast against him. As it turned out, without Keith as a target, the Kuchans went after Colby, who had no previous votes and was therefore safe. By sacrificing the immunity win, Tina took control of the game.

From that point on, she helped to steer the votes while staying in the background. She allowed Colby to be the front-man – winning challenges, dealing with Jerri and Amber, being the obvious hit-man, etc. Meanwhile, she was able to continue portraying herself as the nice mom who everybody loves. Meanwhile, we saw that Tina was not only allied with Colby, but used Keith as well – and managed to keep Keith around even when Colby was telling the cameras about how much he disliked the chef. For example, in the vote that saw Amber leave, Tina and Keith voted against her, but Colby didn’t. Tina acted as she saw fit and was an independent force.

But she didn’t just stay in the background. When she needed to step to the front, she did, such as when the river flooded and rushing water swept away most of the merged tribe’s camp and belongings. Tina was the one who swam across the river to rescue their rice tin (while Keith was trying another route that wasn’t working very well).

Of course, the most important thing she did in the entire game was the convince Colby that he should honor their Final 2 pact. Why did he do that? Well, we have seen Colby in All-Stars complaining about people who fly under the radar and let others do the dirty work for them. However, he didn’t feel that way about Tina. In the Outback, he talked about how she didn’t play dirty, didn’t ruffle feathers, but also didn’t stay low. He felt she deserved to be in the Final 2. That’s why he took her instead of Keith. She convinced him that she belonged there, and that his friendship with her was worth bringing her. Mind you, this is despite the fact that throughout the entire series, we kept seeing Colby telling us that he was there to play the game. He was going to win the game. He would do whatever it took. Win, win, win!

But then, when it came down to it, he gave up the win. He picked Tina to take to the end instead of Keith. While this move earned him a Reality TV Hall of Shame moment, the credit/blame does not fall solely on him. He didn’t come to this conclusion in a vacuum – Tina managed to convince him that this was a good idea. Although she had picked the game over friendship from early on when she helped vote out Maralyn, she got Colby to pick friendship over the game by voting out Keith at the end. It was a bad move on his part, but a great move on her part.

Once Tina found herself facing the jury, she was ready. At the final Tribal Council, Tina’s opening statement talked about her strategy and encouraged them not to vote for either of them based on hurt feelings. To do so, she said, would only show poor sportsmanship rather than telling who the best player was. Then, during questions, she repeatedly cited strategy again. And she closed with the same theme – strategy. During the questions, she pointed out that in other games – such as Backgammon, which they played frequently – you don’t go in planning to leave a position unguarded. You have to use strategy, and it was never personal.

One other thing she said that deserves mention is that when Amber asked what they would do with the money, she would spend some of it on Elisabeth’s idea of setting up a fund for families in need. Why was this a key? Because in the post-finale reunion when Bryant Gumbel asked those who voted for Tina why they did so, Elisabeth noted that she gave her vote essentially because of that answer.

When it came time to vote, it all paid off. Even Jerri noted when she voted for Tina that Tina was obviously the mastermind behind their strategy and that her greatest move was getting Colby to bring her to the Final 2. And Alicia said something similar in mentioning that she was voting for Tina because Tina really played the game – even though she would probably like Colby more outside the game. By drumming into the jury’s head that she was the strategic mastermind, and then throwing in the one extra comment about donating money to charity, she managed to pull off just enough votes for a 4-3 win over Colby.

Obviously, Tina’s appearance in Survivor: All-Stars did not show us much more about her. But that had nothing to do with Tina as a player and everything to do with the vindictiveness of others, such as Jenna L., and the fact that winners (like Rich Hatch) had huge targets on their backs. However, it should be noted that she must have done something right to be targeted first on All-Stars the way she was.

In looking at Tina’s performance, her own words really sum it up. In the reunion, she told Bryan Gumbel that during her time in the Outback, she was somewhere between a motherly figure and a ruthless player. Indeed, that’s what got her the win – knowing who to be at which times. She played with a great strategy, cut people when she needed to even if she liked them, convinced Colby to take her to the Final 2, and then convinced a majority of the jury that she deserved the million dollars over a guy who had dominated the challenge aspects of the game. For all of these reasons, we are inducting Tina Wesson into the Reality TV Hall of Fame.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Richard Hatch’s Hall of Fame Induction as well.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of the Reality TV Hall of Fame, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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