Hall of Shame Moment: Lex Van Den Berghe Cuts His Own Throat

Even before the episode in which Lex Van Den Berghe was voted off, nominations for him began to trickle into the Reality TV Hall of Shame mailbox. After it happened, that trickle became a flood.

Lex made a number of questionable decisions in his time on All-Stars, each of which could be picked apart from different angles. However, there are bad decisions, and then there are Hall of Shame decisions. In this Hall of Shame Moment, we will focus on the latter after first discussing the former.

The questionable decisions began when he decided to vote off Colby. Doing so meant one weaker person on the tribe for competitions, and it also meant Lex himself was thrust that much closer to the spotlight once the merge came through. However, that could have been offset by the fact that he was keeping three close allies – especially Jerri, who had pledged herself to him. So while the decision was questionable, it was not Hall of Shame bad.

Next, he voted of Ethan. Again, this made his tribe weaker and moved his own position directly into the spotlight. But again, he kept his political allies. Bad decision? Yes. Hall of Shame? No. Besides, he showed that he knew to keep the game and his friendships separate.

But then everything changed. Indeed, it seemed that Lex’s world turned upside-down. First, the entire game turned upside-down when the tribes switched places with the exception of Amber, who stayed with Chapera but had a completely new tribe. This put her at incredible risk, especially after they lost the immunity challenge.

But then Rob whispered to Lex that if he saved Amber, Rob would help him out.

Apparently, that hurried whisper made Lex change his mind about, well, everything. Suddenly, the game was not as important as friendship. Suddenly, his allies were not so important anymore. One comment changed the entire game for Lex. And that change in plan is what earned Lex a mention in these Halls.

Lex had a chance to knock out one member of the opposing alliance. He had the opportunity to break up a power couple. But instead he believed the word of a man who has been known to break that word faster than a large bearded man can spear a fish.

There are those who say that Lex made the only decision he could have. He was outnumbered anyway, so by trying to get on Rob’s good side, he could have bettered his chances of staying around. There is some truth to this. However, Lex and his alliance were only down by one. If he could have found just a single person to join him, the entire game would have changed. Who might that person have been? Well, Big Tom was Lex’s former alliance partner and friend. Alicia was – at least until that episode – on the very fringes of the Rob & Amber alliance group. That’s two, and at least Tom was a likely candidate. Trying to flip Tom over to his side would have definitely been a better bet than assuming Rob would keep his word. Readers might think that I say that now with 20/20 hindsight, but I said it before it happened as well – as did many other people.

Also, let’s look at who Lex voted out in favor of keeping Amber: Jerri. As already mentioned, Jerri had pledged herself to him. Lex kept Jerri over both Colby and Ethan earlier, because she was a strategic advantage to him. She vowed to stand by him and, indeed, he should have considered taking her all the way to the end, because certainly a jury would not award the million to Jerri! Hell, even if she hadn’t made it all the way, he should have at least tried to get her as a certain vote in the jury. However, after keeping her as a strategic move and voting out those who deserved to stay more, he shifted gears and voted out Jerri in favor of her previous hanger-on, Amber.

But it goes beyond that. When Rob came to inform Lex of his Survivor death sentence, Lex made a big deal about how he had changed his game plan because he wanted to help Rob. This was about friendship, not the game.

What?!

What happened to the Lex who had proclaimed that he had to separate the game from friendship? He voted of Colby. He voted off good friend Ethan after lecturing him about this very subject. But suddenly it was about friendship? How did that happen?

The answer, of course, is that it never should have happened.

And let me just toss in here that we also have a dishonorable mention for Kathy, who certainly should have known better, and should have done what she could to talk Lex out of his plan.

Lex himself said, in his final episode, that he’d made a bad decision. And he couldn’t have been more right. Lex’s plans up until that point might have been questionable, but at least he was sticking to those plans. After one whispered request from lovesick Rob, Lex threw those plans into the ocean. He allowed emotion to interfere in his game plan after earlier disavowing such feelings. He picked the wrong strategic position by trusting a known deal-breaker rather than working on people likely to flip sides. He tossed out a valued ally that he had worked hard to keep around previously.

When you add up all of these errors, you don’t just come out with a bad decision – you come out with a Hall of Shame Moment.

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

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