I'm sure Scot and Jason were embarrassed about having been conned by Tai. (Note that Julia, who was targeting Tai, was not as easily fooled.) But why should Tai's acting performance count as a positive for Aubry? Wouldn't this be an argument for Tai winning?

And yet, as Scot said, Tai couldn't even get Jason (who would have been desperate to stay) to vote with him on eliminating Michele, let alone Aubry or Joe.

As for Aubry's play, after Neal was eliminated, which make the two groups equal in size, Aubry and Tai did a great job of gaining control. First she targeted Nick, which assured her of Julia and Michele's vote. (Tai voted against Jason.) Then she targeted Debbie, which gave Aubry a puppy dog named Joe as a third vote (until then, he'd been Debbie's second vote). Tai voted with Scot and Jason against Cydney and went into the whole act of being their friend, but there was no real risk to Cydney as long as Julia didn't flip. Then the hardest vote, which had an evenly divided group and required Aubry and Tai to allow themselves to be targeted -- but couldn't go wrong as long as Julia and Scot/Jason had different targets.

But after this, now in possession of a 4-3 majority, her gameplay became a little chaotic, as Julia pointed out at the next tribal council, identifying Cydney and Michele at the bottom of the majority alliance. She never worked out a strategy to get to her preferred endgame, which meant that Tai's extra vote was wasted . . . and the opportunity to eliminate Michele never recurred.