Keys to Survivor Worlds Apart Ep01

Welcome back Survivor fans!  SEASON 30 has begun!
For anyone who isn't watching (yet), here's some quick info.
Survivor: Worlds Apart is the 30th season of my favorite show. (Note that fall and spring are counted separately. Season 1 aired in the summer of 2000.)
The Worlds Apart theme pits 3 teams against each other.  White Collar, Blue Collar, and No Collar.
The abbreviated premise is that White Collar people make the rules, Blue Collar people follow the rules, and No Collar people break the rules.  So how will these groups interact?  Which type of profession is best suited to succeeding at a social game?

What You'll See From Me This Season:
My blog for this season will be putting out my opinion on the best and worst moves of each episode and who are my picks for making it deep into the season.  Maybe a top and bottom 4 each week - something like that.  So I'll give a very brief recap of the essential points (challenges, voting results, injuries, etc.) to set the table.

Ep01 Basic Recap:
Each team chooses a leader.  That leader chooses any other team member.  They later get the private choice of "Honesty" or "Deceit" - choose to bring back a large bag of rice for the tribe, or bring back a small bag and get a clue to the hidden immunity idol.
Blue and No Collar choose honesty.  White Collar chooses deceit.
The Blue Collar team hears the story and suspects that it's a lie and their 2 guys took the smaller bag.  Admittedly, the large bag isn't as big as they have been provided in other seasons.
The No Collar team is happy with the honesty.
The White Collar choosers say there was a 3rd option of Neutral which had no stipulation, but both honesty and deceit had unknown stipulations that they decided were too risky.  Their team doesn't buy it for a second.

The immunity/reward challenge starts with either untying knots or unlocking locks.  All 3 teams start with the locks then switch to the knots.  This unlocks a ladder which must be navigated over and through a few things and to retrieve puzzle pieces.  The puzzle is a choice of 5, 10, or 50 pieces which are either abstract, visual, or straightforward in nature.  White chooses 50, Blue chooses 10, and No Collar chooses 10.  The visual puzzle is wooden pieces fitting into a tree and we've seen this one before.  The straightforward puzzle is square wooden blocks that spells out a message.  No Collar wins immunity and a great fire making kit.  Although Blue was way behind, White can't figure out this straightforward puzzle in time.  Blue wins immunity and flint.  White wins nothing (they're also the only team to have not made fire on their own) and must go to tribal council.

Sounds like everyone on White Collar would have chosen deceit so they're deciding based on strength in challenges and a woman is going home.  One is older and doesn't step up to things.  One screwed up the puzzle.  One was part of the deceit choice in the beginning.  The deceitful one, her name is So, ends up going home in a 4-2 vote (the other deceit chooser was the dissenting vote).

Best/Worst moves (keep in mind, these are my opinions):
Some of this depends on your game playing philosophy.  Do you play for team or for individual at the beginning?  The choice they had to make resulted in 3 different outcomes even though there were only 2 choices.

Best move #1:  Choosing honesty and getting more food.  This worked fine for No Collar.  The worst outcome here was seen for Blue where there was suspicion that this was the smaller bag of beans.  Easy way out is to be very open about anything you're doing in the coming days.  Don't go off alone.  Allow people to freely follow you so they can confirm you're not idol hunting.

Worst move #1:  Choose deceit and come up with a terrible lie.  What were So and Joaquin thinking?  They're on a tribe of people who would probably make the same move.  You'd need to be either more clever, or come up with a back-up plan.

     Missed strategy #1:  So didn't want to choose deceit as much as Joaquin.  She could have agreed, told their lie, then privately sold him out to the rest of the tribe and shared the clue with everyone else, possibly saving her skin.

     Missed strategy #2:  Better lie.  Admit that deceit was the better option, but say you did it in a way that the produces didn't expect.  You're going to share the clue with everyone on the tribe so that someone can find it and it can be used strategically against the other tribes later.  Provide a semi-phony clue that sounds good.  Something like "Near to your water and almost in sight, look for an item to bring you delight.  It might involve digging somewhere near a tree, and if you are lucky you'll find immunity."  Just say it was written on the box so you couldn't bring it back.

Best move #2:  Carolyn watched where So and Joaquin were searching and figured out the general idea of where the idol might be hidden.  Absolute genius.  And she finds it without anyone seeing her, so she can hold onto it secretly and nobody should suspect anything.

Worst move #2:  Carolyn tells Tyler about her hidden idol, ruining what could have been the best kept secret for the entire season.  On the plus side, there's a chance that Tyler will work with her more willingly because of this information.  But Max, who also voted with Carolyn, was one of the people readily admitting that he would have chosen deceit at the beginning, so I wouldn't trust them too far.

Worst move #3:  Vince - the feather hair guy from the No Collar tribe - decides he wants Jenn to be his girlfriend instead of just his alliance.  What the feather?  Dude, play the game and work on getting the lady after filming ends.  Didn't anyone ever tell you that trying to date someone during the season just puts a target on your back?

Worst move #4:  Mike from the Blue Collar tribe decides to eat a scorpion.  When would anyone think that was a good idea?  I highly doubt that SCORPION is the only source of protein out there.  Try some snails and worms instead.

Personal gripe:
This one goes out to Dan Foley from the Blue Collar tribe.  You are correct that juggling isn't the hard part.  You are, however, incorrect that the hard part is not watching your hands.  A seasoned juggler would know that you never need to look at your hands while juggling, and that it would actually make things harder.  The key is just seeing the top of the arc and letting your brain calculate the rest of the path.  Hey Survivor Casting - cast me for a future season if you want a true juggler.  Juggling is essentially my form of meditation.

Top 4 prospects:
Here's who I currently think has the best chance of making it far this season - whether I like them or not.  These are in no particular order despite what it looks like.
1) Carolyn (White). She's in a good place and could easily go far if she makes it to the merge.
2) Max (White). Thinks well so far.  Plus he has a great beard.
3) Will (No). Great attitude.  I don't think anybody is going to dislike this guy.
4)  Lindsey (Blue). She looks like she'll get along well with folks on the No Collar tribe later.  Just a hunch.

Bottom 4 prospects:
Here's who I think will be exiting sooner than later.  Also no particular order.
17) Dan (Blue). People don't trust or like him already.  Probably not a challenge powerhouse either.
16) Joaquin (White). Bottom rung of the ladder on a tribe that seems doomed to lose immunity again.
15) Vince (No). He might think he's on The Bachelor.  He won't be getting a rose.
14) Joe (No). Butting heads with people on the most peaceful tribe in ages. That won't last long.

*Correction was made to "Worst move #2"  several hours after the original post. I had incorrectly stated that Carolyn told Max that she had the idol when she had in fact told Tyler. Thanks to Max himself, via twitter, for pointing this out to me. @fymaxwell