The White Collar (Masaya) Tribe is filled with executives, directors, managers, in short . . . these are the business class. These are the people who think they work smarter than others and feel entitled to whatever power they can grab. They're not all bad, some of them even do work smarter, but they all feed of the "what's in it for me" mantra. The White Collar Tribe are:
Carolyn Rivera, a corporate executive who hates to be lied to;
Joaquin Souberbielle, a marketing director who tends to overindulge;
Max Dawson, an outspoken, opinionated media consultant who taught a class on Survivor;
Shirin Oskooi, a Yahoo executive who made a Google Calendar the #1 online calendar;
So Kim, a retail buyer who turned 30 and reinvented herself; and
Tyler Fredrickson, an ex-talent agent assistant (doesn't that mean he has no collar?).
The Blue Collar (Escameca) Tribe is made up of the working class. These are the people who actually do the work to get the job done. They put in a full day's work for mediocre pay and get up the next day to do it again. The Blue Collar Tribe include:
Dan Foley, a postal worker who has yet to go postal;
Kelly Remington, a state trooper who apparently loves her pepper spray;
Lindsey Cascaddan, a a single mom hairdresser who enjoys dating as a sport;
Mike Holloway, an oil driller whose pet peeves are time management and spelling;
Rodney Lavoie, a general contractor who idolizes Tom Brady; and
Sierra Dawn Thomas, a professional barrel racer and all around cowgirl
Lastly we have the No Collar (Nagarote) Tribe, a group that is a little more free spirited and usually pretty laid back. They believe that rules are made to be folded. These are my people, more or less. The No Collar Tribe is comprised of:
Hali Ford, a law student who'd rather surf than slave;
Jenn Brown, a sailing instructor who travelled the world solo;
Jo Anglim, a jewelry designer who likes to work with his hands;
Vince Sly, a coconut vendor (seriously?) who has travelled through 39 countries on a whim;
Nina Poersch, a hearing advocate with a Cochlear implant; and
YouTube sensation Will Sims, who feels no one can outplay his social game.
Jeff greets the cast and breaks down how the groups are separated with his usual back and forth banter. He then has each group pick one person to represent their tribe, Masaya picks Jauquin, Escameca picks Dan, and Nagarote can't make up their mind but eventually settle on Will because he promised his tribe sandwiches. Why not. Those tribe members now pick a second in command, . . . Joaquin picks So, Mike volunteered for Dan, and Will quickly chose Jenn because he felt he can trust her. Jeff then tosses out the tribe maps and sends them on their way.
At the Nagarote camp Nina explains about her implants and knows it could work against her but her tribe is really supportive. Will and Jenn then separate to perform their task and discover a pile of crates on which are two bags of beans sitting by their clues, one is labelled Honest and is a large bag of beans while the other is labelled Deceive and is a much smaller bag but includes a clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol (HII). Will and Jenn agree to work as a tribe and choose Honest.
Meanwhile, over at the Escameca camp, Dan and Mike know that Villians win the game but both feel it's too early to be the bad guys. Mike is a little wavy on the decision but they agree to take back the large bag of beans. When they get back to camp and explain the choice everyone seems happy about it except Sierra who doesn't think that's a very big bag of beans. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
At Masaya they go through the official white collar routine of introductions, . . . who they are and what they do. Someone should build a boardroom table for this camp. When Joaquin and So get to the crates, Joaquin already knows which bag they're taking back but wonders what they're gonna tell the tribe. So is wanting to be honest but Joaquin is the definite alpha in the group so she sides with him and grabs the HII clue and the small bag of beans as she makes a deal with the devil. When they get back to camp they invent a third Neutral bag with no vague badness attached to it and say they took the Neutral bag of beans because they were afraid of the consequences of the other two bags. Carolyn doesn't trust them but she'd have done the same thing so she's not angry about it.
Nobody on the Masaya tribe trusts Joaquin and Shirin and Carolyn are starting to notice how close So and Joaquin are getting. Max agrees with them and they form a three man alliance then and there. Now all they have to do is stick to it.
Time to build the camps and it's no surprise the Escameca are right on it. Rodney tells Lindsey a story about his big sister and how it relates to one of his tattoos and she melts like butter. As sad as the the story is I hope it's true because it's not one he'll want to be caught on later. His plan coming in was to get the girls. That's one. On the othe side of the camp Mike decides to add a little scorpion protein to his diet. Not his best decision as he starts gagging on it and spits it back up. At least he was smart enough to cut off the tail.
At Nagarote, Vince appears to be crushing on Jenn and she seems to have no problem with that for the moment but at least she's being cautious about it. Jenn knows it's good to have allies in your corner and Vince could be a good ally to have, especially if she needs coconuts. The Nagarote campsite is being built a little less cohesively under Vince's direction than over at Escameca and Joe knows it but he doesn't want to rock the boat. Sorry dude, but when it's a matter of where you sleep I think you need to step up and get it done right or you'll be doing it again later. Eventually he does but it ruffles Vince's feathers. Seriously, they're in his hair, look at them ruffle.
Day two and camps are still being assembled, even at Escameca where Dan's arguing about the solidity of bamboo holding his weight. As Kelly points out, Dan's lacking the social skills to work with 20 year olds and he's gonna need to work on that. At least he figures out he's in a no win situation and goes to get firewood, but at least he's got a friend in Mike.
Over at Nagarote Joe says he can make fire without flint and then backs it up. Well done Joe. The first tribe with fire, but still no place to sleep. Meanwhile, Vince is getting jealous when Jenn shows appreciation to Joe for making fire. Slow down, coconut dude, your paranoia is gonna kill you.
The Masaya tribe needs a better work ethic if they ever want to get their camp assembled. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians (sorry Wayne). Carolyn goes HII hunting, especially when she sees So focusing all her attention on one tree. Guess who found it first. With So and Joaquin still looking Carolyn has the last laugh. So much for the Neutral bag of beans.
Time for the Immunity Challenge.
Tribes need to race down a ramp, then make their way through an obstacle to a large wooden crate containing a ladder, once there they can either open the crate using keys and locks on one side or by untiring rope knots on the other side, once the ladder is free tribes will use it to go up across and down a tall platform, then they need to work their ladder through another series of obstacles before finally using the ladder to reach the puzzle they want to solve. High above their heads are three bags of puzzle pieces. The first bag has only 5 pieces and is a standard tangram; the second bag has 10 pieces and is the visual tree puzzle that's been used before on Survivor; the third bag has 50 pieces and all you have to do is spell it out. The first two tribes win immunity, the losers . . . not so much. The first tribe also gets a large fire making kit, while the second tribe gets flint.
Everyone's down the ramp and through the hay without a problem but the high stepping obstacle slows Linsey down a little. All three tribes chose to use keys to get the ladder with Vince for No Collar, Lindsey for Blue Collar and Joaquin for White Collar. Joaquin switches out for So who moves on to the knots for White Collar. Lindsey switches and Mike goes to the knots, then Vince switches and Joe also goes for the knots. So keeps the lead but Joe is close behind her as So opens the crate and White a Collar grab their ladder just as Joe untied his last knot. Mike still has 5 knots to go.
White Collar is up, across and down the tall obstacle in no time with No Collar right behind them. Both teams are sliding their ladder through its obstacle as Mike releases the ladder and Blue Collar strives to catch up. No Collar pulls ahead and now needs to decide which puzzle to grab. With his tribe supporting the ladder Vince climbs up and grabs the 10 piece bag, while Joaquin goes up and grabs the easiest 50 piece puzzle bag.
While Jenn works on the visual puzzle, Shirin gets started on the 50 piece puzzle and blue collar is still sliding their ladder. Jenn steps out and Joe moves in as Shirin tries to figure out how to sort all her pieces. Blue Collar can't figure out how to use their ladder to get their bag, falling further behind as Joe flies through the 10 piece tree with his fourth piece. Rodney finally grabs the 10 piece puzzle as Joe adds another piece and Shirin continues to sort. Maybe they could give her a spreadsheet for this one. Joe adds another piece, then another, then another, then . . . he's out of pieces.
Joe wins Immunity for No Collar as Shirin finally gives up and allows Max to step up, while Sierra swaps out and let's Mike move in. Mike is almost as quick as Joe going through the visual puzzle, but Max is quickly figuring out the 50 pieces. Shirin knows she screwed up as Blue Collar races through and completes their puzzle, sending White Collar to Tribal Council. So blames Shirin and Carolyn as the weakest links but I'm not sure why she picked Carolyn. No surprise though that she'd blame someone other than herself.
When the White Collars get back to camp somebody joked about making a schedule to determine their next course of action. Carolyn knows it's going to be one of the girls. When max goes to congratulate So on her effort with the knots she throws Shirin in front of the bus while shoving Carolyn under it for playing it safe. So makes it pretty obvious she's making a move and Carolyn is pretty sure she's the target despite So and Joaquin assuring her otherwise. Tyler confirms it when he comes over to talk with her and she reveals to him that she has the HII.
Carolyn starts working the other side to get out So. Max and Shirin agree with her and Max approaches Tyler who's sympathetic with her but not saying which way he's going to vote yet. Time to head to Tribal Council and grab a torch.
Jeff has been doing this for so long now that he makes it look easy as he questions the tribe. The Neutral bag story comes up right away and Shirin admits that she knows they were lying about it. Max says he would have made the same decision but would have done a better job lying about it. So comments about an alliance of four and when Carolyn asks Joaquin says its Tyler, Max. Joaquin and So. Interesting. That puts Shirin and Carolyn on the outside and So admits they're voting Carolyn out tonight despite lying to her otherwise. So far all So is doing is admitting that she's a liar and can't be trusted, regardless of how good she is with knots. Jeff tries to redirect the argument before sending them off to vote.
The votes are cast and Jeff retrieves the container and tallies the votes. Carolyn decides not to play her HII and Jeff begins reading the votes. First vote Carolyn, then So, then Carolyn, then another for So tieing them up, then So, and finally . . . So. So is the first person voted out of Survivor: White a Collar vs Blue Collar vs No Collar. A little more silence and a lot less lying at council goes a long way.
Next week White Collar goes naked while Nina takes on the entire No Collar tribe. Back to retail buying for So and I'll see the rest of you back here for next week's review. Until that time.