Survivor Update: Dedham Resident Part of Unprecedented Start

Every week Dedham Patch will follow and recap Survivor as Dedham resident Bret LaBelle tries to win the $1 million grand prize. Please be aware that there will be spoilers.

If one thing can be said about the 33rd season of Survivor, it’s that the game has never started like this before

Survivor: Millennials vs. Generation X kicked off like any other season - with a scramble for supplies and an effort to build a shelter. With host Jeff Probst warning the contestants that it was cyclone season and a storm was on the way to Fiji, the Gen Xers of the Takali tribe and millennials of Vanua hurried back to their camps to prepare for the pending storm.

Dedham resident and Boston police officer Bret LaBelle was on the forefront of making the shelter, but it wouldn’t be enough to shield the tribe from the storm. The next morning, both tribes received a tarp to deal with the weather but only hours later, for the first time in Survivor history, all contestants were evacuated due to an expected cyclone.

Upon returning to the island, it was evident that the shelter would have never protected the tribe for the second night. While rebuilding, LaBelle took some advice from his own profession - he saw something and he said something.

With the tribe building the shelter, LaBelle noticed another tribe member named Dave a short distance away trying to find an immunity idol. He already had a bad feeling about the nervous man following a botched attempt at forming an alliance and this new observation didn’t sit well with him.

In the immunity challenge, both teams had to crawl under an obstacle, untie a war club, chop through a mask, make their way through a rope tunnel, run across a balance beam, and solve a puzzle. Both tribes had the option of using a shortcut for the tunnel and beam, but at the price of adding 10 puzzle pieces to the 50-piece puzzle.

Despite early criticism that the millennials of the Vanua Tribe were lazy and didn’t want to work hard, it was Generation X that took the shortcuts and therefore, the 70-piece puzzle. Pulling a come from behind victory, the millennials won on a 60-piece puzzle, taking a flint back to camp.

The lost meant a trip to tribal council for the Takali Tribe. After a poor performance on the puzzle despite her assurance that she could do it, Rachel was sent home with five votes, much to the satisfaction of Dedham’s survivor.

Survivor airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBS.

Image Credit: CBS Entertainment