Survivor: Alabama Alliance Breakup

Ibrehem has always been the reclusive contender on "Survivor: Palau." He doesn't pipe up for the cameras. He doesn't talk behind other team members' backs. He meditates.

But solitude doesn't win votes. And Ibrehem Rahman, the 27-year-old waiter from Birmingham, Ala., learned that the hard way.

Ulong was hurting again, in the seventh episode of the tenth season of Survivor. Down to three team members, the smallest — and most losing — team in the history of the show, Ulong feared from the start that it would again have to cut a team member.

"I'm surprised. I thought I had this all figured out." Stephenie LaGrossa, the small but incredibly scrappy Superwoman said.

"It does almost just feel like a group of friends rather than a tribe," Ibrehem, the doomed one of the two remaining gentlemen from Alabama, said.

But, despite all this bonding over coconuts and bamboo, it's a well-known proverb that three's a crowd. So as soon as Ibrehem was out of earshot, Stephenie and Bobby Jon Drinkard discussed their alliance.

Meanwhile, over on Ulong, Tom Westman did crunches on the beach and Ian Rosenberger walked out of the water like a merman carrying a sphere the size of three bowling balls.

It was a clam. A huge, meaty clam.

Katie Gallagher, a 29-year-old advertising executive, spouted her expert analysis: "Gee, it probably weighs, like, a hundred pounds," she said. Then she waxed cultural: "It looked like the Birth of Venus or something."

Ian strutted around, calling himself "a provider" while the tribe feasted. But without lapse, Tom, the NYC firefighter, jumped into the water and came out with a shark.

Everyone cheered his bravery for slashing the man-eater with a machete, but Ian felt one-upped.

"You try to be a provider, bring in some food for the tribe, and then someone has to come along and frickin' one up you!" Ian said.

The testosterone was rising faster than the tide.

"Yeah, I'm fit," Tom said. "I'm not the old guy on the tribe."

Coby Archa, beta-male extraordinaire, stayed out of the tough-guy battle. But as usual, the beauty shop boy let loose his lips on the situation.

"Gregg [Carey, the guy romanticizing California girl Jenn Lyon] and I sort of looked at Tom like, 'Gosh, it's going to be a lot harder voting him off now,'" Coby said.

Tree mail came, and it contained an airborne promise: a plane would fly by, and each tribe could use three members to create a signal to garner attention.

The tribe with the most visible signal, from the air, would get a supply drop from the plane.

Although Ulong decided to cannibalize their shelter and dual-bathroom area to build a giant "ULONG" sign on the beach, Koror's "Got Food?" constructed of branches and coconuts won the food drop from the plane.

In the box: three boxes of red wine, as well as military rations of pasta, peanut butter, and other goodies.

Over at Ulong, the mourning began. All three tribe members sat, heads bowed, on the beach. "We thought we won!" said Stephenie.

Back to the budding romance. Jenn and Gregg, the double-consonant dynamic duo, are getting more and more skeptical looks from their teammates. Especially when "cuddling" in the morning.

Despite the fact that the pair is literally stranded on a desert island together, Jenn began voicing complaints that Gregg seemed distant and wasn't giving her enough time.

"Between Jenn and I, we have a great alliance, but I feel like I can't have a good conversation because" I'm concerned about what other people would be thinking, Gregg said.

"Gregg is very focused on this game. So there are some days that it's all he thinks about," Jenn said. "We'll just see if he loosens up."

"It's touch for me to play a game and, um, be a good date," Gregg said.

News to Jenn: You might have to pretend he's a good date, because his allegiance is about the only thing you can count on as team members grow frustrated with your lack of aptitude.

The immunity challenge came. It seemingly involved a mental, rather than a physical, challenge.

A frame full of puzzle pieces needed to be arranged. In the tree-mail, the puzzle was small; in the challenge, it was bigger than a swing set — and floating.

Two team members took to the water to arrange the pieces and one took the director's chair. In this role, Coby proved immeasurably more apt than Bobby Jon.

So Ulong didn't get the pieces arranged. Koror won.

As usual, Steph growled at her team's loss. But as the immunity token went to Koror, she also doubted her alliance with Bobby Jon.

"I should have never gotten myself into something with two boys from the same state," Steph said. She grew concerned, and rightly so. Her teammates share gender, geography and age. And they had a long-standing alliance.

All day the threesome talked about who would be voted off. When nightfall came and the torches were lit, in all the drama of the earliest three-person tribal council in Survivor history, a small upset occurred.

Bobby Jon kept his word with Steph, rather than his alliance of brotherhood with Ib.

The quiet, loyal Ibrehem was voted off.

"I totally didn't expect to be voted off tonight," Ibrehem said. "I thought Bobby Jon and I had something, but I guess I was wrong."

For more solemn regrets and inside information about what's not caught on Survivor cameras, tune in to Friday's The Early Show.