After the break, the Davids duet on that "Hero" song from the first Spider-Man movie. The one with Chad Kroeger. As you all know, any and all rock-tinted singers on this show get derisively compared to Nickelback by default, so this isn't a nice thing to do to Cook, even if the upshot is that Archie ends up just singing backup to him.
Ryan then takes the stage to introduce some cross-promotional hoo-hah for The Love Guru that I refuse to even talk about. Don't see that movie, I don't care how many stills of Justin Timberlake in a speedo and pornstache hit the internet.
Syesha gets to perform , with Seal. That's gotta be fun for her. I do wish she had made the Final Two. Would've made for a far less suspenseful finale, but can you imagine the dramatics if it was Syesha v. Archuleta? THAT would've been a boxing match. Dude, she is so psyched to up there with him right now -- I don't think I've ever seen her smile this big. When did I start hardcore loving her? Weird. And JOEL MCHALE! Snapping his gum and looking totally unimpressed! His constant courting of Ryan on The Soup finally scored him tickets to the show, it seems. Good for him!
Ryan jokes about how long we have until the end of this cursed season, then makes fun of Jason Castro's poor interview skills (continuing a long tradition of this show's CRUELTY and INHUMANITY towards Jason, or so I've heard). Jason's out on his stool, reprising his one great moment on the show, "Hallelujah." I can't believe they couldn't get Jeff Buckley to come duet with him. One more slap in Jason's face, I guess. Besides getting ahead of his accompaniment once or twice, Jason's as good on this as he was before. I still can't believe he made it all the way to fourth place. Which isn't to say I didn't like him -- he ranked right below Cook and Carly, and early Brooke and later Syesha, on my list of folks I enjoyed most this season -- but for a guy with no audition/Hollywood footage and a capacity for fading from one's memory that's truly impressive for someone with that hair, fourth place is pretty miraculous. Good for him, honestly. I mean, Melinda Doolittle's clapping for him -- how can I argue with that?
Pimpmercial. The Top 12 sing "Let The Good Times Roll," and we see outtakes from the pimpmercials. Misty watercolor product whoring. Bonus points: we get to see Castro in the matador suit again. Back onstage, Ryan announces that each David has won himself a hybrid of their very own. He doesn't mean a Cylon hybrid, though that would be very cool, despite their tendency to jump you across the whole universe without any notice.
Ryan introduces the female half of the Top 12, singing a Donna Summer (!) medley. You know who could give a shit about singing "She Works Hard For The Money"? Amanda Overmyer, is who. Thank God she's not going on the tour. On the flip side, we find out that Brooke can make her voice sound like Donna Summer's, at least on the low notes. That's new. Could it be that we missed the chance at Brooke doing a sad piano ballad version of "Bad Girls"? Toot-toot, Brooke. Beep-beep! Amanda sleepwalks through "Hot Stuff," of course, but Carly throws herself into it with desperate abandon (again: of course). Then the SYTYCD boys come out and spin on their heads for a bit and the girls "toot-toot, beep-beep" and introduce Donna Summer herself. I'm seriously getting mad at how uninterested Amanda seems. You're singing backup for Donna Summer, lady. Work up some enthusiasm. No, the song isn't that good, but who cares? Ryan Seacrest is trying to breakdance, is how excited he is about Donna Summer. You could crack a smile or something. Donna then sings something we all know -- "Last Dance" -- and Syesha, as the last woman standing, gets to sing with her. Everything's coming up Syesha tonight, I love it.
Ryan introduces Carly and Michael by perpetuating the fiction that theirs were the "shocking" eliminations of the season. Carly who had been in the Bottom 3 like four times already, and Michael who had royally sucked every week until the one before he got booted. Who could've seen that coming? Anyway, they both deliver an irritating arrangement of "The Letter," though I will say their voices mesh together incredibly well. I generally scoff at conspiracy theories, but I can easily see this as the Final Two That Got Away, in the producers' eyes. The Irish vs. The Australian. The Battle of the Semi-Pros. See what happens to Chosen Ones on this show sometimes? "Shockingly" eliminated, is what.
Jimmy Kimmel takes the stage to mock Simon some more. I just don't like him, I'm sorry. His show is occasionally funny, at least from what I see on the YouTube clips, but... no. Thankfully, it's just one short montage of Simon being a Word Nerd (tm David Cook, as well as Jacob's rageful nightmares) and we're done with him.
Now it's time for the guy half of the Top 12 to perform, and they do so to the tune of Bryan Adams. AWES! OME! Bruce Springsteen is the him of America, people! Hey, so it's David Hernandez, remember? Not just a stripper, but a GAY stripper. The second thing makes it so much different, for real. Best at "Summer of '69," unsurprisingly, are Michael and Chikeze, and then the Davids emerge to duet on "Heaven." I cannot stop giggling, you guys. It does give me a small bit of pleasure to see Cook outdo Archie on Archie's big Hollywood song. Cook introduces the real Bryan Adams, who I absolutely thought was the REO Speedwagon guy from earlier this season. His new song, if that's what this is, is vintage Bryan Adams, and all that that entails. Bo Bice is down with that.
Emily Reid is my HERO, you guys.
Ryan's onstage now with an old woman -- is this his mom? He doesn't say, but Ryan's always trying to sneak his mom past us without noticing. Anyway, he introduces a clip package of the trainwreck moments from auditions. It's annoying, but it seems like it's in lieu of the goddamn Golden Idols, so that's a big improvement if you ask me. If they manage to get to 10 PM without a viewer call-in segment, we might just do okay. Anyway: boys who sing like girls, meth addicts, the mentally challenged (though fewer than usual), and the "I Am Your Brother" guy. I don't feel good about it, but remembering Paula dancing to that song makes me laugh, still. So they bring the "I Am Your Brother" guy out to sing, which is predictable, and he's accompanied by the USC marching band, like how Fleetwood Mac did that one time. Which means this guy is only the second-most crazily dressed person ever to perform with them. Paula and Randy get up to dance with them, so... third-most.
Commercials. The Moment of Truth wants you to know that a man being attracted to another man is a shameful secret. Just right out there in the open like that. Classy as ever.
When we return, One Republic, joined by Archuleta, perform "Apologize." If this was three months ago, I might not have fast-forwarded through this, but the burnout on these guys is severe. Also, the singer looks disturbingly like Spencer Pratt. Afterwards, we shoot over to Matt Rogers, who continues to foolishly try to scream louder than the Archie fans. He talks with some of the Archuleta family and... holy shit, David's grandfather is John McCain! How did we not know this?? We'll see how the results of this election portend for the one in November, I guess. More reason for me to pull for David Cook.
Jordin's made it all the way from Disney World -- where Cinderella's fairy godmother and Aladdin's genie apparently teamed up to fix her vocal chords, I guess -- back to the Idol stage to perform. It's a pretty intensely boring song, nothing close to the spectacle of runs and vocal accoutrements found on "No Air." It is my dream to perform that song on karaoke, singing only the embellishments. Anyway, this song is, like I said, dull as dishwater (it's no "Tattoo," even) , but it's nice to see Jordin singing, given the rumors.
A comedy bit follows in which Jack Black, Ben Stiller, and Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder, y'all -- the promotional blitz is gonna be relentless) pretend to be Gladys Knight's original Pips. I will do a lot for Robert Downey Jr., and I guess that includes not fast-forwarding through this segment, which offers literally zero funny material. They're just... dancing like the Pips. For the entire song. RDJ looks appropriately embarrassed. Ben Stiller and Jack Black, you will be shocked to find, do not.
So that's the season, you guys. Kind of a bad one, given how few contestants I actively enjoyed and how few truly great performances there were. The line to apologize for talking shit about Season 6 forms to the left, everyone. And yet my very favorite one of the whole Top 24 won, and that hasn't happened in four seasons of my watching this show. So that's good. Thanks for reading the recaps, and thanks to Jacob for being the world's best tag-team partner three years running. And congratulations to David Cook, should your handlers ever let you read your press on the internet (which they really shouldn't).
Joe R really hopes said handlers don't make David shave his face. He's also pissed we got zero Danny Noriega tonight. He'd love to hear from either of them -- or you, you attractive readers! -- at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.
If you are suffering withdrawal and don't know what to do with yourself, check out our Idol gallery and look back at the suckiness of this season.