By M. Giant
Ryan tells us it's going to be a jam-packed hour tonight, and by the standards of American Idol results shows that may well be true. He walks along the line of the top ten, saying that even though one of them is going home tonight, the other nine will have a chance to taste "quadruple platinum success, something this dude knows all about." For at the end of the line is none other than Phillip Phillips Jr., mugging at Ryan and trying to throw him off as though they were never apart. If only Heejun were here, we'd have ourselves a reunion.
Tonight the judges are introduced by name as they enter, all four of them this time, and there's the old-school Hawaii Five-O long zoom in on Ryan's face as he follows them onstage. He reminds us that Phil is back to play tonight, plus Bon Jovi is performing and there'll be a sing-off between the runner-up guy and the runner-up girl to determine which of them will be joining the tour this summer. Oh, and someone's getting the boot, in case anyone's interested in that. Ryan cues a tape of Jimmy Iovine's comments about last night's show. It starts with him immediately addressing the elephant in the room, which is that the girls are kicking the guys' asses. For instance, interspersed with clips of last night's performances and comments from the judges, he agrees with Randy that Curtis Finch, Jr, needs to branch out a little bit, he's totally sold on Janelle Arthur and that he didn't love Devin Velez's performance last night. He declares Angie Miller a real talent especially when she sings her own songs, but while her "I Surrender" was good last night, it wasn't as great as the judges thought. He thinks Paul Jolley is more pop than country and not all that great on top of it. As for Candice Glover, he says that her performance last night is what music us supposed to be and she won the night. So it's not oversinging if you can pull it off. Jimmy is aware that Nicki called him out last night for his treatment of Lazaro, but Jimmy now says what he gave Lazaro was a bubble bath and the kid's going to need to learn to take criticism. Jimmy declares Kree one of the few competitors who can actually pick their own songs and puts her in his top three. Jimmy says Burnell was the best of last night's guys and also puts Amber in his top three. So I think we all know who Jimmy's favorites were.
After that, Ryan comes back and announces that they'll be revealing the top three for the first time... because that worked so great on The X Factor last fall. At least they won't be revealing the actual rankings. He gives the order to dim the lights -- which they do -- and gets right into it. Turning to the finalists assembled on the bleacher-couches, he asks Devin to stand up and tells him that he scored 25% of the Puerto Rican vote, making him the island's number-one vote-getter. I guess it's nice that Puerto Ricans get to vote for something. Janelle is told that she won her home state of Tennessee with more than 30% of the vote. Candice scored 42% of the vote from her home state of South Carolina. This is all quite fascinating, except for how it's not. As for the nationwide vote, Ryan says that one of them is in the top three -- and it's Candice. Jimmy Iovine: correct as always.
So there's no Ford Music Video tonight and thank God for that, but the finalists are dragooned into shilling for something else: the animated movie The Croods. A song from it is tonight's group sing, while clips from the movie play on the giant projection screen behind them. They sound great on the harmonies at the end, but I'm pretty sure they're not only singing over a backing track of a lot more vocalists, but only pretending to. And not well, either. There's a shot of Amber when she's supposedly singing but really just looking around at her fellow finalists in confusion with her mouth open. After this bit of marketing synergy has been successfully executed, Ryan sends all of them back to the bleacher-couches except for Kree, who Ryan introduces to the mayor of her small Texas hometown. He's actually here on the stage and not shouting from a high school gymnasium (though it's still only March) as he presents her with a key to the city. And then Ryan tells her she's also in the top three, so it's a good night for Kree. Well, at least until the mayor awkwardly sits down to her and the other finalists on the bleacher-couches. She probably could have done without that.
Coming back from the ads, Ryan is in the audience, and pretends to trip into Jane Lynch's lap, which I guess is his price for plugging the upcoming Glee episode. Then he introduces Bon Jovi, sitting on more audience members' laps in the process. I hope one of them is Bon Jovi's manager. Bon Jovi performs a new song, which is unsurprisingly in their inoffensive, positive-message, Lite-FM mode. I mean, Richie Sambora is still trying, but Jon Bon Jovi playing an acoustic guitar with a capo on it is how metal they are anymore.
Ryan explains again how there's going to be an extra singer on the Idol tour this summer in addition to the top ten, and the sing-off for that spot is about to begin. With that, he introduces the one, the only, Charlie Askew, who appears to have pulled his personal thing together. He's covered his arms, at least. He's going with an original song, called "Sky Blue Diamond." He sits down at the piano and does something that if he'd done last week instead of "Mama," he'd be in the top ten tonight. And if he'd done it last night, well... he'd still be in the top ten. The lyrics are a little high-school literary magazine, but it has a decent melody that serves his high, clear voice to good effect. And really, most pop song lyrics are high-school literary magazine anyway. If I didn't know that the other person in the sing-off is going to be one of the girls, I'd say the spot is his. Nicki, Randy and Keith all seem to agree, giving him a standing ovation. Mariah is probably reserving judgment in case her protégé Tenna comes out . Ryan asks Charlie when he wrote it. Which Charlie awkwardly explains was a few months ago, when he was trying to choose between a 2½-year relationship and doing the show. And look how that turned out.
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So then the girl competing against Charlie in the sing-off turns out to be Aubrey Cleland, who comes out and sings that mainstay of high-school talent shows, "Out Here On My Own." I she must not have gotten much notice. It's pretty, but not all that out there and this time Nicki sits out the standing O. Of course, we know how she feels about Charlie. But as for which of them actually won, we're not going to find that out until the results of a vote are revealed week.
After the ads, Ryan introduces Phillip Phillips singing his new single, "Gone Gone Gone," which is just as well, because I think we're all pretty familiar with "Home" by now. You've probably heard this one too, which is not dissimilar with the same decent mix of Dave Matthews, Paul Simon and Mumford & Sons vibes that allows music fans to say his name with a straight face. And after he's done, Randy comes up onstage and presents Phil with the giant framed display commemorating the quadruple-platinum sales of "Home," which Ryan kind of already gave away earlier. Not that this stops him from talking about how it's a night full of surprises.
Back to the results. Ryan asks Lazaro and Angie to stand again. He says they both did Kelly Clarkson songs last night, but only one of them is in the top three. So that eliminates everyone else who hasn't stood from the top three, like Amber and everyone else with a Y chromosome. Anyway, Angie got 17% of the vote in Florida, but Lazaro still beat her there. But in the rest of the country, Angie made it to the top three, along with Candice and Kree. Man, the dudes are getting spanked. As we all knew they would. By this time month it's going to be Lazaro and five women. Which is potentially a lot of pink on the stage.
When we come back to the ads, Angie and Kree and Candice are sitting over at the winners' couch on stage right. Ryan crosses back over to the people still waiting at the bleacher-couches on stage left to reveal the fourth-place vote-getter -- it's Lazaro, who heads over to join the top three. Amber is also safe, and she crosses happily. Janelle is in sixth place, meaning that five of the top six are women, so in a way my prediction came true and I totally didn't revise the end of that last paragraph after watching. No, not at all. Ryan turns to the ones still waiting at the other end of the stage, saying, "Gentlemen," because they're all that's left. The guy to cross the stage is Burnell Taylor, who looks pretty happy about it. Eighth place goes to Paul Jolley, which means Devin and Curtis have to join Ryan in the hot spot at the center of the stage as the bottom two. Ryan asks for Keith's opinion of this development and he admits to being a little shocked. Nicki thinks Curtis shouldn't be there. "Come on, America, are you kidding me?" She vows to Curtis, "If you go home, I'm going home." And with that, Ryan throws it to ads, saying we'll soon find out which contestant and which judge is going home. Which he then tries to qualify, realizing that didn't make sense; should have just left that one alone.
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By M. Giant
Back to the results. Ryan asks Lazaro and Angie to stand again. He says they both did Kelly Clarkson songs last night, but only one of them is in the top three. So that eliminates everyone else who hasn't stood from the top three, like Amber and everyone else with a Y chromosome. Anyway, Angie got 17% of the vote in Florida, but Lazaro still beat her there. But in the rest of the country, Angie made it to the top three, along with Candice and Kree. Man, the dudes are getting spanked. As we all knew they would. By this time month it's going to be Lazaro and five women. Which is potentially a lot of pink on the stage.
When we come back to the ads, Angie and Kree and Candice are sitting over at the winners' couch on stage right. Ryan crosses back over to the people still waiting at the bleacher-couches on stage left to reveal the fourth-place vote-getter -- it's Lazaro, who heads over to join the top three. Amber is also safe, and she crosses happily. Janelle is in sixth place, meaning that five of the top six are women, so in a way my prediction came true and I totally didn't revise the end of that last paragraph after watching. No, not at all. Ryan turns to the ones still waiting at the other end of the stage, saying, "Gentlemen," because they're all that's left. The guy to cross the stage is Burnell Taylor, who looks pretty happy about it. Eighth place goes to Paul Jolley, which means Devin and Curtis have to join Ryan in the hot spot at the center of the stage as the bottom two. Ryan asks for Keith's opinion of this development and he admits to being a little shocked. Nicki thinks Curtis shouldn't be there. "Come on, America, are you kidding me?" She vows to Curtis, "If you go home, I'm going home." And with that, Ryan throws it to ads, saying we'll soon find out which contestant and which judge is going home. Which he then tries to qualify, realizing that didn't make sense; should have just left that one alone.
After the ads, Ryan reminds us that either Curtis or Devin is about to sing in hopes of the judges' using their once-per-season "save, " which I'm totally sure they're going to do in the first week of voting. And it turns out that the person with the lowest number of votes was... Curtis. Both he and Devin look shocked and Nicki actually gets up from her chair as though she's really going to leave. Not that she gets very far before changing her mind. Curtis does a reprise of "I Believe I Can Fly," the only person in the room whose face doesn't clearly indicate that this is an exercise in futility. The judges at least make a minor effort to look like they're deliberating this during his performance. He nails the big finish and Nicki gets up again, but this time it's to give the unhappiest standing ovation ever. Ryan comes out and says it's up to the judges now. The audience starts chanting, "Save, save, save," for all the good it's going to do. Ryan asks Mariah for her reaction, and she's almost in tears as she talks about he she can't believe this is happening. Cheer up, Mariah -- at least it's not Burnell. Ryan turns to Randy and asks him, as the senior judge, to give their decision, which he merely says is not unanimous so Curtis is not saved. Ryan suspects Nicki voted to keep him and Nicki says she doesn't feel like they had enough time to discuss it, which she understands it being a live show and all, but she doesn't look happy about it. Either way, it's over. Ryan lies that Curtis is one of their favorite people ever to come on the show and there's a montage of Curtis's run. Which, oddly, does not include Curtis's interview where he discussed his plans to take out Charlie Askew. Playing under the clips is this season's farewell song: "Gone Gone Gone" by Phillip Phillips, so they're getting maximum mileage out of that dude. And it looks like Charlie Askew may have ultimately beaten Curtis after all.
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By M. Giant
M. Giant is a Minneapolis- based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.
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