Tonight's pre-credits sequence is about the final two. It's all diary-themed because this is their "story," and the onscreen text reminds us that their auditions were on opposite coasts. I think that's possibly the least significant way in which Phillip Phillips and Jessica Sanchez are opposites.
After the titles, the judges come out, followed by Ryan with an unusually frozen smile. Tonight's taping is in the Nokia Theater, he informs us, which looks rather larger than the dinky little auditorium they're usually in. Ryan polls the audience by applause to find out whether Jessica or Phillip has more fans, and it sounds like a dead heat, possibly thanks to some excellent on-the-fly sound mixing. Ryan calls them out onstage, and in honor of the occasion, Jessica's wearing another prom gown while Phil has troubled himself to put on black pants under his t-shirt and open button-down. Fancy.
Ryan dismisses them for now and tells us about the three rounds tonight. First will be Simon Fuller's choice of songs for them, then each of the contestant's favorite songs and then each of their "potential winning songs," whatever that means. Also, each finalist has four phone numbers, which won't be confusing for anyone at all, in the four-hour voting window after the show.
Phil won the coin toss after last week's show (using some kind of commemorative American Idol coin, as we see in a flashback), and has opted to go second. And Simon Fuller has opted to have Jessica open the show with "I Have Nothing" by Whitney Houston. Of course he has. She starts off a little weak, maybe due to the nerves and maybe because she's starting off in too low a key. Not really what she needs tonight. But then, at this point, I don't think any performance is going to change the minds of anyone who's bothering to vote in the first place. She gets through a pretty straightforward performance, and then Ryan tells us that the judges will sit tight until the end of Round One for some reason.It's Phil's turn after the ads, and Simon Fuller has assigned Phil "Stand By Me." I'm starting to suspect that Simon Fuller doesn't know all that many songs. Unlike Jessica, Phil's brought his A-game to Round One, opting for a soft, dreamy arrangement that sounds like lazily floating down a river of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Ryan gives Phil's voting numbers (his end with even numbers, and Jessica's odd), than shoos him off the stage.
"Now let's gossip," Ryan tells the judges, and asks Jennifer what she thought. Jennifer, who was clearly called to the stage in the middle of a poorly-timed metamorphosis into a flock of ravens, yammers about the differences between the top two. Ryan asks who they think won, and after some hemming and hawing from the table, Randy gives the round to Jessica. Not that it matters.
After the ads, Ryan confirms Jennifer's agreement with Randy's verdict, and then introduces the new Coke-sponsored Jason Derulo tune, "Undefeated," which was supposedly written more by committee even more than most modern pop songs. That's the one where people have been voting on the lyrics for weeks. It rather sounds like it, too. He starts out his performance slouching on a folding chair like he's still injured, but then stands on it for part of it, which only makes me nervous. Dude does not have his sparkly neck brace on any more, and I suspect the popped collar of his jacket won't provide comparable support in its absence. He does throw a few dance moves anyway, but takes it relatively easy, preferring to leave the bulk of the steps to the growing army of dancers joining him on the stage. And he's clearly singing live, because his mic keeps picking up the hissing of the onstage steam geysers. So props for that. Best of all, the song is a success in that it sounds exactly like a Coke commercial. Ryan invites Jason down for a chat afterwards, but it takes the pedestal so long to lower him back down to Ryan's level that by the time he comes down, there isn't time to do anything but go to ads. Which include one featuring "Undefeated," coincidentally enough.
Coming back, Ryan plugs the Idol tour directly to a matronly woman in the audience and then introduces Jessica's favorite performance of the season: "The Prayer," which apparently got her into the Top 24. Does anyone actually remember that far back? She sings it in front of a full orchestra, and aside from a couple of obligatory big notes, it's fairly dull. I know Jimmy said last week she deserves to sing at the Grammys, but that sounded like something from the Oscars. Ryan's only remark to her is, "No heels," which is at least as insightful as anything that comes from the judges' table most of the time.
Phil's second song, his favorite of the season, is "Movin' Out" from Billy Joel week. He's dressed like he's breaking into the Bellagio vault, starting out solo-acoustic while the band slowly comes in over the course of the first verse. And yep, there's the blonde sax player, perched on the piano with a soprano saxophone this time like the breakout star she is so clearly becoming. Phillip builds all the way up to his big, red-faced finish, and Ryan comes out to give the voting numbers. After dismissing him, Ryan lets Steven speak for the first time on tonight's show. Steven says that you don't always have to be a good egg: "Hatch or go bad." Whatever that means. He'd give that round to Jessica, Randy thinks it was a dead heat, and Jennifer favors Phillip for this round. Judging by the audience reaction, so do they. For the first time this season, I think I'm suddenly ready to call a winner.
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After the ads, Steven yields his seat to Ryan, who introduces Jessica's last song. It's called "Change Nothing," which seems to be a general motto for American Idol in more ways than one. The song itself proves to be a standard ballad and fairly unchallenging -- at least for the listener. For the singer, however, there are plenty of big, high notes in every chorus, so it's the perfect Jessica song. At the end of the song she sky-dives off the piano where she was sitting, and this time the judges get to give some feedback. Randy says he didn't love the song, but he loved what Jessica did with it. But then he compares her to Beyonce, so I'm not sure what he heard. Jennifer says she wouldn't make Jessica's first single a pop ballad like that, and that she should have come out with something more surprising. Like either of the final two have surprises left in them after all these months. Steven agrees that it wasn't the right song for her. "Thank you," she says, and then tells Ryan that she agrees with what the judges said, but wanted to pick a winning song. Then she promises that if she makes a record it'll be more her. Good thing she didn't do that in the last song of the last night of competition, then. Shorter Jessica: "Thought I'd better sell out."
And of course she's played right into Phillip's authentic, keeping-it-real hands. His song for tonight, "Home," actually sounds more like Paul Simon than Dave Matthews, which I did not expect. I also like it, which I expected even less. It's got fingerpicked acoustic guitars, duh, and actual harmonies, and a high school band drumline and a coda that's actually nothing but melody, which Phillip actually sings. And that's the ballgame right there, even before the judges stand up and Randy literally whoops. Randy loved everything about it and then calls it Phillip's "best performance of the night." And then he says it was "brilliant" and "genius." He was actually more effusive at the beginning and the end there. Jennifer says it was totally different from anything else, I guess because she doesn't know about Paul Simon. Steven did catch that aforementioned vibe, "and I think you are the man." Ryan comes out and tells Phillip that they're done with the competition; the rest is up to us. Cool, can we have a fifteen-minute coronation show tomorrow night then?
Ryan runs the clips from tonight, and "the most important phone numbers of the season." After those, Ryan has Jessica and Phillip on the stage with him for their last words to each other. Jessica sucks up to Phillip for a while, and Phillip makes like he's going to demur but manages to mumble out a speech about how amazing Jessica is. "Well said," Ryan lies. He reminds us that the phones are open for four hours (although they're closed by the time you're reading this). And to wrap things up tonight, he brings back last year's winner, Scotty McCreery, to sing us out live with "Please Remember Me." That is of course the song that's been played behind the farewell montages on the live shows all seasons, and tonight there's a clip show of the whole season playing behind the song. I have to say, this year is a lot more interesting in two minutes that it was over seventy-some hours.
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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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