It is such an old-fashioned song, though. All about April roses and morning mists. The audience has taken to swaying their arms in the air from side to side, like Kingdom Bound or a Naughty By Nature video. Bobby Bennett is in the audience, as he fucking should be, and is the only person for miles around who is standing up and swaying. I don't get it, but I'm certainly glad for him. Lisa Tucker and Kevin Covais are both way too nervous to even begin to get into this. Lisa golf-claps and is preoccupied, while Kevin nervously tries to tell Katharine something. Probably that they may never see each other again, and he would like a kiss to remember her by. Paula is a big ol' tard and sways like crazy. Katharine is laughing at, I think, her mom in the audience, who we don't see, but let's assume she's a swayer as well. Mandisa's laughing at someone, too. My hope is that the "Fanilows" gave all the finalists an excuse to relax and have a good giggle amid this crazy pressure. By the time Barry finishes, Bobby Bennett has made it up onstage and has a Kat McPhee level freak-out, accompanied by Katharine herself, which was super cool to see. He smothers Barry when Ryan introduces them, and I'm pretty sure he says, "I'm coming to see you in Vegas the 12th." Awesome. Clear your calendar, Barry. Bobby's coming! Onstage, everybody's happy for Bobby, which is adorable. Even Taylor, who manages to score a small point with me for that.
Elimination time! Once again, the feng shui shows us the way, as the top row is obviously safe: Ace is actually for-real nervous instead of fake nervous, and it looks good on him, which should come as no surprise. He's safe. Mandisa isn't going anywhere. Neither is Elliott, though Ryan has a little trouble letting the words escape his mouth. Oh, shit. It's Pickler. Her face looks very Carrie tonight. Ryan tells her that Paula called her a "tigress," while Simon -- "What did he call you? 'Ballsy'?" Okay, first of all, leading the witness, your honor. Say what you will about how annoying she is, but Ryan quite literally asked for it. Kellie's response? "What's a ballsy?" Now. I've been asked to review the tape by several readers. The alternate hypothesis is that Kellie actually said, "I wasn't bally." I ran this back several times, and my expert recapological opinion is that she did indeed say, "What's a ballsy?" For one thing, I don't think Kellie pronounces "wasn't" with a floating vowel at the end. More importantly, if we're going by my "Play dumb, it's been working!" theory, this is Kellie's bread and butter, so why would she get indignant with Simon when she could just get inquisitive and score some points? Ryan, however, quite literally doesn't have time for it, and he tells her so. Blessedly, she doesn't push it. Ryan can get mighty snippy when he's in a time crunch, after all. Chris (crowd: "WOOO!!") the non-compromiser is utterly safe, and while the so-called "controversy" this week was, in my opinion, pretty stupid, maybe it'll scare him into lightening up just a bit. Chris and Kellie seem awfully flirty tonight. How much hate mail do you think I'd get if I tossed a Kellie/June Carter comparison into this recap? Just curious. Paris is still probably a week or two from showing up in the bottom three, so she's predictably safe.