Before we get to the important stuff, Seacrest announces the following special guests who will be showing up throughout finals: Diana Ross, Jon Bon Jovi, Jennifer Lopez (ha!), Gwen Stefani, Tony Bennett, Martina McBride, Lulu and Peter Noone, and Barry Gibb. A little underwhelming after all the Mariah and McCartney talk, not that I'm not counting the days until Diana Ross gets unleashed on these poor kids. And then they all sing "Sowing the Seeds of Love," and as always, 24 is far too many for a group sing. It's such a mess.
Before the first guy is eliminated, Chris Sligh dons his "damage control" afro and "apologizes" to America for being a smartass to Simon. On the one hand, he's refreshingly upfront about how he's doing it so he won't lose votes, but on the other hand, it's not so much an "apology" as it is a "...but I love Simon." Anyway, Brandon, Sundance, Chris R., Nick, and Blake are all safe. Paul Kim and his nasty, sweaty feet are not. Not entirely expected, but not unwelcome either. For the first girls' elimination, Ryan calls up Jordin, Stephanie, Sabrina, Leslie, Melinda, and Antonella. One by one, Ryan tells them all that they're safe, then he rounds on Amy Krebs and tells her she's going home. Oooh, sneaky! Not surprised. She was the least memorable.
Then Fantasia shows up and announces that she's going to be starring in The Color Purple on Broadway. Quincy Jones is there too, and he gets cut right the hell off, which is pretty funny.
The second girls' elimination sees Haley, Gina, and Lakisha deemed safe. It's down to Alaina and Nicole, so, you know, flip a coin. It's Nicole who's going home, and Lakisha's attempt to turn her sing-out into a giant group number is thwarted. The second guys' elimination sees Chris Sligh, Phil, Jared, and wee little A.J. all declared safe. Down to Rudy and Sanjaya, Ryan says one of them finished in the top 4 guys, and one of them is eliminated. Well, that certainly takes the suspense out of it. Like Rudy was going to marshal the teen vote. So Rudy goes home, and Sanjaya instantly becomes the Covais that WE JUST CAN'T GET RID OF even though it's only been a week. Poor Paula, too. She really championed Rudy and Nicole. Oh, and this year's "You Had a Bad Day" is a song by Daughtry, which should rile up all the right people.
What appears to be six thousand people stand at the center of the Idol stage, awaiting the first four eliminations. Okay, so I'm told it's substantially fewer than six thousand, but I don't quite buy it. There are at least fifty of that Amy Krebs girl anyway. Ryan's dressed like an undertaker tonight, which is what I recall him dressing like quite a bit last season. Dude, they're not dying. Well, okay, Alaina might actually die if she's eliminated, but the rest of them? Unlikely. Ryan tells us "our" votes were the deciding factor, but "Were [we] influenced by our judges?" Well...probably. Though I remain unsold on the whole Lakisha thing. Randy tonight is wearing a blue shirt, of the color of which I greatly approve.
Ryan gets right down to the hammered-home truth of the week, that the guys were majorly shown up by the girls. He asks Randy if he thinks there's still a chance that a guy can win this season. Which is so weird, because before semifinals began, I thought the general crop of guys was so much stronger than the girls. Of course, I didn't count on the fact that Stephanie and Sabrina were stealth awesome, for one thing. I do still think a guy could win, even though Randy disagrees with me. He says the flak the guys took was justified and that it's "a girl's race to lose." Simon says right now he sees about three guys with "potential." Huh. Blake, Brandon, and Phil? Probably, since he's not letting Sligh off the hook so easily and he can see Richardson's vocal limitations. Paula's asked for her advice, and she gets glassy-eyed for a minute before slurring, "Bring it! The only way you can go is [points up]." Oh, Paula, you were doing so well. The other three react like, "Um, not," and move on.
, Ryan announces the guest mentors/performers/theme generators the show has lined up for this season. They are as follows: Diana Ross (awesome! You couldn't find a crazier person to unleash on these kids), Jon Bon Jovi (who is, like, halfway towards franchising a fleet of look-alike Jon Bon Jovis who he can dispatch to mall-openings and morning talk shows around the country), Jennifer Lopez (WOO! I maintain an odd affinity for J-Lo, for reasons I can't recall, and even though she did just show up at the Oscars in what I can only describe as Greek goddess drag, her drag-king husband in tow), Gwen Stefani (who's been slipping, so I hope she's really cool in person), Tony Bennett (looking strangely Elliott-like in his photo), Martina McBride (two seasons too late and, hello, no country singers this year!), a couple Ryan describes as "'60s legends Lulu and Peter Noone" (yeah, yeah, "Herman's Hermits," don't email me), and finally Barry Gibb (who is such an obvious choice for this show, it's scary). You figure from that group, Diana Ross and Barry Gibb could have theme weeks devoted to their own music, Martina will do country night, Tony will do...whatever, crooner's night, Gwen and/or J-Lo will cover actual recent music and/or dance music, and Herman's Hermits will do whatever the hell involving Britain and the 1960s. Those of you waiting for Bjork to show up for Icelandic Electronic Ambient Pop week will have to wait another year. Also: no Sir Paul McCartney? No Mariah? After weeks and weeks of speculation and wink-wink "can't say for sure" statements from the producers? That's depressing. Though if they can somehow finagle Mariah to horn in on Diana Ross week, I may not be able to handle it and would probably revert to poisoning Jacob so I could recap it.
The video recap for the week's performances breaks down like so: Rudy, Nick, and Sundance are all sacrificed on the altar marked "The Guys Sucked This Week." Stephanie, meanwhile, is singularly credited for putting things back on track once the girls began. Melinda, Leslie, and Sabrina are grouped under the banner of Aretha, with Sabrina getting an extra pinch of "That was hot!" from Randy for her "power vocals." Gina and Haley both covered Celine, but Gina's McKibbining gets the happy whitewash while Haley's Marie Osmonding gets the backhand. Jordin and Nicole were both "soulful," though I'm puzzled why, given what'll go down later, they only show Paula's complimentary remarks to Nicole. Meanwhile, Jordin, who I've decided looks like America Ferrara crossed with Callie O'Malley, is maybe my absolute favorite contestant so far. Love her. Antonella and Amy are grouped under "not good," essentially. Antonella was vocally sub-par, and Amy was boring. Alaina's not-nearly-as-charismatic-as-she-thinks rendition of "Brass in Pocket" got panned, and then when Ryan tried to intervene, Simon got off the best line of the night: "Are you trying to date this girl?" Alaina's "huh?" face after that is still fun to watch. Then Lakisha gets the montage's pimp spot, and once again, I can see that she's good, but I do not understand the heaping of praise. If you're essentially trying to steal Jennifer Hudson's Oscar thunder by performing the big Dreamgirls song, wouldn't you have to be pretty confident that your version is better? It's not. Sorry, Randy. Sorry, Simon. It's just not. And...that's all. No Blake. No Sligh. No Brandon. Don't we normally get a rundown of everyone on results night? I know the guys were boring, but damn.
After the commercials (Jeff Foxworthy? Really?), Ryan has assembled the girls on the couches. Ryan asks how everyone's feeling. Amy says, "We're gonna cry in about two seconds." Called down the thunder on that one, didn't she? I know you're going to be surprised, but Ryan wants to talk to Lakisha first. This girl is getting the Jesus Push, for sure, but I think Ryan focuses on her so much because he has actual affection for her, which is fine, I guess. She doesn't say anything interesting -- she's "nervous" even though she's totally safe. Ryan calls the back row down to the stage. This would be Jordin, Stephanie, Sabrina, Leslie, Melinda, and Antonella. Antonella is standing at the end of the line, to Ryan, exactly where Paul was standing in the last segment. Watching this on Thursday, I figured she was toast, but it's a little too obvious and I should have known better. Anyway, Jordin, Stephanie, and Sabrina are all safe. Duh. Leslie -- who I thought might be vulnerable because we'd never seen her before this week and she acts like a spaz -- is also safe. Which leaves Melinda and Antonella, which, just like Blake and Paul, is a no-brainer. So Melinda is safe, and Antonella looks resigned and kind of pissed. There is a brilliant cutaway to the judges where Simon is just pursing and un-pursing his lips out of boredom, and Randy is looking down the row at him with his best "what the hell are you doing?" face. I need a screencap of that, people. I really do. Ryan calls Antonella "darling" before he tells her she is...safe. Fake-out! Very interesting to check out the reactions along the bottom row of girls. Haley, Nicole, and Lakisha are THRILLED, particularly Nicole, which is nice because that was her natural reaction before she realized that this bodes ill for her. Alaina wants to be happy but the wheels are already turning in her head. Gina's freaked. Amy's like, "Well, shit." Stephanie gives Antonella a huge hug when she makes it back to the couch.
Ryan looks back to the girls and calls Amy front and center. This is where I feel bad for Amy, because: is it a good thing he called me first? Is it a bad thing? It's tough to say. Thankfully, Ryan doesn't draw it out. She's barely at center stage before Ryan tells her she's going home. She goes dead-eyed at the news, as does a girl who I can only assume is her bedraggled demon-child of a sister up in the lounge. Simon confirms no less than twelve times in twenty seconds that Amy's problem was that she didn't "stand out." Ryan also gets him to say that she "didn't sing that badly," which is good enough for the "positive reinforcement" (drink!) category. Ryan hands her the mic for her sing-out (as Haley prettily wipes away pretty tears), and Amy asks half-jokingly if she can sing a different song. But since this show is a little sadistic, and mostly because they don't want to ask the band to have to learn a whole new arrangement for someone who just got bounced, she'll be singing that same old boring rendition of Bonnie Raitt she did last night. Her voice is worse because of the freaky emotions she's feeling, but she pulls it together. This is one of those double-meaning sing-out songs. "I can't make you love me if you don't." Kind of like when Ayla had to sing about being "so close you can almost taste it." Melinda's taking this hard -- she keeps wiping tears away from her face. Also taking it hard is Sanjaya, who has become The Crier of Season 6, which is never a fun thing to be, but which will get him even more of those delicious votes. Ryan takes the stage again once she's finished and reiterates that the judges all think she really does have a great voice. And I know he thinks he's being nice and softening the blow for her, but the unspoken rest of his sentence is, "...you're just way too boring." I'm not sure how fun it is to have that hammered home on national TV.
After the commercial, Ryan has to tell us about some stupid trivia contest that viewers can enter and win...I don't know, money? Tickets to the finale? Some combination of the two. The question is, given the choices of Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, and Fantasia, which one had an album titled Breakaway. No, really. That's the question. I'd like to give a prize to anyone who calls in and gets that question wrong. And that prize is five of my fingers slapped right on the side of his/her face. , Ryan introduces a woman who we've seen grow up on Idol or whatever the current mythology is saying. And now her career is going in a whole new direction, and she wants to tell us about it. It's Fantasia! Okay, now, I didn't watch Fantasia's season, so the reaction to her has been kind of freaky, because apparently people still have VERY STRONG opinions about Fantasia in both directions. I like her just fine. Quincy Jones is in the audience -- Quincy Jones was in the audience of like seventeen things I watched on TV this week; I think he was in the crowd at a football game on Friday Night Lights -- and he likes her just fine too. She descends the big staircase and greets Ryan with a "Hi, babe!" Lucky for Ryan she seems to like him, because right now she's looking like she could squash him with the palm of her hand without thinking about it. The audience, and particularly the Girl Pound, Randy, and Paula, are standing up for her. Simon seems to like her too, but he's not standing for anybody. Fantasia looks over to the contestants and says she's "glad it's not me and it's you guys."
Thankfully, we don't waste any time getting to Fantasia's "big news." She's going to be starring on Broadway in The Color Purple. She says it's a challenging part, but she's ready for it. Ryan asks Quincy Jones if he thinks she's up for it. Quincy gives the double thumbs-up and says, "Absolutely!" Then Quincy starts off like he wants to talk at length about The Color Purple, so he's like, "The Color Purple is about --" and Ryan cuts him right off. Ohhhhhhh. I'm not so sure if he should've done that. Doesn't Quincy Jones control all the parts of Hollywood not owned by David Geffen and Oprah? And then Fantasia sings a song from the musical, called "I'm Here." And since Fantasia isn't really a part of the competition, I don't have to care how well or not well she sings, but mostly I think she's fine. Hope she does well on Broadway so she doesn't have to star in any more biopics of her own life. It's a very strange song, full of weirdly complete sentences with, like, prepositional phrases and correct punctuation. They don't sound like music verses. But I like the way Fantasia sings it, and I've yet to fast-forward. The final line is "I am here!" and after she sings it, she turns to the girls who are still sitting on the couches of judgment and she sings, "You are here!" which I thought was empathetic and generous in a way I don't recall other Idol alumni doing. Points for Fantasia. Oh, and look, now Simon is standing and applauding. I like that Simon's so withholding with this kind of praise, because it does make it mean more when he gives it. Fantasia says to Paula, "Don't cry or I'll cry." From what I understand, it wouldn't take much.
Okay, now that all that niceness and good feeling is out of the way, it's time to mercilessly boot someone else off the show. We seem to be a little behind on time, so Ryan already has Haley, Gina, Nicole, Alaina, and Lakisha lined up on stage. Haley and Gina are both safe for this week, though I worry for how much longer. All of a sudden, the girls' field is a gauntlet. Lakisha is also safe. I KNOW! Who'd have thought? So now we're down to Nicole and Alaina, as God intended. Alaina, Ryan reminds us, was unimpressive, lacking, and nothing special. He does not, however, explain whether he wants to date her or not. Inquiring minds, Ryan! Alaina and Nicole are holding hands as Ryan gets to what was wrong with Nicole: Randy "didn't like it" and Simon found it "over-rehearsed," but Paula really thought she could sing. Keep in mind that Paula really thought Paula could sing and it makes more sense. "After the votes," says Ryan, "Alaina...you are safe." Yeah, that makes sense. Amy was the boringest and Nicole was the strangest. To her credit, Alaina immediately turns to hug Nicole and says some nice things we can't hear. And there's Amy Krebs's devil sister again! Still looking pissed! Is she really Nicole's sister? Is she really there at all? Oh my God, AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO SEES HER?! This is like that Dakota Fanning movie where you think she's all innocent and scared but really she's the sinister mastermind behind all the fucked-up shit that's going on. You know that movie? I Am Sam?
Back to Nicole, who assures us that "it's okay" and she "had a lot of fun." She loves everybody and remembers to say she made "such great friends" this week. Paula's standing with her hands folded, like she's in church. Ryan calls on her, as the only Nicole Tranquillo supporter in the country, for some kind words. Paula calls her a "brilliant vocalist" and says she can do whatever she wants to do. Except sing Chaka Khan and/or Erykah Badu. Oh, but that's what she's doing right now. She's very cool as she thanks Ryan and says she's gonna try not to cry. Here's something funny: as Nicole starts the song, Lakisha starts walking to the stage and looks back and kind of beckons everyone else to do so, like they're going to turn this into one big group performance. Alaina and Antonella start to follow her, and I'm not sure if it's a producer telling them to sit back down or else the rest of the girls don't want to do it, but either way, nobody else budges, so Lakisha...returns to her seat. Awkward. I suppose you want to give Nicole her last moment in a spotlight by herself, but I don't entirely blame Lakisha for wanting to distract the world from Nicole doing what she does to the song. Which is the same thing she did last night. Which is a lot of wrongness. Creepy Dakota Fanning is stoic but secretly pleased at the assault on eardrums that's going on. My favorite thing, as usual, is watching the girls -- Melinda and Jordin especially -- singing along to the background vocals. Love when they do that. A.J.'s singing along, too, and once again raised his arms in the air. What is with that? It's like he lives in a constant state of Diana Ross's "I'm Coming Out." So it's over, and then the girls can get their group hug on, Gina and Antonella especially. Kind of sad how Amy didn't get this treatment at all. Of course, when Amy was eliminated, half of them were still at risk for elimination, so I can understand how it's easier to be happy now. Or maybe they were just happier when Nicole stopped singing.
Back from the break, Ryan reminds us that "time is tight" so he jumps right into asking the bottom row -- Chris Sligh, Jared, Sanjaya, Rudy, A.J., and Phil -- to join him at center stage. A.J. is alarmingly small, particularly in between Rudy and Phil. Like, no wonder he's always raising his arms above his head. It's so we'll be able to see he's there. This will be your standard "peel the onion" elimination, where the guys on the sides are safe and the two in the middle are at risk. So Chris -- who gets a little redeeming Seacrest snark when Ryan's all, "Simon, we know you love him, you said that" -- is safe. So are Phil, and Jared, and A.J. So it's down to Sanjaya and Rudy, and Ryan tells us that one of these two placed in the top four vote totals for the guys, while the other is eliminated. Which completely kills any suspense, because Sanjaya's teen factor and sympathy factor and we've-actually-seen-more-than-eight-seconds-of-him factor probably could have put him in the top 4, particularly when the guys as a whole were weak. But Rudy? Hard to believe he got that much support. And in fact, he didn't: Sanjaya's safe, Rudy's going home. Ryan reminds Rudy of that bull's-eye he had on his shirt yesterday, and Rudy's good-natured about it. Simon's "advice" to Rudy? "I can't turn an okay singer into a great singer." Ryan: "Maybe I should've asked Randy, then." Yeah, no shit. But I look forward to Ryan asking Simon for kind words of advice upon everyone's elimination and then seeing him get all offended that Simon said something mean or dismissive. That's a fun way to spend the three months.
Randy encourages Rudy to "find what you do best" and then do that. I'm pretty sure Randy means within the singing field, but I wouldn't rule anything out. Maybe Rudy has a secret talent for animal wrangling? Paula interrupts so she san say that she thinks Rudy has one of the best voices among the males. Okay, she said "best vocals," but we're on the Paula curve, so adjust accordingly. She says his falsetto is amazing and he's pitch-perfect and America just "didn't get" him. I can kind of get behind that, actually. I didn't get him at all, but I'm not sure if it's because he's an awful singer. But this show is, maybe more than anything, about connecting with the audience and making sure they "get" you, so in that sense Rudy did fail. Also: pronounce your consonants, man!
Before Rudy's sing-out, we get the montage of the faithful departed. The kiss-off song this year is something by Daughtry, which fits the theme of keeping things in the family this season. But I am ashamed to admit that I miss the dulcet tones of Daniel Powter telling the cast-offs that they had a bad day. Chris Daughtry telling us the kids are "going home to the place where [they] belong" cuts deep, sure. But it's nothing like the glorious knife in the gut that was "So where was the passion when you needed it the most?" I loved that part. Anyway, we see a clip of Paula running out to hug the giantess that was Amy Krebs at auditions. And Nicole's weird poofy capped sleeves. And Rudy's giant leather jacket. And Paul's stupid feet. Then there's this awful clip of Paul from Hollywood week where he goes, "I can't lie to you, if I go home, I'll be crushed." Mean! Cold!
Rudy asks permission to "go out with a bang," and as he's consistently been all three seconds we've seen him this season, he's likeably misguided. The performance still sucks, but to Rudy's credit, he doesn't sing about "getting a free ride" right up in Sanjaya's teen-vote-marshalling face. That was kind of him.
week: Jacob's all over the boys (OW!) while I need to come up with something to say about people like Leslie and Alaina and Antonella. And then Jacob's back to see four more losers take a swift boat to oblivion.