Blindsided

S11E23

Big opening tonight. The celebrity-spotting-camera picks out Jason Derulo in a bedazzled black neck brace, as well as Marlee Matlin, who, it later turns out, picked the wrong night to come. There will just be too many actually good performances for her to not hear. Ryan comes out, encourages the sign-waving, and calls the top nine out onstage. Once they're all out there with him, Ryan panders, "May the odds be ever in your favor." Cool, are they going to start killing each other? No, tonight's theme is each finalist's idol, which is not so much a theme as "what the hell, let them do what they want."

We then cut to Tommy Hilfiger talking to the finalists en masse and then leading them over to a display of clothes to try on. Which takes care of all the Tommy-footage for the night right there, which I am more than fine with. Back in the studio, Ryan tells us that in addition to their solo performances tonight, the finalists will also be singing in trios, and mentions the "megastar" that Jimmy brought in to be this week's mentor: his old friend and collaborator Stevie Nicks. "Megastar" is his word, by the way. Then Ryan shows us a couple of old clips of Stevie Nicks in the studio with a young, very hairy Jimmy Iovine, which don't get nearly the laughs he expected them to. No matter how much time he gives them.

Then it's off to the rehearsal room with old, bald Jimmy and old, not-bald Stevie Nicks, who not only greets Colton warmly but won't let go of his hand as she tells him not to cut his hair off. He's singing "Everything" by Lifehouse, which goes right to where she lives, possibly even more than I suspect Colton already does. On the live stage, he performs with female string players scattered at random, and it's all emotional and vulnerable, like emo but without emo's aloof detachment.

Afterward, Steven gushes about Colton's star quality, and Jennifer says he sang it beautifully. They'll be showing each finalist's official Twitter handle on the screen under their faces tonight, so you can feel free to send them personal message that they'll be sure read every one of during their thirty seconds of unscheduled free time. Randy talks about Colton's believability, and then calls the performance unbelievable. Way to snatch your remark from the jaws of coherence, Randy. And then for some reason he gets all Wrestlemania announcer about how Colton wants to win. Unlike, you know, the others.

Skylar's idol is Miranda Lambert, which should surprise no one, and she's singing "Gunpowder and Lead." In the rehearsal room, Stevie harmonizes with her during the chorus and reminds her that she'll be telling a story. She comes out onstage amid distracting fake newspaper headlines spinning on the projection screens, and is clearly having a fantastic time with the song. It's fun and high-energy, but not exactly angry enough to match the words. Not that anyone cares.

By M. Giant

Jennifer talks about her energy; Steven gets a little confused geographically, saying it had some of Galveston in it; and Randy reminds Skylar what Stevie said about telling a story with the song, and that she needs to show her range some more. Except he couches that mild criticism in so many compliments that the audience completely fails to boo him.

The first trio singing tonight is made up of Colton, Elise, and Phillip, and since Stevie Nicks was here this week, they do a disjointed medley of Colton leading "Landslide" (nice harmonies from Elise, Phillip, and whoever else is singing off-camera), Elise belting out "Edge of Seventeen," and Phillip awkwardly growling "Don't Stop," with some more nice harmonies. Not sure what the point of all that was, but it filled some time. Steven name-drops Mick Fleetwood, and then I guess we're back to the competition.

Or maybe not, because it's Heejun's turn. He's singing "A Song for You" by Donny Hathaway, and impresses Stevie right away. As for Jimmy, who was pretty pissed off last week, he appreciates Heejun's vulnerable new attitude, and in an interview, they psychoanalyze him in absentia, talking about how last week he was pretending not to care about the competition because he doesn't want to be hurt when he loses. Although they don't say "when." Heejun straight-up sings the song when he comes out. It's very serious and vulnerable and boring as hell, but the audience seems to love it, and even the judges give him a standing ovation.

Steven says Heejun is a better singer than he realizes, and needs to keep it up. Jennifer teases, "What are you doing up there?" She says that Heejun moves people when he really sings and connects. Randy compliments his tone and welcomes him back. So they're proud of him for stepping back in line. Let's see how many votes that gets him. Ryan comes out and makes sure Heejun is still going to be cracking jokes after this, and Heejun assures him he will. And demonstrates by telling a half-assed knock-knock joke whose punchline is "commercial break!" Ryan shrugs that they can skip the voting instructions if Heejun wants, which of course he doesn't really mean.

Hollie is singing "Jesus Take the Wheel" by Carrie Underwood. Stevie tells Hollie that her mom died two months ago, and she's had no problems ever since. Wow, was Mrs. Nicks really that much of a handful? No, Stevie means that her only problem is that her mom is gone and none of her other problems matter now. So, you know, take that and run with it, teenager. Hollie comes out in a shiny white minidress, singing amid stage-fog and falling snow in reflection of the song's wintry setting. Oh, and for some reason the edit of the song takes out the lines that explain the literal reason that our lord and savior is being called on for vehicular assistance in the first place, but whatever.

Randy says it was tough to take on and says it was a little pitchy on the low parts. Jennifer disagrees, saying it's one of Hollie's best performances. And Steven says he wished she'd sung something else, to show more of her range. Ryan joins Hollie onstage and lets her talk about the emotional connection and Stevie's tragedy and so on, but he seems more interested in talking about the fallen snow on the stage. Don't mess up Ryan's domain, dammit!

We come back to Ryan holding an electric leaf blower, jokingly trying to convince us he cleared the snow off the stage himself. Only "jokingly" implies something funny, so I'm not sure it's the right word. We then cut to DeAndre's intro reel. He's singing "Sometimes I Cry" by Eric Benet, and after Stevie talks about how she used to have his hair, she advises him to slow it down a bit to show off his technique more. She also tells him to remember to play to the camera, which is a piece of advice I think DeAndre needs less than anyone. When he comes out to perform onstage, he sings the song in his classic falsetto vibrato style. DeAndre's really not my speed and never has been, but tonight I can see why people like him.

He gets tonight's second standing ovation from the judges, and Steven says this is what DeAndre's been trying to do all along, even comparing him to Prince. Jennifer begs everyone to vote for DeAndre so she can hear him for a few more weeks, and Randy says this is what DeAndre should be doing, saying that he and Heejun are both back. Where did they go?

Ryan says it's Bring Your Parents to Work Day, and he greets both his mom and dad and Jessica's mom in the audience. Jessica's idol is, as it turns out, Beyonce, although she's long since (and probably wisely) given up trying to copy Beyonce's moves. She's doing a slow version of "Sweet Dreams," which Stevie loves and gives her a couple of tips on to take or leave as she wishes. Jessica sounds great singing it, but the production design is a little silly, with red doors standing around onstage for her to walk through at the end and the beginning. If Jessica's the frontrunner, she's making the classic move of holding back a little, just to show that she doesn't need to blow it out every week. The thing is that she may have picked the wrong week to do that. But she'll be fine. Jessica at ninety percent is still pretty damn good.

Jennifer thinks Beyonce will want to do that version of this song in her own concerts, and compliments Jessica on her rare restraint. Steven loves it too, and Randy thinks Jessica is a natural-born star and one of the best singers he's heard in "many a year." Ryan goofily comes onstage through one of the doors and cracks, "Beautiful place she's got here." After the ads, Jessica explains that just as Beyonce's alter ego is Sasha Fierce, hers is Bibi Chez, and that's who we just saw. Wow, most people use alter egos to do things they otherwise couldn't get away with doing, but Jessica prefers to use hers to explore what it would be like to be on Thorazine.

The third trio is up, and it's DeAndre, Heejun, and Joshua, singing a Michael Jackson medley. They're all wearing "Billie Jean" hats, in case you missed the point. They wisely toss them into the audience during the "Rock With You" part, and then Joshua moonwalks into the "P.Y.T." transition. I'd have to say DeAndre was the standout there, for what it's worth. It's not like their voting numbers go up on the screen again. Jennifer seemed to enjoy them, although she tells them it's a good thing they're not on So You Think You Can Dance. That brings up an interesting question. Isn't Jennifer a better dancer than singer? Is she trying to tell us she's judging the wrong show?

Phillip's idol is my old friend's cousin, Johnny Lang, and he's singing "Still Raining." Stevie tells Phillip that if he'd been friends with her and Lindsay Buckingham in the seventies, Mick Fleetwood would have wanted all three of them to join Fleetwood Mac. Now that's a compliment, no matter how easy it is to say a quarter-century later. "And he's gorgeous," Stevie adds in an interview, comparing his looks to Lindsay's. She signs Phillip's lyric sheet, "Love that you are you, Stevie Nicks," which is so nice that we can forgive her for misspelling his name. Stevie calms some of Jimmy's insecurities about his own looks, and then we're into Phil's performance. He's branching out after all, playing a Stratocaster instead of his old Gibson gold-top. And as for his wardrobe, he's wearing a jacket that shows he's added brown to his color palette. Nice job on the song, too; he's totally feeling it as always.

Jennifer and Randy are on their feet for him at the end, but Steven's a little slow. Jennifer goes on about feeling the music and making it all about that, Steven still thinks someone's trying to climb out of Phillip (which would explain while he's always so twitchy when he sings), and Randy namedrops Johnny Lang before adding that Phillip's an individual who has big things in front of him. One of which is Randy. Wait, nobody's going to say anything about Phillip's outfit? Oh, here's Ryan. He tells Phil he's looking good, but spends more time being gross about Jennifer giving repeated standing ovations in her white jumpsuit.

Coming back, Ryan's a big dork about Jordin Sparks sitting between Dionne Warwick and Jason Derulo in the audience, and then we check in with Joshua. He's singing Mariah Carey's version of "Without You," which Jimmy says is one of the five most challenging songs in pop music. That just makes me curious about what the other four are. Jimmy and Stevie give Josh some tips on making it look easy and warn us of the danger of Josh coming in flat on the chorus. Josh will also be in danger if one of those huge projection screens topples over on him, but that doesn't seem terribly likely either. Joshua comes out in his too-small jacket, on a stage littered with dead trees and live violinists. He starts slow and builds up and eventually blows it out, even crying a little at the end between all the big notes -- and then throwing in another big note after wiping his nose, just for the hell of it. Talk about making it look easy.

After a fourth standing ovation from the judges, Randy namedrops Mariah and says that Josh's performance was flawless and emotional. Steven says America wants to see an emotional breakdown from its performers, which explains a lot about his career. Jennifer calls him a phenom from heaven, and says everyone's pushing each other tonight, "But you, you're something special." Ryan comes out to ask Joshua what he was thinking about at the end of the song, and Joshua answers in the vaguest terms possible. Smart of him to realizes that nobody wants an actual answer.

Hollie, Skylar, and Jessica are doing a Madonna medley. Jessica starts out on "Like a Prayer," showing off how smart she was to concentrate on her actual competition song this week rather than nailing this one. Hollie and Skylar join in before "Borderline," and then Skylar takes the lead for "Express Yourself." Well, that's...over. Randy says it was fun and compliments Skylar's twang. I like Skylar, but it'd be interesting to see if she could go without it once, like, ever.

Elise, the resident hippie chick, isn't going to surprise anyone by doing a classic rock song, but she's taking it further than I expected by doing "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin. Okay, this is going to be cool. In fact, she does it so perfectly in rehearsal that they still have plenty of time for Stevie and Elise to fuck around by harmonizing together on Stevie's old chestnut "Dreams." "If I needed a singer I'd hire her in a second," Stevie says, and Jimmy agrees. What's he waiting for, then? On to the performance, which I am expecting to be totally sanitized and about as edgy as a cue ball. But the production isn't holding back at all, with loud guitars, pounding drums, flashing lights, way too many high-speed zoom-ins out of 60s concert films, and an actual guitar solo. Not a great one, but definitely the best I've heard on American Idol. Then the band stops and Elise screams out the big "way down inside" finish. I love this song, and that was actually pretty amazing. Elise is not going to be in the bottom three this week, if it kills her.

By M. Giant

And that's our fifth standing ovation from the judges. Steven says he didn't think she'd pull it off, but Robert Plant would be proud. Jennifer says she didn't want to get up again but Elise made her, and Randy says she did an amazing job on the hardest song in the world (so counting this and "Without You," that leaves three). Ever the sartorial eagle-eye, Ryan points out that Elise and Steven are wearing the same pants, and then after the recap of tonight's performances -- which, I have to admit, were a lot better than I expected overall -- Ryan's out onstage with the top nine talking about the record five standing ovations tonight. The judges gush about the night, and Jennifer stands up one more time just for the hell of it. Ryan opens the phone lines and gives his sign-off speech while Heejun and Phil position himself behind him, again, just to try to throw him off, again. Don't worry, he'll get his revenge tomorrow by fucking with Colton during the results.

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.