Last night looks a lot tenser in the sped-up version of it played before tonight's credits than it did when it was actually happening. Odd, that.
After the credits, Ryan tells us that there were 72 million votes after last night's show, bringing the series-long total to over six billion. Which means it's only a matter of time until there are more American Idol votes on record than there are human beings on earth. Think NDT will mention that on Cosmos this weekend? The finalists are already in position at the lounge, so Ryan brings out the judges. He jokes around with them a bit before rolling the clip of last night's post-show activities, which included all of them riding away from the auditorium crammed into one stretch SUV. Jena, of course, bitches about Keith pronouncing her name wrong during the show, even though he corrected himself immediately. She's going to need to learn to lighten up about that. They also talk about Harry's reluctance to give standing ovations or even smile unless he really likes a performance, but overall they felt pretty good about their performances. Some of them may feel differently by the end of tonight's show.
Ryan starts calling names with C.J., Dexter and Kevin. There's some kind of snafu in the control room causing the clips of last night's performances to start late. And when they do, we can hear audio of what Ryan Seacrest sounds like talking to the contestants when he thinks he's not on live TV. Turns out it's exactly the way he talks to them when he knows he is. Either he's really like that or he's enough of a pro to know the mic is always live. Actually, it's probably both. The clips include some banal remarks from Randy that add no value at all, but Dexter was the only one to not receive unqualified praise. Caleb is safe, and after watching C.J. and Dexter smile at each other, Ryan says he hates to break them up, so he's not going to -- they're both safe, too. Then Ryan throws it to ads promising a performance from Harry Connick, Jr. that they're going to dedicate to his biggest fan, Munfarid from the Austin auditions. Seems like that's the least they could do for a guy they incessantly showed in the promos being held like a baby, only to eventually cast him aside.
The contestants also spent some time making fun of the judges as well as each other last night during their "audition" tapes, so now we get to hear all of their terrible Australian accents as they impersonate Keith Urban. We come back from that with Ryan and Keith and Jennifer introducing Harry from up in the balcony. Harry's down on the stage, leading a very big band through a medley of his own songs "One Fine Thing" and "Come by Me." The first one is an up-tempo but mellow jazz number that he croons rather uncomfortably into his collar, before sitting down at the piano and kicking off the second one with a little virtuoso barrelhouse and some more energetic singing. Takes some balls to spend weeks sitting in front of the stage telling everyone what they've been doing wrong for weeks, and then get up to show them how it's done. But I think we've seen that Harry is plenty ballsy.
Then we come back from the ad break to the finalists imitating Harry, with his glasses and his musical vocabulary, but Caleb caps it off with a dead-on musical impression of Harry's singing, scatting and all. Ryan asks Harry if he was nervous to sing in front of the contestants, but Harry says that nerves have never been a problem for him. Then Ryan brings out Munfarid himself from upstage, live and in the flesh, and Harry obligingly rushes up and scoops him up in his arms so Munfarid can sing "Every Man Should Know" while being held by the man who wrote it. Finally Harry puts him down and returns to the judges' table saying, "I'm so winded." And Keith says he and Jennifer have decided to use their save on Harry. Like he needs it.
The group of contestants to get the verdict will be M.K., Ben, Majesty and Malaya, most of whom weren't all that great last night. Ryan says that after being in the bottom three before, Malaya is once again… and then Ryan pauses while she gives him the hairy eyeball, until he says she's safe. As for M.K., who has been in the bottom three twice, she will have to endure the stress of… the competition, because she's safe this week. Oh, Ryan, you scoundrel. That leaves Ben and Majesty, neither of whom has been in the bottom three before, but both of whom are tonight. Ryan asks Keith about why they're there, and Keith says something about people at home hearing something different than the live audience, and something about authenticity. Ben basically admits that the authenticity rap is fair, but nobody addresses how much worse Majesty must have sounded on the air than she did live last night.
The finalists' imitations of Jennifer involve a lot of wigs and bad dancing and saying "baby" and "goosies" a lot. That segues into Jennifer's new artist recommendation for this week, Mali Music. He turns out to be a hip-hop singer/rapper, whose song "Beautiful" is pretty and mellow and not bad at all. Nice of Jennifer to give him a shot, even if he looks like someone who is probably seeing the American Idol stage for the first time in his life tonight. At some point he sits down at the piano for a little solo and tries to bring it home slowly, though the audience is still clapping at the same tempo. Oh well. Then Mali Music has to stand there while Ryan announces a preview of Jennifer's new song that she'll perform on week's show, and we go out on a little clip of its video. Jennifer was careful to tell us how to pronounce it, but she didn't come off the correct spelling so I'm not attempting it until week.
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Back from the ads, Ryan says that "all the faces on the couch behind me are safe," which makes it sound like there are a bunch of people sitting like Mork from Ork. Alas, they are all sitting normally. There's still one more group to go, which is Sam, Jessica, Alex and Jena. Ryan starts with Jessica, whom Randy wasn't impressed with, but Randy says she'll be on the Idol/I> tour because she's safe. So are Alex and Jena, leaving Sam in the bottom three. Whoa, the teenyboppers let him down last night, but no matter what happens this is going to be the last week for someone who's never been in the bottom three. Failing the save, that is, which will obviously fail.
After the ads, Ryan asks Jennifer about her reaction to this final three, and she thinks it was based on last night's performances. Sounds right to me. Obviously two of these people are still safe, and obviously the first of them turns out to be Sam. Before revealing whether it's Ben or Majesty who isn't, Ryan tells them how close the vote was: there was only a 0.07% difference between them. So whoever stays will know they came dangerously close to sucking too much. And that turns out to be Majesty, meaning it will be up to Ben to sing for the save. While Ryan gives his spiel, Ben removes his vest and tosses it to the stage, leaving it for Ryan to retrieve. Ben's big Hail Mary is "Stars," which is flat in more ways than one and completely wrong for him. The judges are going to feel good about this decision, and if Harry again tells us that it's not unanimous, we'll know he's lying. But it's Keith's turn to break the news this week, and he reports that while they love Ben's voice, they haven't seen the artistic growth they need to see, so he's gone. His farewell montage is set to his own version of "Breakaway," which I guess all the finalists had to record, knowing if they ever heard it then it meant they were a loser. Congratulations on getting to hear the results of your hard work, Ben.
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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