Mario gets right down to it tonight by asking Simon's thoughts on last night. Simon would rather talk about Nelson Mandela, which is probably just as well. And in his memory, we go right to the clips from Wednesday. I'm sure that's how the great man would have wanted it. Afterwards, Mario is back with us from the stage, surrounded by the top six, bragging about some of their rankings on iTunes. Alex & Sierra are number one, in fact. And I don't even think all of those downloads were Simon.
Moving on through an X Factor-themed Secret infomercial about how they spend all week working and being stressed out. Jeez, why do it, then?
Before the first elimination of the night, Mario presents the judges and their remaining acts on the X-shaped stage, as always. No matter who it is, Mario's going to be spending the night talking about how shocking it was. And since the person who's done is Ellona Santiago, there's plenty of shock to go around. Simon is stone-faced, but Paulina, Kelly and Demi look stunned, not to mention most of what is now the top five. But as Demi takes her to the center of the stage to say goodbye to Mario, nobody is more flabbergasted than Ellona herself. Mario runs her farewell montage, sparing us watching Ellona cry in the picture-in-picture. As Ellona stumbles off the stage forever, Mario says that all the results are shocking at this stage of the competition. Or at least he's self-aware enough to know that he always says they are.
Mario comes back to us from the audience, conducting a remote interview with the top five backstage as they continue reeling from Ellona's departure. Well, actually Rion seems okay with it, though. Then Mario introduces one of last season's non-winning acts, the douchebag trio Emblem3. They're even more annoying than I recall, working every fiber of their surfer cred with a tuneless Sublime-by-way-of-One Direction hey-girl beach-party excuse for a… well, one hesitates to call it a "song." But Simon apparently decided he'd rather sign and market them than admit he was wrong about them, so here we are. For me, their main accomplishment is making people feel better about how they didn't win last year. The judges politely give them a standing ovation and they announce their upcoming tour. What a remarkable coincidence.
Mario brings out the remaining five acts and their mentors once again to start revealing results. The acts that are safe tonight include Restless Road and Alex & Sierra, making it a good night for Simon. That leaves Rion Paige, Carlito Olivero and Jeff Gutt. And the one who isn't in the bottom two is… Jeff Gutt. So Rion and Carlito are both back in the bottom two. They both talk about how much they love each other, how they're going to come out later and fight to rip each other's lungs out.
Mario introduces another X Factor alumni group, but this one is Little Mix from the U.K. version. I haven't heard of them before tonight, so all I can say of them is that for a girl group who looks like a poor man's Spice Girls, sounds like a poor man's Pussycat Dolls and has Simon's Frankengroup fingerprints all over it, they do an outstanding job of making Emblem3 not seem so bad after all.
Demi introduces Rion, who like last week comes out loaded for bear. She perches on a stool behind the mic stand and proceeds to do a version of Miranda Lambert's "The House that Built Me" that's so emotional she nearly moves herself to tears. Carlito's got an uphill climb after that, but then he always does anyway.
Paulina manages to pull off a fairly coherent introduction for Carlito, which tells me she's been working on it all week. Carlito's making a departure from the pleading, poor-me types of songs that people normally do in this position, which is refreshing to be sure. Instead, he's simulating confidence and swagger, which is what the judges are always demanding from him in the first place. And he puts even more work into working the ladies in the crowd, taking one by the hand and singing passionately into her eyes. In short, it's a masterstroke, so I can only assume Paulina had nothing to do with it. The only problem is that his vocal is pretty low in the mix, but his vocals aren't what got him this far in the first place.
Carlito rejoins Mario and Rion at center stage to make their cases. Rion says she fought hardest, while Carlito claims the "most improved" award and promises to fight every time he's in the bottom two. That's quite a pitch, actually.
Mario starts polling the judges, beginning with Rion's mentor Demi. She makes a show of having a difficult decision and of course votes to send home Carlitom, rather than finish wiping out her entire category in less than an hour. As for Paulina, she says that two such different artists shouldn't be fighting for this position, as though these shows usually have different winners for each genre. She also pretends to be in a tough position, but votes to keep her protégé as well. Moving on to the impartial judges, Kelly starts by congratulating the both of them, then tells Rion that she's so young and talented and gives credit to Carlito for putting up with her shit every week. She adds that neither of them gave their best performances, but she's sending home… Rion. Wow, I didn't expect that.
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It's now up to Simon to either send Rion home or invoke Deadlock with a vote to boot Carlito. Simon says Rion's been great to work with, and tells Carlito that it's awkward how he's said he comes from nothing and needs the opportunity. So he ends up giving Carlito the sympathy vote and sending home Rion. She takes it pretty well, reminding us how she's been coming out every week and loving the Lord, and then, unlike with Ellona, we actually get to see her watching her farewell reel as her parents join her on the stage. Tough night for Demi, right? She went from having a shot at winning this competition to being the first mentor out of it. Again. And before Mario signs off for the week, we get one last look at Rion and her implausibly telegenic mom before both of them are gone for good, alas. You think Rion's mom might maybe get a talk show or something, though?
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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