Tonight was a good night for American Idol race war enthusiasts. Yep, the season was partially ethnically cleansed tonight, as John Park, Jermaine Sellers, Michelle Delamor and Haeley Vaughn all got voted off.
To my mind at least, the girls' case at least the eliminations were completely fair: listening to Michelle do "With Arms Wide Open" again was not a joy and I actively felt uncomfortable hearing Haeley reprise "The Climb"—I mean it was bad, really bad.
As for the guys, I think you could debate a bit more. I definitely think John's vocal talents didn't deserve being voted off this early, but the guy didn't do much to endear him to the audience, so while I think it's a shame he went so soon, I don't think it was a travesty. I thought Jermaine was definitely more appealing but not as strong a singer. But frankly if he was going to go on all season about how much he loves God and blah blah blah I'm glad he's gone now, and I'm sure God is too. He doesn't need the negative press of being associated with Idol.
If the voting didn't enrage you though there were still a few atrocities to set your teeth on edge. The group song, "I Gotta Feeling" ranks high amongst the most embarrassing I've seen on the show. If you wanted group snapping, stair-marching and, yes, a THREE-WAY HIGH-FIVE, then you got it. And more than ever the singing sounded fake as hell, which makes me wonder why they chose that song. If you're going to pipe in prerecorded voices (and at this point I even wonder if those were the Idol contestants on the track), why not go for a song that is actually hard to sing and doesn't involve auto-tuner and group shouting?
Then there was Danny Gokey or, maybe, Danny Cokey. I dunno, I'm just saying he's skinnier and bizarrely WAY more animated and pushily outgoing than he was when he was a contestant. He sang fine but I was surprised that he went country—I thought he was on that Michael McDonald tip. After begging Ellen to be let on her show, he frantically explained that he's doing country because Randy Travis told him to. "So check this out, Ryan!" he said, and then invaded Ryan's personal space to tell a truly awesome story about how he just found out that the guy who wrote the song, "My Best Days Are Ahead of Me" ALSO has a dead wife, so isn't that a funny coincidence. "It's an anthem for me!!" he said, and then ran up the wall and onto the ceiling.
Stray observations:
—Screw you, Ryan, for calling back the whole "Kara is a cougar" thing. Then again, that joke about Simon's age was kind of funny.
—I want to buy the show's choreographer a drink, and then put sand in that drink for actually having people jump off the couch during "I Gotta Feeling."
—Debbie the stage manager, on the other hand, really needs a drink. The direction the whole episode was off, like when the girls got shuffled over during Jermaine's performance
—Did anybody else imagine John Park thinking as he watched Haeley sing, "Oh god…I wasn't as bad as that, was I?"