As Ryan reminded us tonight, Idol is now in our hands. "What have you done?" he asked us, and then looked pointedly at Nick Marshall. OK Ryan, take it easy: you had a sweet night tonight: three montages plus a Brooke White song, a group number and three reprises? You barely had to show up.
After our first montage of the night (how tonight's contestants got here) we had a group performance, to Ne-Yo's "Closer." Once again, I thought at least compared to these performances in seasons past, it could have been worse. Would I have taken the time to un-pause and watch if it wasn’t my job? No. But there was a paucity of awful things to laugh at. Adam and Matt tried to out-cool each other off the stage and Kai was way too much but they all seemed to have fun and Nick got a little scene-stealing moment. Could have been worse.
Then Ryan promised us an audition we'd never seen before which was brought to us as an "exclusive Idol moment." I'm not sure what these things are called—Top Chef does it as well, with 60 seconds or so of actual show and then back to more commercials. At least on Top Chef these moments are mildly weird or amusing but this was just some girl with a bad-but-not-deliciously-so audition. That was dumb.
Then we got more montage, seeing what the singers did last night.
Ryan brought us back with some awkward banter, as Matt told Simon that it's never too late to receive advice (I wish Simon had said "Get a tan before you go on TV"). There was a strange pause when Ryan asked Jesse if she picked the right song and she said "Hmm, you're asking me?!" and then the conversation died for a second, along with a bit of my soul.
It was kind of strange to bring Alexis, Danny and Michael back up on stage for the announcement of the next top three, especially when the new group had to sit right in front of the old group but that's what Allison, the first in tonight's top three had to do. I wasn't surprised that she made it up there—she is a strong singer with good stage presence. I wasn't sure how I felt about her outfit though—I like polka dots a lot but it's odd when they're restricted only to the boob area.
Can I just say how much I hate the reprisal of the songs we heard the night before? It's so freaking tedious. Would it be so hard for everyone to have a backup song to do, something that they always wanted to perform on TV just for fun? I guess it would be, but still, I protest.
The announcement of the second contestant was annoyingly drawn-out, beginning with Ryan asking Kris if he thought he got the next spot. What is he going to do? Say "No, I am not good enough” or "Yeah I got that shit locked down, bitch!"? Kara then snapped on Simon for giving her crap for rambling on about who she thought would make it between Megan and Kris. While he was being his Simonish self she WAS rambling on. "Do you ever shut up?" she asked him. I sensed a hint of saltiness on Ryan's behalf, sort of like "OK new girl, watch it" and "That's MY man." Anyway, we got the first surprise of the eliminations with Kris making it through over Megan. I certainly didn't expect this and Kris clearly didn't either. I loved the high five between Simon and Paula—I wonder how much of it was actually being happy about Kris and how much of it was nyah-nyah-ing at Kara. I can see Megan making it to the wild card though.
We were treated to a third montage tonight, and this time not even a new one—it was just a montage of old Idol moments set to "A Wonderful World" shown earlier this season. I have to admit though that the clip of that kid's reaction to Clay Aiken sneaking up behind him onstage never gets old with me. I also enjoyed the weird freeze and close-up of that one handshake and the footage of the guy getting hugged by David Hasselfhoff and then pushing him away. So I guess I shouldn't be so quick to hate montages. But, I am.
Brooke White from last season performed her new single "Hold Up My Heart" which I think would have been 50% cooler if it was just called "Hold Up". I thought the song was kind of boring and didn't capture that Carole King thing she had going on but she looked pretty and her voice sounded nice.
Finally Mishavonna, Kai, Nick, Adam and Jasmine were brought onstage. I knew Adam was going to be the one to make it even though I still prayed that maybe Norm the Gent would make it, just for fun. Simon gave us some sarcastic clapping once we found out that Fall Out Man made it through, and then Adam won some points with me by being classy and giving Nick his props. He delivered an especially Axl-Rosey performance though, complete with a bit of crotch-rubbing.
Simon explained the wild card a bit more although I think we've all got it by now. I feel like the wild carders have already been predestined which makes me further irritated with this top 36 nonsense. Next week's group includes Nathaniel Marshall (eesh), Lil Rounds, Von Smith, Alex Wagner and Scott McIntyre who was DANCING WITH HIS CANE?! Please Lord, tell me that was his idea.
Grade: C
Stray observations:
—I joined the Twitter today and decided to follow Ryan Seacrest on his. Get this: he Twittered before the show that he was going to ask Simon on-air what it's like to be so brilliant and HE TOTALLY DID!!!1!!
—What was with the outfits tonight? I thought Kai's tie t-shirt was dumb as well as Adam's wallet chain but I got to Matt and had to break down what a trying-too-hard ensemble it was: a silkscreened t-shirt, a sweater with stripes on one sleeve, a blue and black hipster scarf and a wallet chain. Who is going around stealing all these wallets? Meanwhile Jeannine was dressed like the lovechild of a cowboy and Indian. But she had great legs. It's season 8. Simon?