AI had 32,000,000 votes this week, which sounds very impressive until you realize it was split over two nights. I’m not saying that 16,000,000 a night isn’t impressive, but we’re just starting to build up to the finale, where the final vote tally will likely be more than 32,000,000 in one night, albeit with four hours of voting.

In any case, the 24 remaining contestants did their best Up With People-esque group song to start the night after the usual bevy of clips to show us what we had just watched in the previous two nights. Ryan Seacrest announced a slew of guest mentors for this season, including Tony Bennett (standards night?), Gwen Stefani (dance music night?), Jon Bon Jovi (80s night? Rock night?), Diana Ross (disco night?), Martina McBride (country night returns, no doubt), Peter Noone, and –

Jennifer Lopez?!?

This is how insane the world has gotten. J-Lo can’t sing. It’s rumored she doesn’t even sing on her own albums, and lip synchs in her live performances. At least one person has come out to take credit for being the actual voice of “J-Lo.” And now she’s supposed to be guiding the Idols? It is to laugh. I won’t give her crap for hosting a dance show on MTV, but teaching people to sing? You might as well bring Kevin Covais back for that.

It could all be scurrilous rumors, though. Perhaps the anti-Scientology crowd made all that up? It’s traditional for the guest mentors to sing live on results night, right? I challenge IDOL to do that with Lopez and let’s see what we get.

And, hey, Burt Bacharach’s name didn’t come up on the list. What’s up with that?

We start with the guys and, sure enough, Chris Sligh is given his opportunity to apologize to Simon. He doesn’t quite take it. He talks about how much he loves Simon and how he didn’t mean for what he said to be taken so negatively. Maybe he’ll keep his mouth shut next time, or just pick on himself, instead. People love the self-deprecating humor, after all.

And then the back row is lined up on stage for Ryan to fire through like a St. Valentine’s Massacre. Paul Kim takes the bullet. It’s his own darn fault — he wore shoes last night. Thankfully, Ryan didn’t ask if he was wearing his lucky underwear. And, as is Idol Tradition, they put him through the painful process of re-singing the awful song he did earlier in the week that got him eliminated. It wasn’t any better.

Yes, Paul Kim wanted to be the American Idol to prove that not all Asians sing like William Hung. And he’s the first voted out. Somewhere, there’s irony singing a song for moments like this. (”Some people wait a lifetime. . . “)

The back row of girls is lined up next, with Antonella is standing next to Ryan, the exact same spot where Paul was standing when he got kicked off. She looked petrified throughout the entire process. Ryan milked it really well, before telling her she was safe. Then he invited Amy Krebs up on stage and booted her butt out of the building. The funny thing is, I thought she sounded better singing her song last night than on Wednesday. (She made Sanjaya cry.) There are two schools of thought here, I guess: Either you sing better because the pressure is off and this is your last chance in the limelight, or you stink because you’re upset to be leaving. We saw both in the first two contestants.

IDOL now has a DEAL OR NO DEAL contest thing going now, too, where you can answer an obvious IDOL trivia question via a text message for a chance to win $10,000 and tickets to an upcoming IDOL show. Waste of time.

To stretch things out to their full hour, Fantasia pops out on stage, looking awful in a bad blue dress, her short hair, and — well, she’s just not very attractive, is all. Pin-headed is a good term, I think. She’s there to announce that she’s joining the cast of THE COLOR PURPLE on Broadway in April, and Quincy Jones is there to support her. But Quincy is quickly cut off by Ryan after saying five words and we move on with the show. Fantasia sings, and sounds like Fantasia always sounds.

Then it’s time for the second girl to go. Haley looks a little nervous, understandably. She tried dressing younger to answer Simon’s complaints that her performance was “old,” but the sparkly blue sweater just made her look like she stepped out of the 1988 time machine. I know the kids do that today, but I don’t think she looked much younger. She’s safe, though. We can cut straight to the chase now:

Nicole is gone, and Alaina is safe. This is a travesty. Nicole has some potential. She picked a really funky song, but the girl can sing. Alaina is not in Nicole’s league. In the end, they’re both likely cannon fodder, but Nicole stood a chance of turning it around next week. I think Alaina won’t last.

Nicole sang her song again and we cut to commercial. I forget which girl it was, but one of them asked to sing a different song. Ryan checked with Ricky Minor and the band and told her that wasn’t happening.

Finally, Rudy gets kicked off. He suffered from going first on the night and not being memorable. There are worse guy singers in the group, but it was all timing for him. He’s out.

Somewhere in the latter portion of the show, there were a couple of great cuts to the judges. In one, Simon had his head in his hands and was trying desperately to stay away. In another, Paula is digging breath mints or something out of her jacket and popping them in. Given her ups and downs on stage, I’m hoping it’s just mints.

So, to sum up: I predicted Amy and Alaina would go this week and was half right. I predicted Sanjaya and Rudy. I was half right there. Sanjaya only sticks around because he was SO bad that whatever fanbase he has was motivated to vote twice as much as anyone else’s.

Let’s shot for .750 next week with the predictions. It should get a little easier as we narrow down the choices, right?

De Blieck Out!

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 9:13 am and is filed under American Idol. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.