I have about four small pages of notes for last night’s episode, but I think a minute-by-minute recap would be overkill. Let’s just cut to the chase:
Jordin will walk away with the title tonight. The vote difference will be so great that they won’t announce the percentages, so as not to embarrass Blake. It’s over, and Blake blew it. I’m not sure he actually had much of a chance going into last night’s show. By this point in the competition, everybody has their horse. Not many people switch at the last minute. And if they do, it’s unlikely they’ll vote as much as the committed fanbase of the other contestant. This last night of performances is more a victory lap for the final two to celebrate the fact that they made it this far.
And Melinda’s fans are going to vote for Jordin, so it’s really two against one in the finale this year.
Think of the previous winners - Kelly, Rubin, Fantasia, Carrie, and Taylor. Who fits in amongst those singers best in the eyes of the voters? Blake is just too far out there to stand up to that lineup.
That being said, the finale is the contestants’ last chance to make an impact — to rally their own troops to get out there and vote for them, as well as persuading those last-minute deciders to vote for them. Jordin knew that. She’s a lifelong Idol fangirl, practically. She’s been watching the show since before she was a teenager. She knows how it works instinctively. The finale night has to be big. She went big. Blake, who cops to having never seen an IDOL finale before, didn’t know that. He started off strong, and then withered to a stuttering stop.
Jordin is the second coming of Kelly Clarkson. She’s young. She’s got a great personality. She smiles a lot. She shows emotion when she sings. She has an amazing voice. She has a BIG voice. And when she broke down and started crying at the end of the Idol song, she pounded the final nail into Blake’s coffin. Kelly didn’t break down like that until after she won, but it was just as endearing.
Blake came in at a huge disadvantage, but it’s not anything we haven’t seen before — the Idol song is fit for a certain kind of singer. That’s not a singer like Bo. I don’t think Chris Daughtry would have done great with an Idol song. And Blake certainly had nowhere to go last night with his. Maybe if it weren’t the final week with an overloaded schedule, he might have had the time to sit down and remix the song into something that would work for him. There were moments in that song I saw that he might have been able to throw in a little beat boxing and switch things up, but I doubt he would have had time to work that out.
When Jordin came out and sang the song with her big smooth voice like she owned it, it was over for Blake. She destroyed him. Annihilated him. It wasn’t pretty.
I have to go back to Blake’s first mistake, actually, of the finale. It happened last week: He won the coin toss and elected to go first. That’s a mistake. You want people to remember your version of the song. You want people to think of your name when the phone lines open up. Honestly, I think if Jordin had sung the Idol song first, he still would have looked weak, but he would have looked like a toned-down remix of the song, instead of a pale warmup.
The saddest thing is that Blake started off strong. “You Give Love A Bad Name” is the song I thought he should have done last week, but it worked very well as a show opener this week. He looked like he was having fun. It was the most energetic performance of the night. The beatboxing integrated itself nicely. Great stuff.
The Maroon 5 song was a mistake. He did need one song to show off his vocal chops, but he had the Idol Song waiting in the wings for that. He should have found something upbeat to get the crowd on his side. He needed a bigger song. He needed something with a hint of beatboxing in it. He needed to woo the girls and wow everyone else. I don’t know what that song is, but a Maroon 5 ballad is not it. He sang it fine, but it was redundant to the Idol song, and killed his momentum.
The Idol song was, well, not very good. Like Simon said, you could see him grow frustrated with it and wanting to do something with the thing. Blake’s silence after the fact was all he needed to say — he wasn’t particularly happy with it, either. C’est la vie.
Jordin started off strong with a Christina Aguilera song, “Fighter,” that was the best kind of vocal gymnastics. I don’t know how she forced all those words out of her mouth, but she did it. It sounded a little out of breath a couple of times, but it was a smart song to pick: powerful, with a lot of range. She also wore the highest heels of any contestant ever on the show. I think Ryan felt like a midget next to her.
I’m not a big fan of the Martina McBride song (”A Broken Wing”), but it’s a crowd pleaser and builds up nicely. Smart choice.
And she killed it on the Idol song. There wasn’t a moment wrong with that performance. And when she broke down at end of the song, who didn’t want to go up there and hug her? It’s the perfect Idol Moment. I have no idea how she’s going to get through that song tonight after she wins it all. (Did you see how they used the dress performance video of her Idol song in the closing montage? She didn’t cry in rehearsal.)
I can’t wait to see what song she and Blake sing together tonight. It’ll be an interesting clash of styles.
I have more thoughts on Blake, but I’ll save them for tomorrow, since they tie in with something else happening tomorrow. Stay tuned. And comment away.
Two hours last night, with one amazing set piece. This time, Jack Bauer is in over his head on a suicide mission. Yeah, the lower TV budget made for some barely passable special effects, but I loved every minute of it.
Mrs. VandS and I went to Bed Bath and Beyond yesterday. It’s a wonderful store, where everything is always 20% off. They don’t come right out and tell you that, but it’s true. Once you’re on their mailing list, they’ll send you a coupon good for 20% off any single item. And they’ll send you another two days later. And another, etc. etc. You can collect them like Pokemon.
I caught the last twenty minutes of it. They found a nice way to create some tension — the player on stage calling bingo balls is competing for a prize before someone in the studio audience hits a bingo. They are stupid games — guessing whether a ball will be odd or even, black or red, etc. They have cheesy set-ups for them, almost as bad as the worst of THE PRICE IS RIGHT. (We miss you already, Bob Barker.) And, since this is the internet age, you can play at home by printing out a bingo card off the web site.