American Idol S8 Finals Ep13 And Then There Were Two

Adam and Kris. Kris and Adam. It was all about those two last night. Do you like your peanut butter smooth or crunchy, kittens? ‘Cause both of these boys bring the salty goodness in their own way. Disco Night was not nearly the train wreck that I had been anticipating. In fact, it served to pretty neatly separate the wheat from the treacly, heart handed and be-weaved chaff. Let’s do it ‘til we’re satisfied, darlings.

That’s the way (uh huh, uh huh) I like it (uh huh, uh huh)

Adam Lambert/If I Can’t Have You – Great, great song choice here. Yes, the pattern is showing – slow song, fast song, slow song, fast song. But when he is this good, I don’t even care, noodles. The suit was a perfect wardrobe choice, reminiscent of the Disco years without taking it to the John Travolta, white polyester place. The hair was awesomely bridge and tunnel South Jersey pompadour. The voice. Y’all, this fool can blow. But what did he most bring that mama told y’all about yesterday? Abandon. Total commitment to the performance. The way he and his arranger (lord bless him) completely twisted this song into something I’ve never heard before was magical. When the judges finally had an opening to talk about making the song your own, nothing. Well, Paula couldn’t have said it because she was crying too hard, but at least the Dawg could’ve busted it out. Kiddies, Adam is already a superstar whether he wins this competition or not. To quote L’il Mama, that was a “10, 10, 10, Shebang” performance. Haters will hate, but there’s really no denying this fool has got the goods.

Kris Allen/She Works Hard for the Money – Let’s all just acknowledge that this is in no way, shape, or form a disco song. While Donna Summers did have many a disco hit, this was not one of them. Kris totally cheated on tonight’s theme, so a slap on the . . . wrist for that. All good? Good. Because Kris was absolute fire last night, kittens. Hotter than the sun. The white tee and the dog tags and the guitar with the funky drummers? Yep, I was digging it. And I loved what he did to that song. I don’t know if he masterminded that arrangement or not and frankly, I don’t care. That was good, good stuff right there. Mmmmm, Mraz-y. Judge #4 was so hot and bothered that she couldn’t do anything but scream the child’s name over and over for about 20 seconds which Kris is probably used to, although I’m sure the monkey faced wife was not amused. And Paula, my Paula, took it to the bitch song place. She’s so on point this season, darlings. I think she’s having a Flowers for Algernon event. Next season, she’ll be back running around on the wheel and babbling about rainbows and the colors of someone’s voice and we’ll all cry and sing Ben or some shit. Anyway, Kris rocked the party. All night long.

At first I was afraid, I was petrified

Allison Iraheta/Hot Stuff – Well, this is not the song I would’ve chosen for her, obvi. But I liked the kinda rocked out version that she laid down. It was very Allison. Manic Panic really has a great sense of herself as an artist and I always appreciate that. And the vocals were on point, as usual. As Paula stated, that last note was amazing. Sadly, she was once again dressed like a baby Frankenhooker. A baby Frankenhooker with a really bad addiction to home permanent kits. Kittens, it wasn’t good. I tell you, despite the fact that the performance kicked ass, I am concerned for my little chola. Middle of the pack and not a true knock out, and the judges damned with faint praise as they are wont to do with this one. I hope she has the spirit of Gloria Gaynor with her tonight.

Side Note: The judges’ panel would be exactly the same if we got rid of Judge #4 and put a parrot on the stage who would just repeat the last three things that Randy said. Discuss.

Anoop Desai/Dim All the Lights – I was so frustrated with this performance, darlings, because our little Anouk was this close to creating a truly great moment. This song choice was inspired. One of Donna’s slept on disco classics. It starts out slow and then mellows into a mid-tempo groove. And Anoop killed the slow part at the beginning; he was almost in a Robin Thicke place. I mean just absolutely spot on vocals and a real connection to the song. And then the back half of the song happened. And the back half of that song was a Katrina level disaster. Did he just forget every single word of the song? Why yes, I think he did! There are other words to that song than “dim all the lights” repeated over and over and over again. I’m sure of it. And he looked like a deer caught in the headlights, crouching down to touch some outstretched hands from the swaybot pit, incessantly fiddling with the lapels on his jacket. It just was not good. As for the look, well once again he got it half right. The slightly scruffy hair and the 5:00 shadow? I’m loving it. The embrace of the pink? Loving that, too. But the suit was ill fitted. He should’ve gone to Ryan’s tailor. And suit over sweater has been done to death and that particular look didn’t match the night’s theme or the song. Also, suit with sweater with tie with button down with tennis shoes equals 10th grade English teacher trying to be hipster, quirky cute and failing. Not quite, I think, what he was going for. When Paula takes it to the “You look fabulous tonight” place, you know that she haaaaattteeed it. And while it wasn’t his worst performance (Beat It, Simon?) it was far from his best and perhaps the least pimp slot worthy performance of the season. Squandered opportunity right there, kiddies. Go big or go home? I fear that my sexy geek may be going home after that one.

Once I had a love and it was a gas, soon turned out to be a pain in the ass

Matt Giraud/Staying Alive – Once upon a time this season, round about the fifty millionth audition episode, I threatened to cut this fool with a broken bottle. We had moved past that, though. While I never embraced Matt, there was that one time, at Idol camp, where he was kind of awesome. All that is gone now, noodles. Shadows and dust. What on earth would possess him to choose this played out song? This is a song that cannot not be cheesy. Unless you are a Bee Gee, you should not be singing this song. Ever. For real. And the saddest part is, kiddies, that he sounded the best he has in weeks. He kept the vibrato mostly in check and stayed mostly in tune. But when Simon called that performance desperate and unoriginal, I think he was being too kind. That reminded me of the one drunk, obnoxious guy that your friend always brings along to the bar because she swears that he’s really fun, but he’s not, but she doesn’t see it, right? So the drunk, obnoxious tool toddles over to the jukebox, wastes a dollar, and dials up some cheesy as fuck song like Stayin’ Alive and proceeds to bleat it out at the top of his lungs while dancing around like an idiot putting his butt way too close to some poor couple’s buffalo wings and just overall embarrassing everyone in the group while your friend kind of huddles in the corner pretending like she didn’t know that he was that much of an asshole. Yes, that was what Matt’s performance was like. And he might actually stay another week while someone more worthy like Anoop or Allison goes home. Tragic.

Frikkin’ Gokey/September – Yep, noodles, it’s like that. He’s lost his first name privileges with me. And the bitch chose the song that I wanted for Matt. Bloody hell. It was a great song choice, of course. And his voice sounded great, more on pitch and in tune than it has been in many a minute. But the whole thing paled in comparison to the way that Kris deconstructed She Works Hard for the Money or the way Adam just completely made a new song out of If I Can’t Have You. I mean, really, it was kind of dull as dishwater, no? It got Paula up and drunk chair dancing, but any old thing will do that. And the cheese factor. Oh, my stars and garters! The cheese was strong with this one last night. Grinning like a fool through the entire song, making a heart with his hands? Somebody please get this tool off of my TV screen. There’s no star power there. If he gets even a whiff of the AI crown this season, he’ll make Taylor Hicks look like Bono. This fool is just a choir director with a good voice. He should go home and be all about that and be happy with that, because he’ll never be a big pop star.

Lil Rounds/I’m Every Woman – I will give one teeny, tiny point to Ms. Rounds. Obviously, she was not aping Chaka Khan on this song. She was clearly doing an almost note for note copy of the Whitney version of this song. And doing it quite poorly, I might add. We’ve gone through all the permutations of “She’s not a belter and she doesn’t have a big voice like Whitney or Mariah or Chaka Kahn” that I can think of, and she and her bad weaves and insanely out of control ass are going home this week anyway, thank jeebus. So really, is there anything left to say? Oh, yes. Judges, watch your backs. Lil’s mom looked ready to kick off her heels, take off her earrings and do work on y’all last night. Best guard your grills.

I could lose any of my personal B3 tonight, noodles. Sadly, I think it’s going to be Lil and either Anoop or Allison that winds up going home. Damn you, Judge #4. Damn you to hell. Your lust for Matt and that nasty ass growth on his forehead is going to cost me an actual good contestant. I hope Simon Fuller is happy now. (And seriously, kittens, that thing on Matt’s forehead is alarming. I think it’s probably sprouted its own mini-head by now. You know, like when they remove tumors from people and they see that the tumors have grown mini teeth and eyes and hair and stuff? That must be the reason for all the hats)

Did I state that I was ready to just give Adam the crown already, because seriously? I’ll see you darling kids later after I come down off my D’Archie high. Now that’s the kind of former Idol guest I’m talking about.