American Idol Season 9, Episode 31: Results

I love it when the producers place Ryan Seacrest up in the balcony with Ricky Minor and the band, like he's delivering an official proclamation to the American Idol kingdom, which, if you think about it, he really is. Of course, that makes Simon the king and Ellen the court jester. But what does that make Randy and Kara? Something to think about when as you read the recap from last night's results show.

This is American Idol!

What a horrible, horrible rendition of an Elvis Medley! The Top 9 sang "Burning Love", "Teddy Bear", "Return To Sender", and "Viva Las Vegas". Well, they sang it in a studio, obviously, because they sounded like singers from the demo CD that came with Cathryn's karaoke machine. Everyone up on that stage looked like they could barely lip-sync for laughing over that horribly arranged, horribly choreographed mess. No matter how well any of them do in this competition, they are going to look back on last night and cringe.

Ryan pulled Aaron, Casey, and Andrew to the middle of the stage, and immediately put Andrew out of his misery, sending him home. It was a mercy killing, really, because Andrew was such a good guy and it was difficult to see him struggle onstage. Aaron and Casey were sent to safety and Andrew took center stage, singing "Something" as his goodbye song. For one last time, I felt the magic that he used to have as a competitor.

After a couple sets of performances (that I didn't bother watching), Ryan trudged the entire bottom row that had been sitting on the couch out to the center of the stage--Tim, Crystal, Michael, Katie, Siobhan, and Lee. Going in reverse order, he recapped everything the judges said about their performances on Tuesday night, then immediately sent Crystal, Siobhan, and Lee back to safety, which left Tim, Michael, and Katie as the Bottom Three. After sending Tim back to the couch, Ryan told the audience the one of the two standing up there is going home, and the other was never even in the Bottom Three.

And then Ryan Seacrest sent Katie Stevens packing. I'm not upset about this elimination, either, because she, too, was really struggling and not growing as an artist. She sang herself out with "Let It Be", which was her best performance to date on American Idol.

Next week: Idol Gives Back, Inspirational Songs, and Alicia Keyes as mentor.

Toodles!