Idol Recap: 2/24/10

Quite possibly the worst, longest, most painful two-hour performance show in the four full seasons I have been watching this show. It felt about four and a half hours long. I mean, come on judges, what the hell was up with this season's top 12 male selection? I simply refuse to believe that these were the 12 best guys out of the tens of thousands who auditioned across America. It was absolutely dreadful.

And song selection tonight was even worse. Was there a memo circulated amongst contestants that warned about some penalty for picking an upbeat song? I think the entire studio audience is going to need electroshock therapy after this.

You know what, fuck it... let's just save my DVR space and the Idol production staff some monetary cost and just give you the final 4 guys right here: Lee Dewyze, Michael Lynche, Casey James, and Andrew Garcia. That's it. The other 8 can go home right now. We'll narrow down the girls over the next few weeks, end the show a few weeks early, and all will be well. Unfortunately we're going to have to suffer through some of these dreadful male performances over the next few weeks while talented girls are being sent home.

Enough bitching... on to the recaps... for more bitching.

Todrick Hall
Holy shit. Seriously... if Kelly Clarkson wasn't pissed off at American Idol before, she will be now for letting a contestant positively slaughter one of her songs the way that Todrick did.

Aaron Kelly
David Archuleta could pull off the undescended testicle prepubescent Idol contestant thing because he actually had vocal talent. Aaron doesn't have as much vocal talent. Which unfortunately just leaves him with delayed-onset puberty for 30 million people to see for at least a few more weeks because America's 10 and 11 year old females who are allowed to vote three times before they go to bed will flock to him.

Jermaine Sellers
Sexual Chocolate called. Randy Watson got another bit part on the hit television show "That's My Mama" so now they have an open spot for a lead singer. And if you're over age 21 and haven't seen Coming To America at least 4 times, I question your patriotism. I'm not even going to dignify this joke of a performance with an actual review.

Tim Urban
To quote your lyrics tonight... "Said it's too late to apologize." Yup. That about sums up the performance.

Joe Munoz
Hello Mexican Derek Zoolander. Decent vocals. Seems like a decent guy. Nothing much else I can say. He'll get some Latino vote and stick around.

Tyler Grady
You know it's a bad night when his tone deaf version of American Woman actually seems like a step up. At least the judges finally called him out on his horrible 70s shtick.

Lee Dewyze
Finally... a decent vocal performance. I didn't know if it was possible. For the first time in recent memory, all the judges disliked a performance except for the one judge who matters, Simon. The Snow Patrol song was a good, safe bet for a first song out. He's got some serious David Cook in him and will be a contender long into the spring.

John Park
If American Idol held auditions at a karaoke bar in Seoul, John Park would be the grandest champion ever. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work that way. Wins the award for worst song choice of the night. Also earned style points for calling out his parents for being poor when his parents were sitting front-and-center. Nicely done.

Michael Lynche
A good guy. We want to like him. We want him to do well. Because he's an ex-NCAA football player, I'll give this analogy... he's like the walk on non-scholarship football player who makes the team, through hard work and luck earns a starting spot and a scholarship, and you're happy for him to have made it, but at the same time, you're concerned he's a liability because he's just not that good compared to the rest of the guys on the field. And oh yeah, he really needs to avoid trying to talk over Simon or else he's liable to wear out his welcome.

Alex Lambert
For as much stage presence as the other Lambert had this year, this year's Lambert is the exact opposite. When I see him on stage, I'm reminded of when I was growing up and we'd have visitors and my cat would get the horribly freaked out look on it's face when it tried to flee and realized there was absolutely no place to go aside from passing by the stranger. Wins the "Dear God, make it stop... no, seriously, MAKE IT STOP NOW GODAMNIT" award of the night.

Casey James
Anybody catch when they panned to the kid's brother in the crowd? My God, dude, I'm sorry, but sometimes genetics can be really unfair. Also, the Kara crush thing stopped being funny two weeks ago. I give her a little bit of credit for trying to move past it. Casey has decent vocals sitting on a stool and strumming a guitar, but anybody who remembers his audition knows that he's a trainwreck waiting to happen when he has to actually perform on stage without an instrument. He's likely going to have to be in those horrible choreographed Top 10 performances on tour. That'll be almost as fun as seeing Scott McIntyre. Almost. Yes, I'm going to hell.

Andrew Garcia
Shit dude, even the Vegas favorite was off tonight picking a slow, dreary song that sounded like something I'd hear in an elevator. Just the end of a long, long, long night.

Pack your bags, you're likely going home:
Man, this is unbelievably hard... there were so many bad performances, it comes down to who had not only a bad performance but who will likely have problems getting a voting bloc.
- Tim Urban
- Todrick Hall
- John Park