After a week of breathless anticipation: What songbook will the Idols be digging their pink sweaty hands into this week?! Ryan announces that tonight America’s number one show will celebrate America’s number one band. The Beatles! Yeah, the BEATLES! I love that band! But, wait, didn’t we just have Beatles night last week? No, that was something entirely different. That was Lennon/McCartney night. This is Beatles night. See the difference? Ryan is wearing pewter. Ricky and the band are ready to play. On what crazy mixed-up globe are the Beatles America's number one band?



Ryan gives us a refresher on how the show works, in case we have some "new friends" in the audience. What is this, the Polka Dot Door? If you get that reference, please join me for hip replacement on Friday. Then he introduces the judges.

Ryan: Randy, this the first time we've expanded on a theme for two weeks. Do you think that's a good idea?
Randy: Uh, yeah.
America: NO. WORST DECISION EVER. CURSE YOU.

Interviews tonight will be about the finalists' most memorable moment so far.

AMANDA OVERMYER: She interviews that her most memorable moment is being able to connect with the audience, then delivers a monotonous and shrieky version of "Back in the U.S.S.R." The most embarrassing element of the performace is her insistence on these unironic interpretive gestures and facials. Like, really, no really honey, disconnect the *phone.* Randy: Perfect song but "pitchy." 7 out of 10. Paula: A little ahead of the beat, but she's "quintessential, authentic, who you are." How about a ballad one of these weeks? Simon: It's the same thing week after week. She's got to depart from the formula or she is in danger of being boring. Amanda: WHOA Ryan, WHOA. I've got a minute and a half to show people my armpits. And I want to really show my armpits and also I want to pantomime regurgitating into the microphone. I want people to say, Hey, I wanna go see that girl with the strangely muscular armpits who urps up da phantom bird yak on stage! And I want them to see that! That's not what's going to be happening if I have to sing some stupid ballad or sumpin'! WOOOOOO!



KRISTY LEE COOK: On the stools, Randy pulls out her little photo album and shows America Kristy's dog and horse. I guess Ryan wants to keep this bland bit of gristle on the show another week. She interviews that her most memorable moment is nearly being voted off a bunch of times. Yes, yes, pathos thy initials are KLC. Then she reveals that she picked "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" based on the title alone, and she heard it for the first time this week. Wow, Kristy, I didn't think I could loathe you any more than I already did, but you just keep surprising me, girl, with your proletarian jaw and your rural smile. The arrangement is very *-=magic show=-* with big reveals and effects and dramatic pauses. She sings it as if she's reading the phone book. The only sign of life from Kristy her signature disturbing head wobble she's devised to build tension. The audience worries if her head is firmly attached. Simon calls it musical wallpaper. Kristy to Simon: I can blow you out of your socks and you know it! Wow, such trash talk from someone wearing a Hefty bag (a Hefty bag that someone in wardrobe has attacked with a bedazzler.)



DAVID ARCHULETA: His most memorable moment was when he forgot his lyrics last week. He says his first thought was "dang it" and describes the experience as "messing up really bad." He sees this second week of Beatles as a chance for redemption (except he would probably articulate that as "making stuff better from when it was bad last time like"). With many fierce stares and much lip-moistening, he sings a Josh Groban-esque "The Long and Winding Road." His suit coat is brown, and it has strangely aggressive topstitching. He cannot carry the coat, and he cannot carry the song.



Look, these kids just cannot, cannot, cannot sing Beatles songs. They cannot stand up to interpreting these lyrics. Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Gloria Estefan, yes. Beatles no. It's like an elf made out of cork trying to get down to the bottom of a deep well. Randy: David Archuleta brings the hot back tonight! Paula: Coming back from adversity doesn't build your character, it reveals your character. Simon: David is amazing! A master class in being memorable and selling the song. David squintingly weeps as he says that slower songs let him get really sensitive. Geeeeeehhhhhhh.

Tomorrow, Kelly Pickler is going to perform.

MICHAEL JOHNS: He remembers singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" during Hollywood week. He loves doing the Beatles because they're the best band that ever has been or ever will be. Okay but CRAP. He is doing "A Day in the Life." He admits it will be hard to take this five minute song and abridge it for Idol. Uh, yes. And how about taking the soul of John Lennon and abridging it into your bucket-shaped Austradalian head? How is that going to work out? You know, I thought I might be spared after surviving last week without this song being covered, but I have lived too darkof a life to be spared this misery. The next 90 seconds I can't really talk about. I tried to chew through my wrists, but my husband convinced me to live on, for the children, for the future.



Randy: Not your best performance. Paula: I know that contestants are wearing ear monitors tonight and that's hard to get used to. It must have been the monitor in your ear. Simon: A mess. Randy comes up on stage and asks Paula to clarify the ear monitor thing, because it doesn't look like Michael is wearing one. Woops, he's not. He just stood there nodding sagely while Paula blamed his crap performance on technology he wasn't even using. Well, says Paula, now you have no excuse. You just suck and you have to bring your game up. BUT WAIT. Michael wants to dedicate his performance to his DEAD FRIEND. That was his FAVORITE SONG. And he is DEAD. Don't you feel bad now Paula? No? Well fuggit let's just go sell some Dove moisturizer.

BROOKE WHITE: She was overwhelmed by the possibility of doing another Beatles song, because "Let It Be" went so well. It was a moment bigger than she was, she rhapsodizes. Tonight she is singing "Here Comes The Sun" -- wasn't this what I predicted she would sing last week? Oh wait, no I said "Good Day Sunshine." Well, that would have been the better choice. All the "Doo-doo-doo-doos" in this rendition are a little oppressive. She starts out sitting on the stairs, and she's wearing a layered floaty yellow dress made out of magic.



On the second verse, she spins and trots across the stage, gasping "woo!" and then continues to dance in an incredibly weird, twitchy, awkward way in front of the microphone. Awful. Behind the beat. Off the pitch. Randy: You were never really connected to the song. Paula: You can't help but smile, looking at you, Brooke. Simon: The performance was terrible, from the horrible dancing to the lack of conviction. It was wet and forgettable. Brooke repeats, "It's okay. It's okay, guys. It's really okay." She pulls sad faces for the camera, and I'm a little worried for her. Ordinarily I would say it wouldn't hurt her so much, but that was a very weird kind of mess. Possibly she cannot recover.

DAVID COOK: David Cook is once again sporting that orange wristband, now around his fingers. Looks like we will be seeing a certain little girl in the audience some night soon. Idol will not be able to pass up that storyline. David's memorable moment was last too boring for me to remember it. This week, he does "Day Tripper" but the Whitesnake version of it. It's very deadeyed and competent and entertaining. I really LIKE it.



He has an extra microphone with some sort of plastic wrap on it, into which he sings with strange effects. It's a voice box? Randy: It's another week at the David Cook rock show! Paula: Great. You're ready to do a Geico commercial! Simon: This wasn't as good as you thought it was. All a bit smug and the voice box was stupid. Ryan really wants to try the voice box, but he's too chicken. I notice at the last minute that David has reverted to the regrettable ironic banker vest. Shame.

CARLY SMITHSON: Her most memorable moment was when Simon compared her to Kelly Clarkson. She is wearing a bright red maternity top with big sparkly rosettes all around the scoop neckline. She looks like thebig fat mad-eyed sister at the pretty smart sister's engagement party.



She sings Blackbird in about the way you'd think that forty year old woman in the lounge on a cruise ship would sing it. Kind of rushed and throaty and with big eye-movements. Then she changes up the key and belts it, squeezing about four separate glory notes out of the last "dark black night." Randy loved it. Paula loved it. Simon calls it indulgent and wonders in a desultory way why she's singing a song about a blackbird. Why indeed? Funny you should ask, Simon! This allows Carly to give a speech about how all of the Idols have been trying and trying to break into the music business, and at times feel broken, but now they are free, and can sing, and that's why she chose the song. Simon basically says, "Wow, now I see! I'm sorry! You are right! And you are free, blackbird, to sing!" I mean, the stink of set-up was so intense it might have been David Archuleta's eye-flutter.



JASON CASTRO: He most remembers singing Hallelujah and arfing up the last note. He giggles about learning "Michelle" and how it was like French and stuff. Tee freakin' hee! On stage, he has arranged his dreadlocks in two symmetrical rolls that look like a kindergarten teacher who has given up on life. Combine this with tight sky-blue stretch jeans, a girly shirt with contrasting collar and cuffs, and... is that a rope belt? Jason is the opposite of sexy tonight. He mugs and winks his way through the song. At times you can almost hear what it might have been like if he'd tried to do it in a kind of serious, opera-y way. It might have been a little cool. But... no. He plays for laughs. Randy: He is disconnected from the song. Paula: It sounded like a polka at times. Simon: Your charm and face sold that song. It wouldn't have worked on radio.



Okay, you know what? Fine. I no longer like the Beatles. A 20 year fascination has now dissolved into mild nausea. I hope it was worth it for these bloody recaps. *snarl*

SYESHA MERCADO: Syesha has straightened her hair. She actually looks really good and I like her dress and for once the dangly plate earrings are working. Her most memorable moment was being in the bottom three, because it gave her "that kick in the butt" that she needed. She chose "Yesterday" because it really touched her, and now she wants to "touch everybody." At least she doesn't want to blow the socks off everybody like Kristy. You know? She sings sitting down at the edge of the stage, with only a few spots on her, and a single acoustic guitar player beside her. In spite of the gender switching, and the gurgling around and switching up the melody, I actually think Syesha did a great job with this song.



I still hate her and still hate American Idol, but relative to the rest of the rotten vegetables that have been slung around tonight, it was pretty good. Randy: You took some liberties. Paula: The vulnerability is working for you. Simon: Your best performance yet. That's the song Brooke should have sung. Wouch. That was bittersweet, I'm sure.

CHIKEZIE: He most remembers the first round of Hollywood because he ran around on stage after getting compliments from the judges. Yeah, I always remember the times when I am in a professional setting and yet choose to act like a hyperactive toddler too. He admits he has never played harmonica before this week and asks us to not be too harsh on him as he tries to play it tonight. Don't tell me what to do, Chikezie. You just play your harp, and we'll throw what we need to throw. He sings "I've Just Seen a Face" as a slow, serious country ballad for two verses, then picks up the tempo and slurps around on a harmonica. Verse four: He pulls a really weird like "Mayor of Stinkerton" voice. Steel guitar. One more toot on the harmonica. Ridiculous and vile. Randy: It was strange. Paula: You're showing who you are and the depth and scope of your vocals. Simon: Harmonica was atrocious and the song was gimmicky.

RAMIELE MALUBAY: Time to hear from Danny Noriega's favorite little Webkinz. But seriously, Ramiele. WHO is dressing you? WHAT is this that you're calling a personal style? A yellow leotard, a studded corset, black pants, silver heels, and a white straw panama hat. It defies belief. She sang some "I Shoulda Known Better" and there was a harmonica, but she wasn't playing it, so that's a plus. Randy called it a happy-go-lucky joint. Paula advises her to stick to ballads. Simon calls it mediocre. She will be voted off soon. Not tomorrow, but soon.



Best Performances: David Cook and Syesha Mercado
Most Beloved and Pimped by Judges: David Archuleta and Carly Smithson
Worst Performances: Michael Johns and Kristy Lee Cook
Most Scorned and Reviled by Judges: Brooke Smith and Jason Castro

Lest you forget: Tomorrow night Kelly Pickler is singing. So, set your TIVO because you won't want to miss the incredible satisfaction of fast forwarding through that. Night!

Labels: american idol, recap, summary, television