The night begins with some weird banter from the judges in which Ryan tries to find adjectives to use in their introductions ("the provocative Kara DioGuardi," "the hot Paula Abdul"). It gets a little awkward so Seacrest jumps right to introducing the contestants, and then walks down the line giving each of them mini-shoulder rubs which only extends the uncomfortable. Stop the madness, Ryan. Let's move on to the performances...
Allison Iraheta -- Paula's loving it. Simon's talking about BBQ sauce. The long and the short of it is -- they think Allison is the final bastion of hope for the girls left on the show, which wasn't saying much given that there's only two remaining. Lil Rounds must be fuming back stage.
Anoop Desai -- Quentin's trying to get Anoop to growl, and it's almost exactly like that scene from Little Giants where Rick Moranis is trying to get that skinny kid to be more aggressive on the football field. Still, our first thought when Anoop starts singing is: "Damn, his voice is really sounding good these days." Randy agrees. Ryan's pressuring Anoop for information about his girlfriend/boyfriend. Anoop defers, but keeps it charming.
Adam Lambert -- LIke everyone one else in America, Quentin has a crush on Adam. Actually, we're not exstatic about his performance of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild", but really, who cares? He's still the best thing that's ever happened to us. Also, we are feeling his haircut...
Matt Giraud -- Matt's shaved a bit too close tonight. We like him a litte more dirrty. God, we love Bryan Adams. We just can't help ourselves. Those Canadians can really write a love song. The bridge got a little weird for us -- like maybe Matt had something stuck in his throat. Randy and Kara are with us. That said, the falsetto at the end is nice.
Danny Gokey -- Like Tyra Banks, Quentin thinks Danny should spend more time smiling with his eyes. We don't really care what he does with his eyes, but we wish he would quit picking songs we hate. Endless love? Come on. What can we say, Gokey is hokey. Simon agrees with us, although he backtracks a little bit when Danny tears up, and mutters something that roughly translates to "but that doesn't mean I'm not terribly sorry that your wife died." Awkward.
Sidenote: for some reason Ryan's sitting in Randy's chair, and the judges start whooping for no reason. Let's hurry up and get to Kris's clip...
Kris Allen: Kris is singing a song from Once and we can't imagine a scenario on earth or in heaven where this will go well. We're not wrong. Kris just doesn't have a Glen Hansard voice. Come to that, who does? Really terrible choice in our opinion. Kara disagrees. She commends Kris for his bravery in picking an "obscure" song. Really, Kara? It won an Oscar for God's sake.
Lil Rounds: It remains to be seen how many lives this girl has left in this competition, but she's been blowing through them so we're looking for something amazing from her right about now. Annnnnndddd, we're not sure Bette Midler is it. The judges have been telling her for weeks: Keyshia Cole, Mary J. Blige. Why does she give us Celine Dion and Bette Midler? Simon's frustrated as well. He and Lil get in a fight about it, and we end the night feeling depressed.
Bottom line: To save time, they cut down the mentor segments by quite a lot, and we definitely did not get enough of Quentin Tarantino's pithy critique during his mentoring sessions. We prefer him as a judge.
Previously:
American Idol: I Can't Make You Love Me If You Don't
American Idol: It Was a Very Good Year
Tonight On "American Idol": Birth Year Songs
"American Idol": Play That Funky Music