So, last night was a pretty good show. And we’re back to make the people who didn’t make it great suffer (heads up Sarver).

Ryan comes storming down the stairs and tells us that 36 million votes came in (the most in any top 10 ever). He tells us that Ruben Studdard is here tonight and that Smokey is gonna perform.

Ryan introduces the judges, and throws a zinger at Kara saying, “I’ve got 3 words for you, Kara Dio… Guardi.” HA! It’s a bad joke that Kara doesn’t seem to get, but it doesn’t matter since the awkwardness is drown out by Randy’s lame booing of Simon (which was only sort of funny the very first time he did it). Seacrest reminds us about the judges save, which we all know they aren’t going to use (especially if Sarver’s last man standing). They cut to a video, and we get inundated with a rerun of last night’s performances.

It’s time for the group number, a MOTOWN medley. What we actually get is a medley of lip-syncing (which has been confirmed by producers as true). The three girls are mouthing words together in the middle of the stage until Matt & Scott show up to mouth more words with them. Eventually we have all of the idols out and moving their mouths in almost synchronized motions. It’s another blah blah group effort (if their backsides aren’t on the line, they don’t seem to care much).

Ryan preps us for the stupid Ford music video, and pretty soon we’re watching the contestants pick up painted squares while singing “Pocket Full of Sunshine” (which is unfortunate, because I like Natasha Bedingfield, and now I’m going to think of this cheesy, lame camera mugging whenever I hear this song).

And we’re back to Ryan who introduces Season 2’s winner: Ruben Studdard (has it been 6 years since he was on this show? Weird). Big Ruben looks exactly the same as he did 6 years ago (has anyone heard from him since his first single?) and he’s wearing a black tux coat with white piping on the lapels. He looks as cuddly as ever… although, he’s sweating like he just played four quarters of NBA basketball. His song isn’t bad, although it certainly isn’t hit material, and we find out that Ruben is now married. Yay.

On with the show! Ryan babbles with the contestants about private jets, gold steps, Scott’s yawn, and Michigan. We dim the lights, and here we go.

Adam’s first (which means he’s safe): Safe.

Matt G.: Bottom 3, which is a complete and utter joke. Turns out your votes do matter.

Kris with a K: Ryan does a fake out on Kris (again), then has him sit. Safe (Kris does not look impressed with the Seacrest fakeout).

Michael and Lil get stood up together (See you Mikey).

Lil: Safe.

Sarver: Bottom 3. Again, and Super hero looks or not, he’s in trouble.

We cut to a Smokey Robinson and Joss Stone (gotta love Joss Stone’s voice) performance, which could be awesome. They’re singing, “You’re the One For Me.” Joss comes out and looks stunning. Braids in hair, blue dress on bod, and gold spangly thing on wrist. Smokey joins her (looking sharp in a black on black suit/shirt) and they duet it up for a moment (the 55-75 year old demographic heart’s collectively skip a beat). It’s really well done, although it has a certain dentist chair quality to it. The crowd claps, the judges clap, and we’re back to Ryan who wastes some time speculating about who’s next to join the bottom 3 (I say Scott).

Allison’s up (turns out she has two l’s in her name… I’ve been doing that wrong): Safe.

Anoop: Safe (dopey look notwithstanding).

Danny Gokey (who’s wearing a vest… just so you know, I don’t like vests unless you’re wearing a holster, rode a horse here tonight, and respond to a name like Wyatt or Justice): Safe.

Megan and Scott are stood up together:

Scott: Bottom 3.

Megan and her tattoo pretend they are sad for a second, and then congratulate each other on not being in the bottom 3.

We cut to the bottom 3 who are standing center stage. Ryan asks Randy who should go home. Randy hedges and says that Matt doesn’t deserve to be there (good job Randy, you got a name right).

Ryan sends one back to safety: Scott (which, whatevs. As long as Sarver goes home, I don’t care).

Ryan asks Simon what his vibe is on the judges save. Simon rattles off some canned response and says that they’ll hear him sing and then decide, but he’s wearing an expression that actually says, “we didn’t care last week, we don’t care now, and we won’t start to care for at least 5 more weeks.”

With that, we keep the tension high by cutting to Stevie Wonder, who is completely and utterly awesome. He’s singing a MOTOWN medley, which is what the Idol’s MOTOWN medley wishes it would’ve grown up to sound like. He’s a legend and it sounds legendary. He’s actually live, which is a nice change.

We’re back to the stage, where Matt and Michael stand. Matt looks like he’s gonna puke on Ryan.

Ryan gears us up and… the person leaving us tonight is: SARVER! Good. The planets have realigned, birds are singing, and order has been restored to the American Idol universe.

Ryan tells Sarver that the judges could save him, which (unlike Alexis) Sarver doesn’t buy. He sings his little roughneck heart out, sounds exactly the same as last night, and (just when you think he’s gonna go home with some dignity intact) he does this weird little foot stamp/dance ditty that looks completely ridiculous. Sarver wraps, Ryan parades him up to the judge table, and asks if they’re going to save him. Just to prove that they couldn’t care any less about this judges save nonsense, they all look at each other with bewildered looks on their faces… they collectively realize that they forgot to even think about the judges save and they scramble for maybe two and a half seconds. Finally, Simon (sick of pretending to deliberate) says, “guys, guys, guys, I’m gonna make a decision. Michael, you’re going home.” And with one dictatorial swoop, Simon ends Sarver’s dreams.

So, that’s it for the bottom 10. We’re down to 9 lucky finalists. Let us know what you thought of this week’s two shows? Do you agree with Sarver’s departure? Who should go home next? And who is gonna step up and wear the ugliest jacket yet? We’ll find out next week!

While he’s not writing reviews for us, Jeff Lind covers American Idol for Pretty Much Amazing. Do yourself a favor and follow Jeff Lind on Twitter!

Tags: American Idol

This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 12:27 am by Jeff Lind and is filed under Music, TV Shows. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.