American Idol Recap - Goodbye to Gina

Last night on the recap show of American, we lost a great performer and singer when Gina Glocksen was voted out. But last night was a little different. First Ryan split the nine contestants into three groups - the bottom three, the middle three and the top three. We could immediately tell which was which by the grouping.

The top three were obviously Melinda Doolittle, Lakisha Jones and Jordan Sparks. Not only are the best singers and performers on the show, but they are all girls and all black. That's never happened in a top three before. The middle three was obvious to distinguish from the bottom three. In another group there was Phil Stacey, Gina Glocksen and Hayley Scarnato. The next group was Sanjaya Malakar, Chris Richardsen and Blake Lewis.

We could all pretty much guess that Sanjaya wasn't going anywhere and since Hayley had done the worst performance besides Sanjaya on Tuesday night, I figured her for the bottom three. The bad news is, there are still votes out there for Sanjaya and not Hayley. The good news is not in the top three which means that from this point on, I don't think he will be in the final competition. It's more likely that Gina's and Hayley's votes will go to the other contestants like Melinda or Blake when those two go home.

So Ryan sent the top group to sit down and went to the middle group. He told them they weren't in the top three but they weren't in the bottom three either. Then he sent them to the couch and faced the bottom three. Now, what I love about Phil Stacey is that he was smiling he whole time. I think Phil has a wonderful personality and sings because he loves it, not because he wants to be famous. His emotional ties are with his family and he sings to his wife every week. The girls in the bottom three, however, were losing it.

But Ryan cut to commercial and when they came back, it was a great performance from Michael Bouble. He sings old standards and has a new album coming out in May. Bouble's voice sounds like that of Dean Martin and he certainly has a bar/stage feel to his performance. But he commands the audience with his sprite attitude on stage. Unfortunately after the performance he made a really bad joke about Antonella Barbra (a former contestant) asking if he was wasting his votes on her. Ryan didn't know how to answer so he cut to commercial.

Coming back from commercial, Gina was on the verge of tears. Neither Gina nor Hayley could hold it together when Phil was sent back upstage to sit down. Gina had tears coming out already and then was shocked when she heard it was her who was going home. Hayley was shocked as well as she got the worst review on Tuesday night from the judges.

Gina watched her journey as put together by American Idol and cried her eyes out. The other contestants cried for her. Then she sang her heart out again on her last song "Smile". She told the audience she couldn;t wait to see them on tour and thanked everyone for their support.

American Idol airs next week Tuesday night at 8/7 central on Fox.