'American Idol' Results Show: Black Eyed Peas and Season 9 Winner, Lee DeWyze Plus Adios Karen Rodriguez

Perhaps this will be an ongoing thing with the Top remaining finalists on "American Idol" performing a group number every week instead of sporadically. This one was actually quite clever. Once again the bottom three was no big surprise. A new addition I've noticed on the results show is showing the finalists on camera, with the director's clapboard, talking about themselves. I hope they keep that up. As usual there were the Ford music video, a former American Idol promoting a single or album and a top musical act with their latest.

Opening Number with "Born" and Ford commercial

I must say this was a very clever opening number that fit in perfectly with the Wednesday night's theme of songs from the year they were born. The men sang "Born to Be Wild" by Steppenwolf, a song featured prominently in the film "Easy Rider", and the girls sang Lady Gaga's recent single "Born This Way." All I can say is mucho kudos to all who came up with this brilliant idea. It takes a lot to impress me while watching Idol. The Ford commercial was a lot better than last week's. It was a nostalgic look at the movie drive-ins and getting romantic while in a Ford vehicle.

Welcoming Back Lee DeWyze

I'm looking forward to seeing other winners of "American Idol" and what they are up to like Kris Allen, Ruben Studdard and David Cook. Most likely the latter will be on to sing his featured exit song for Season 10 in a future results show. That will be exciting as well as seeing Jennifer Lopez perform her latest dance tune hit with Pitbull. At any rate, last season's winner dropped by to sing "Beautiful Like You." DeWyze had nice things to say that seems to be the standard line for the finalists "You guys are fine, no matter what happens." The harsh reality that seems to be the elephant in the room is many of them will go on to obscurity, but yes they will be fine otherwise.

Black Eyed Peas Future

This looked like a combination futuristic Broadway musical meets autotuned robotic singers. The only thing I liked about it was Fergie. I think she was the only one singing in her natural voice. Wow! What a concept. The song was absolutely dreadful. However, I will have to say I was pleased when the guy at the piano stated the song would go out to the people in Japan.

Bottom Three: Hailey Reinhart, Naima Adedapo and Karen Rodriguez

After a lot of time fillers bringing out the obvious top tier talent and scaring them into thinking they may be in the bottom three it finally came down to the chosen three. I was a bit surprised to see Naima in there. Thankfully she was safe. For the second time Haley was in the bottom two, along with Karen.

Ryan announced Karen Rodriguez may be going home. She sang a song from the semifinals "Hero" both in English and Spanish. When she first did that it was such a novel thing. What led to her eventual downfall was the weak vocals and singing in Spanish as a crutch in every song. Karen told Ryan during the performance show Wednesday night (March 16) she was singing entirely in English. All in all the judges did not use their only save.

SOURCES:

American Idol - Official Site for Videos, Photos and Community, American Idol.com

Natalie Finn, "American Idol Elimination: Whose Birth Year Came Back To Bite Them?", E! Online