American Idol, Season 8: Results for Group 3 of Top 36

Wild Card Contestants Are Revealed on the Road to the Top 12

Ali Canary, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Mar 5, 2009 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

Ryan Seacrest is wearing a suit tonight. He always seems to dress better, or at least more seriously, on elimination nights than on performance nights. He's even wearing a tie! Randy Jackson, by contrast, is wearing a bright orange shirt emblazoned with sparkly guitars and glasses with matching bright orange lenses. Not frames, mind you, lenses. Kara is doing the hipster chick thing with a slicked-back pony, black leather blazer and layered necklaces. Paula is wearing a prom dress from 1986 and giant mandala earrings. Simon's in the same boring shit he always wears. Randy boos when Simon is introduced, because he is three years old.

The six finalists chosen thus far are introduced aaa-gaaaainnnn, and then we see a video package showing the twelve contestants of group 3 on their "Idol journey". The most hilarious part of this video is the look on Ju'Not's face as his wife goes batshit crazy with joy, followed by Lil Rounds's husband looking like a club bouncer as she celebrates. He's probably contemplating the potential terror of having to take care of their three kids by himself.

Next, Ryan introduces the group song, which is the clean version of Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold", and they finally let the girls start. This group, which I think was the strongest vocally, does the worst job on the group song. The girls easily outsing the boys, which is maybe no surprise considering the song suits their range better, but the boys have cute choreography involving much crossing of legs and looking bemused. The cascading vocals are brought into play near the end of the song, and the group does them well, so the performance ends nicely.

During the commercial break, we are treated to another "hidden audition" of a girl singing the hell out of the theme song for The Jeffersons. I hope she went through based on her awesome vocals, however nutz the song choice.

After the break, the video recap of last night puts Von, Ju'Not and Felicia together in a good light, then "things fell apart" for Alex and Arianna (whose clip ironically showcases her doing an exceptionally pretty run from her song), and they take a critical beating. We get to see the first backstage reaction of the season, in which Arianna is clearly pretty hurt. Those backstage reactions are so much more realistic than the cheesy "I did my best and had fun" we get on stage. I wish they showed them more often. Back to the recap: Kristen and Taylor are cited as having identity issues, which is clearly a bigger problem on this show than actually singing badly. Kendall and Nate are praised for perfect song choices, Jorge and Scott got all emotional on it, and Lil is the Goddess of Heaven.

The meaningless contestant banter includes silliness from Nate, Jorge's belief that Puerto Rico is a country, Felicia's praise of her own performance, and Ju'Not's harrowing tale of his first asthma attack, which occurred during that day's rehearsal, then it's time for the eliminations.

Ryan does the smart thing and just puts Lil through with no faux-dramatic preamble, because to leave her sitting on the couch for any length of time doth destroy any semblance of suspense, yo. However, because of my gender ratio theory (boys:girls=2:1), that tells me immediately that no other lassies are going to make it. Lil's song tonight sounds better than last night's rendition, so maybe her bum notes were due to nerves.

Arianna, Taylor, Alex, Kendall and Scott are asked to stand, and we are told only one of them will make it through to the next round. We will find out after the break who that might be, but it's so obviously going to be Scott that people in the audience are already screaming out his name. I presume they are reprimanded for this during the commercials.

Scott is put through, natch. His version of the song tonight is not as good as last night's, when his emotion was probably closer to the surface. It's a tad pitchy, too, so I'm going back to my earlier stance that he is not quite as good a singer as we want him to be. But he is such a sweetie! I think he'll be around for a while.

After another break, we move on to the last eliminations. Kristen looks kind of drugged, Von's hair is unexplainable, and they, plus Felicia and Nate, get booted, leaving Ju'Not and Jorge to slug it out at center stage. After Ryan psyches them out by pretending we're going to another commercial before we find out who it is, he then delivers the result with no further ado: Jorge. I'm sure everyone in the "country" of Puerto Rico voted for him. It's disappointing not to see Ju'Not advance, but I am certain he's going to be a shoo-in for the wild card round.

After one last commercial interruption, it's time for the wild card selections, except that, because it is through repetition that we learn stuff, the nine finalists are introduced again: Danny! Alexis! Allison! Adam! Kris! Lil! Scott! Aaaaand Jorge! (I was going to use the upside-down exclamation point for him, but I don't have one. Please use your imagination to fill in for this lack.)

In the Coca-Cola Lounge, we see the contestants vying for the eight available wild card slots. There are 20 of them, which makes their chances 2 in 5, except for Anoop, who screws the curve, like he probably has been doing his whole life. They are: Anoop, Nate/han/iel, Tatiana, Taylor, Ju'Not, Jesse, Matt the Uppity Welder, Alex, Matt the Dueling Pianist, Brent Keith, Nick/Norman, Jasmine, Ricky Braddy, Megan, Kristen, Kendall, Felicia, Jackie Tohn, Arianna, and Von Smith. Please note that everyone from group 3, even Alex, made it to this point. Not invited to the party: Jeanine Vailes, Stevie Wright, Anne Marie Boskovoch, Kai Kalama, Mishavonna Henson, Stephen Fowler and Casey Carlson. Remember them? Simon doesn't.

I was under the impression that there were going to have twelve spots available, so that's kind of a bummer, especially for the contestants. Simon reveals that the judges changed their "mind" on someone during the last commercial break, so I figure they've added Ju'Not when he didn't make tonight's cut.

Randy introduces the first contestant as Von Smith, who looks gobsmacked and staggers happily down the Stairs o' Victory. Simon insults Von's hair, because somebody had to. Kara introduces the next person, and as soon as the word "commercial" is out of her mouth, everyone, including all the contestants in the CoCoLounge, know it's Jasmine, and it is. So much for that "you're not ready yet; take a couple years to grow" bullshit, eh. I love how Kara advises Jasmine to "pick the right song", like they haven't already rehearsed a dozen times for tomorrow night's live performance. It's going to be Rihanna, too, of course, even though Jasmine looks like Brandy.

Paula chooses Ricky Braddy, whom she talked up nonstop on the chat-show circuit, so no surprise there. He runs down the stairs gleefully in his Members Only-looking black leather jacket. Ryan asks Simon, "Darth Vader, who is next?" Darth introduces Megan, which is also no surprise. I love her unique voice and singing style. I'm happy with the choices so far; they're all sensible and not even surprising, let alone shocking.

And then...and then, Randy starts talking about how American Idol is "a lot about entertainment" (oh, it's going to be Nick!), and about heart (they're giving Nick another chance!) and that they "stayed up day and night with this decision" (Nick!Nick!Nick!), but it's...effing Tatiana. She immediately loses every bit of her carefully cultivated "my friends tell me I never act like that" crap and reverts to the self-absorbed psycho that she is. People in the audience are openly laughing at her as she cries and asshats it up. Yeah, that's entertainment. Almost as much fun as root canal!

Kara redeems the judges' credibility somewhat by putting through Matt Giraud. He promise to bring it, but we're like, "yeah, whatever", because we're still trying to recover from Tatiana. Paula then announces the next contestant as a "last-minute change", so now we know: It wasn't Ju'Not, it's Jesse. Sigh. Well, she is good. Maybe the judges were also concerned that Kristen is hopped up on chemical serenity.

But waitaminnit! There's only one more spot, and it's clearly Anoop's. What about Ju'Not? And then I realize: Ju'Not is out because the judges are afraid he might have an asthma attack on live television, and that is the kind of entertainment that they are not a lot about. Oy! So now everyone on the CoCoCouch is depressed because they know it's clearly Anoop, Anoop, Anoop is On Fire. Nate/han/iel actually shakes his head as Simon says "I've always liked this person", but it's probably just in disappointment. Several people, including Ju'Not, look right at Anoop, who can't even raise his head for fear of breaking the charm, or at least getting the stink-eye. He is very low-key as he is welcomed to the Couch o' Sweet Reprieve. Jorge sings us out with what sounds like will be another lovely rendition of "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me' (huh-huh, huh-huh), but he is cut short (ha! because he is a tiny, tiny person) by the ending of the show.

I am so pissed that Ju'Not didn't make it, but his name is very hard to type, so there's a silver lining for me, then. I feel like he could easily have replaced either Tatiana or Jesse, and then I realize that he couldn't have, because the judges have evenly divided the eight spots by gender. He also had to be eliminated because he is the only potential spoiler on Anoop's cruise to the only remaining male spot (I have no doubt whatsoever that the judges will try to correct the gender disparity that currently stands, but they won't pick three women, only two, because it would be too obvious if they allowed a hat trick). So maybe it isn't the asthma, but this isn't really any more fair, just more typical.

So who among these eight contenders is likely to go through? Since these picks are obviously the judges' choices and not ours, I doubt it even matters how well they sing tomorrow, provided they don't actually expire on stage. Therefore, the three will come from among the ones I felt were being pushed on us only slightly less than the Reining Triumverate Of Adam/Lil/Danny (which: thanks for wasting your vote, America), and those people would be Jasmine, Anoop, Megan and Ricky. The rest are just there for window dressing (Tatiana will serve as the Crazy Sash). If my theory about correcting the gender ratio holds true, those chosen will be Anoop, Jasmine and Megan.

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