'American Idol' Top 12 Results -- Haley Safe for Another Week!

"American Idol" may have to seriously consider transforming the show into "American Boy Idols," and stop wasting the girl contestants' time. Tonight's results show once again treated us to an all female bottom three, and while each of the gals had something in their performances to be sorry for, there were also three guys that put some serious "stank" on theirs--and no, we don't mean that in a good way. It gets more obvious each year that the predominantly female audience only wants to vote for cute boys, no matter how badly they sing.

What's more disturbing is that the judges this year call messy performances from men "interesting" and uneven performances from women as "pitchy." Haley is lambasted for not settling on a certain genre, while Casey is praised for going from jazz to Nirvana--badly. And let's just talk about Haley going from country to Whitney Houston. If we take a look at Whitney's explosive hit "I Will Always Love You," we'll find that it was originally a Dolly Parton tune. Hmm, did anyone criticize Whitney for this? I think not. It's hard to tell if it's just the natural gender bias in society that makes the judges harder on the girls, or if they're hoping to clear the way for the producers' favorite Lauren Alaina. Whatever the reason, it's going to be ridiculous if we get another year where there are 6 guys and 1 girl.

All of this makes me pile on the votes for Haley Reinhart. Yes she was a little squeaky-Betty-Boop at the start of her performance last night, but she kept up with the staccato lyrics and tempo and kept things interesting with a sexy growl. But I know "sexy" is a dirty word for female contestants on "American Idol," too--there's always the danger they might catch the eye of one of those cute boys, and the girl fans can't have that. Not that I'm bitter. Seriously, though, any girl that can remain cute and not evaporate from the stage in embarrassment as Ryan uses his own spit to clean lipstick off of her face has got to be worthy of some votes. Never mind the fact that she was in tune when so many people weren't last night.

So how did the results go down? Let's jump back to the beginning. We got another opening medley that was definitely not as strong as last week's, but still mildly entertaining. Putting on the best performances in what definitely sounded live were Stefano and Haley-in-hot-pants, and surprisingly--a much-recovered Paul. In at least one jab at the guys, Jacob's mic went out just as he was winding up to scream out a solo. He also appears to be resorting to extreme methods to hit those high notes now, as he was shown grabbing himself in the nether regions several times during the medley. We got to see that, but the censors bleeped the sh*! out of Pia's pet "Shih Tzu" last night. Interesting.

The Ford commercials took a nosedive tonight, going off the charts for corniness. There were a few mild chuckles in the "we're movie actors!" play-acting, but the song was over-processed cheese with a Disney "It's a Small World" auto-tune. The only redeeming quality was seeing Paul maniacally try to blow up Lauren Alaina with explosives. I'm not sure how much this will do for his rep, however, or for James Durbin to be portrayed as a creeper. It may be all part of the producer manipulation, as J-Lo favorite Stefano got to be the studly romcom hero, eliciting teen screams from the "American Idol" audience. Ugh.

Next was a scintillating video segment letting us in on amazing trivia like Thia's quarters collection and the fact that Scotty can wiggle his ears while he wonders if "mate" is an Aussie or English thing (it's both, mate.) Then there was little Lauren, saying "I only speak one language--Spanish." I'll let that one speak for itself. In English.

First up for Ryan's torture was the trio of Jacob, Lauren and Casey. I held out a small hope that there might be one guy who would at least get a scare by being in the bottom three, and here were two guys who did badly enough to warrant it. But no, all three were safe. Haley's face fell, as she also knew that chances of breaking an all-girl bottom three were now slim.

We had an amusing interlude where Ryan asked Steven what all of his "Goo that makes greatness" gobbledygook was about and Steven sassed back admirably, elaborated about "creative juices" and gave us hope he might stay awake for the episode. Then Haley and Paul got called down to face the chopping block, and Haley had the knowing look on her face that translated to a good ole Chicago "Oh really? The girl is in the bottom three? No f---ing kidding!" Paul had the decency to look nervous, but he was safe, and Haley was over to the Stools of Doom.

Last year's "American Idol," Lee DeWyze performed his new song "Beautiful Like You." I like supporting Chicago peeps, and Lee seems like a really nice guy, but I just wasn't feeling the tune. Like his time on "AI," Lee always starts off shaky and then soars into some pretty, gravelly vocals--and then veers off again. He's always the picture of potential, but hasn't quite got there yet. It might have helped if the song was a bit more lively, but as Randy would say, "it was all a bit too sleepy for me."

When Ryan reminded us that Haley Reinhart was in the bottom three, there was a nice chorus of protesting 'boos.' Haley gave the camera the royal wave, with a frozen smile that gleefully said "F-U!" to the home audience. No weepy histrionics here.

I had another big scare as Ryan called Scotty, Pia and James to the front of the stage. James has gotten a little flack for being arrogant, so I was concerned that he might be the one guy who got slapped by the voters--despite being in the top four of the previous night's performances. But no, it was only a momentary worry as all three contestants were safe.

Naima had the same look on her face as Haley as she got called down with Stefano. She actually started walking over to the chairs before Ryan even announced it, but came back when she realized she hadn't gotten her sympathetic hug from Stefano. The crowd booed loudly again. Big shock of the night, there were only two girls left. Thia won out again, and Karen was sent to the stools.

The Black Eyes Peas then debuted their song "Just Can't Get Enough." A nearly unrecognizable, somehow facially-altered Fergie did her best Marilyn Monroe impression in a filmy white dress and coquettish moves while will.i.am sported plastic Lego-man hair and rapped aimlessly. Making the "Saturday Night Live" sketch about the "other two guys" from BEP even more relevant, those two guys showed up halfway through the song and rapped aimlessly. Honestly, I think the Black Eyed Peas seem to be mere caricatures of themselves these days.

Now we were down to the final results of the night. While I've liked Naima from the beginning, she has had some big pitch issues the last couple of weeks, so I didn't think it was heinously wrong for her to be in the bottom three. And the good news was--she was safe. Now she's got another chance to work on her pitch issues and knock one out of the park.

At the start of the competition, Karen Rodriguez had bouncy curly hair and a feisty, sweet personality. Then when we hit the top 24, suddenly she wanted to be the pageanty version of Jennifer Lopez. It just didn't work, and she chose songs that were too big for her. She also probably played the Spanish language card one too many times. It was fair that she was the one to go home tonight, and I was thrilled that we get to see Haley at least one more time in the competition. If you want to talk about Paul's thready vocals and Casey's overblown growls being vocally interesting, then you've got to acknowledge that amongst all the sterile balladeers, Haley's boopoopeedoo is at least more lively and entertaining.

Karen tried to play on the judges' sympathies tonight, but she knew that it was highly unlikely they would use the save this early in the competition--especially with Lauren still in the running. Therefore, her performance of "Hero" was only a half-effort, and wouldn't have convinced the judges even if they were actually deliberating. Randy announced that it *wasn't* unanimous this time, but it was still a "no" vote.

So the "American Idol" Top 12 became the Top 11. I've got all my fingers crossed that Haley can nab a killer song and give us a crazy good performance that changes people's minds. A girl can dream, can't she?

Watch "American Idol" every Wednesday and Thursday on FOX, at 8/7c. Check your local listings to verify times.

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