America's Got Talent Season Four Recap: Group Three Results

I must say, the ultra-dramatic, Damien: Omen II-ish chorale music they play during the recaps makes me laugh. This show is so vitally important, y'all. Nick Cannon looks fairly normal tonight in a black suit with a red open-necked shirt and red pocket square. He announces tonight's musical guests (Ashley Tisdale and Daughtry), intros a video recap of last night's acts (Dave Johnson finally takes a swipe at the judges for unfairly shutting him down), and introduces the judges, who are thankfully already seated. They agree with me that this was the strongest group.

The acts are introduced. Jeffrey Ou is wearing a spread-collar shirt instead of a tuxedo shirt, so the giant collar appears to be devouring his tiny bow tie. Bri has the extra-heavy-duty eyelashes on tonight, and she smiles like she's in pain. Speaking of pain, Dave Johnson looks exactly like he's been threatened with legal action in order to ensure his attendance tonight. I guess when your stage name is "Dave Johnson", you may not be overly committed to the whole showbiz thing.

Bri and Jeffrey Ou are called first. Since these were conditional players in my Canary Calls from yesterday, I am quite interested to see how this shakes out. Oh! Or should I say Ou, because Jeffrey did indeed get enough votes to make it, despite lots of people very clearly yelling, "Bri!" The 17-year-old shows lots of class by going over to offer a congratulatory hug, and Jeffrey, possibly feeling crestfallen at having ousted yet another lovely and talented maiden, clings to her fiercely, burying his face in her soft velvet jacket and luxuriant hair. Sharon completely fails to hide her utter shock, which clearly hurts Jeffrey's feelings. Poor kid. Nick shakes his hand and makes people clap for him again, because Nick is a sweetie pie.

Ashley Tisdale is here to perform "It's All Right, It's Okay". Hmm, didn't she used to be blonde? Well, she looks cute as a brunette. She's wearing boots and a little black be-rhinestoned romper that would be cute, except the belt is riding too high, giving her a mom-jeans type belly pooch where I'm sure she has none (not that that's a bad thing). This kind of distracts me from listening to the song, which is typical tween-pop anyway, so whatever. When asked by Nick if she has any advice for the contestants, Ashley offers, "Have fun," which is ever so helpful.

It's a popcorn party! The Mystery Pixies give Honorary Nick his own pixie outfit, a t-shirt decorated like their polka-dotted audition costumes. He puts it on and declares himself a "Pixie for life!" although one second later he is talking to Mario and Jenny and the pixie shirt is long gone. After this clip from the Product Placement Popcorn Lounge, Nick kicks it to commercial, and Ashley Tisdale is still standing there, so he makes the audience clap for her again. Well, I reckon she deserves it for actually performing live.

The next elimination group consists of Jay Mattioli, Dave Johnson and Lawrence Beamen. Well, this is a no-brainer. Even though it should be over it seconds, it gets dragged out, but Lawrence Beamen it is.

Oh, here's another easy call: Sooty-face Marioand eleven-foot-tall Jenny, er, "smoke" the competition, Marcus Terell and the Serenades (not that the singers were bad; it's just that the dangerous / sexy fire act had it going on in a major way). Marcus really is incredibly talented, and I hope the exposure he has gotten from this show pays off for him.

Daughtry performs "No Surprise" from the new album. The song is okay, as far as it sounds exactly like everything else he's done, so I guess "No Surprise" is a pretty appropriate title. I fast-forward through the rest of it.

The penultimate elimination features G Force, U4RIA Dance Crew and Hairo Torres. This one is only easy to the extent that G Force is obviously dunzo, but the rest of it is decidedly unclear, as the Magic 8-Ball is wont to say when it tries to weasel out of answering the question. Of course, Hairo was a half-credit Canary Call for me and I lost my other half (Bri), so I'm pulling for him. For his part, he looks like he wants to hurl.

G Force is sensibly eliminated first. Nick does well at pronouncing Hairo's name, and I wonder if he speaks Spanish. He's definitely better than Sharon, who called the kid "Hiro". Maybe she was subtly plugging the new season of NBC's Heroes, a show that, for me, was great the first season but became completely intolerable as soon as we found out no one really died. Pull that shit and lose viewers, bitches! Uh, anyway, Hairo wins, which pleases me because I hate typing U4RIA. Good riddance! Hairo still kind of looks like he wants to boot, bless his heart.

Well, let's see, who's left? Oh no! It's FootworKINGz and Pixie Mystère, whom I thought were both sure things. They are 5^th and 6^th, so I'm sure we're all looking forward to hearing the judges narcissistically whine about how hard it is to exercise their intoxicating power over others. Piers loves the FootworKINGz, whom he pronounces as "footworkings" (maybe you shouldn't have eliminated that other 'k', guys), but I'm sure David and Sharon will throw in with the adorable Pixies.

As they stand there, the girls look confident, and I wonder what's going through the minds of these young black men from the rough streets of Chicago (okay, they probably have homes) as they face off against rich little white girls from the suburbs. The princesses work hard, though, and they didn't make any mistakes. Dammit, commercial break.

Nick calls on Sharon first, and she votes for the FootworKINGz because the Pixies will have more opportunities. This is true, but it's just a rationalization. It's unfair to base the voting on anything but their relative performances. And yet, it's what all the voters at home do, so I understand. Piers also goes for the FootworKINGz, more predictably. This negates the need for Hoff to comment, but Nick asks him anyway. This would have been a perfect opportunity to bolster the Pixies now that it doesn't matter, but Hoff throws in with the KINGz, too. Poor Pixies! At least I will not have to take the extra steps necessary to put an accent grave over their 'e' any more (it matters, okay?), but I'm sure that's cold comfort for them. The FootworKINGz kindly dole out hugs all around.

So, there is only one group left to battle for the remaining five spots in the semis. Who will the last two wild cards be? My guess is Ciana Pelekai, the little Hawaiian girl, and Tallan Noble Latz, the blues guitarist boy, although I'd really rather see the Comic Bots again than Ciana (sorry, Princess!). Tune in next time as I again try to up my Canary Call average. As of tonight, I'm 11.83 for 15 (.788 for you baseball fans). Canary out!