Jacob Lusk Leaves 'American Idol' on May 5, 2011

Fox, Thursday, May 5, 2011, 8 PM (ET) "American Idol" scored 60 million viewer votes recorded after Wednesday night's performances by the 5 remaining contestants, for a season high. As predicted, the voters junked Jacob.

It was more surprising that Lauren Alaina was the other performer in the bottom two. She looked genuinely upset, both by being in the bottom two and by Jacob's dismissal from the ranks of those still in the running.

The show began with the contestants singing "So Happy Together." The problem was that the melody line was drowned out by those singing harmony much of the time. Jacob, James and Scotty first carried the melody and then moved to the two remaining girls (Lauren and Haley), who were perched on stools at the front of the stage.

After this, there was a bit of shtick involving the Chef show that has Gordon Ramsey spewing obscenities most of the time. He was on his best behavior tonight, however, as he instructed each contestant to make an omelet and judged Lauren Alaina's to be the best, with Jacob a runner-up (for presentation.) A coincidence that these two lowest-vote-getting contestants were given the cooking award? Perhaps; perhaps not.

Following the cooking foolishness obviously designed to promote the network's cooking show, Lady Antebellum performed "Just A Kiss" and did a very fine job of singing harmony in their performance. [The daughter has recently been working for a firm that handles financial matters for Lady Antebellum (in Nashville) and has met the singers. Recently, her boss had to go over to the lead singer's house to wait for repairmen, after a water leak occurred in-house.]

There was a humorous bit involving the question (for the contestants), "How do you choose a song?" Next, we had Jennifer Lopez onstage performing in what looked like baggy gold harem pants and a midriff-baring top and also in a video shot at Chichen Itza near Cancun, Mexico. The lead-in had host Ryan Seacrest introducing a sneak preview of a song entitled "I'm In To You" (her second song performed) and announcing that the first song she performed was "Number One in 18 countries." (One wonders what those 18 countries were, as I doubt if many United States viewers had ever heard the tune before.)

When it came time to reveal the results of the votes, James Durbin was put in the "safe" group first and Lauren Alaina was asked to start the low-ranking group on the other side of the stage. Joining James was Haley. Jacob was soon lumped with Lauren to form a group of 2. Then poor Scotty McReery, the fifth "odd man out" contestant -- announced as safe..was asked which of the 2 groups he thought he belonged in, who were the "safe" contestants. Scotty wisely refused to play that game.

The elimination round proceeded with Jacob, as predicted, handed his walking papers (after a performance on Wednesday night where, somewhat bizarrely, he attempted to sing both parts of a duet). Jacob sang the "House Is Not A Chair" song that wasn't one of his best to begin with and th-th-th-that's all, Folks, from Jacob Lusk, till tour time.