"The X Factor" Sends Home Rachel Crow Over Marcus Canty - Recap

Some of "The X Factor" fans were in for a surprise after last nights results.

Safe:
Josh Krajcik, Chris Rene, Melanie Amaro were all deemed safe by the voting public.

This put Marcus Canty (of Team L.A. Reid) and Rachel Crow (Team Simon Cowell) in the bottom two. Both contestants sang their hearts out. The sing-off seemed easy enough, powerhouse Rachel, gave one heck of a vocal performance. She seemed sure to get the judges votes over Marcus, who simply is not as good a singer as the pint-size child.

Of course, L.A. voted Rachel off, Simon stuck with his girl and voted off Marcus, Paula, surprisingly sent home Rachel, which left Nicole Scherzinger to say she couldn't make the decision. Eventually, Nicole decided to say send home Rachel, so that the competition would go into deadlock. During deadlock, the host sends home the one with the lowest votes. Certainly, Rachel thought she would have a ton more votes than Marcus, but she didn't and she was sent home.

It was hard seeing her sob loudly, as she fell to her knees in shock. She kept crying telling her mom, "but mom, you promised me!" It was a bad situation and it's more than obvious that Rachel Crow is simply too young for this competition. The girl can sing, but she doesn't have thick enough skin to face such harsh rejection, especially on national television. Too bad Simon didn't prepare her for the fact that at any time, any given person could be sent home, and no one is ever safe. Perhaps, he also assumed that she would be safe.

Most fans knew her time was limited because being too young it's harder to get votes. Most fans want to see an older person win also, so that alone knocks her into the smaller vote percentile. Rachel gave all she had and I feel like she was sent home for being too young, not for being a worse singer than Marcus (not to mention he has been in the bottom 3 - three times now!).

Now the competition is down to Josh, Chris, Melanie, and Marcus. No one is left on Paula's team and soon another judge and team will be out of the competition as well.

Who do you think is going home next week? What are your thoughts on Rachel Crow going home over a less strong singer? Share your thoughts in the comments section!