Melinda Goes Home After the Break

One of last year's pool members, Corona Benson, called AI HQ immediately after Seacrest uttered those words. Did anyone else catch it? He said "Melinda goes home after the break" (or something to that effect) in the middle of the show, then the camera cut over extremely briefly to a shocked Melinda.

What could that be about? Was it a cruel joke? Did Seacrest royally screw up? Corona wanted to know if what she heard was correct, and we were guessing if Seacrest made a huge mistake or not all the way until the show came back on.

Well, it turned out it was just poor phrasing, since what he meant to say was we were going to see the video of Melinda going to her hometown after the break. Still, it turned out to be freakishly prophetic. Although, I'm not sure prophetic is the word since Seacrest actually knows the results ahead of time. I think the word might be "true".

Still, we're all shocked here at HQ, although she definitely had the smallest crowd support in her hometown......


Anyway, what happened to Clive Davis? Instead of him, we got somebody named "producers" picking songs for the contestants, and here at AI HQ, we think they did a shaky job. Jordin got a clunker in "She Works Hard for the Money". It's not her fault the song's boring to sing. "Nutbush City Limits" was sung well by Melinda, but just not a very interesting song. Blake's "This Love" was perfect for him - it's an easy song to sing that's extremely hooky, and it allowed him to move around the stage and perform to camera - and he does that better than anyone else. So, two poor picks and one excellent one by "producers" on our scorecard.

Sorry we just started off talking about the 2nd round. The first round of songs were the judges' choices. Paula picked "Roxanne" for Blake, and it wasn't that good. Randy picked Whitney Houston's "I Believe in You and Me", and I don't care what you've read on the internet, she did not sound really good in her high register at the end of that song. We thought Jordin's rendition of "Wishing on a Star" was really solid (except for her run at the end), and we don't know where Simon got off a) ripping her performance up and b) giving the first round to Melinda.

Simon then proceeded to trash Jordin throughout the rest of the show, and she wasn't that bad. To us, this meant one of two things:

1. His choice was Melinda, and he was scared that Jordin could beat her head to head in the finals, so he was trying to get rid of her this week by trashing her.

2. He wants Jordin to win the whole thing, so he was using some reverse psychology. By trashing Jordin, he's encouraging America to go out and vote for her by proving him wrong.


Here at AI HQ, we have to believe that the show has studied the voting data and knows what kind of response they'll get when Simon comes down hard on somebody - especially now at extreme crunch time. To us, it was obviously premeditated because Jordin wasn't nearly as bad as Simon thought she was.

All in all, though, it was a pretty mediocre and uninspiring Top 3 Week. There was no "Dancing in Dark" or "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in there. That's for sure. Even Blake's rendition of "When I Get You Alone" wasn't earth shattering. Maybe it was because of his toenail recovery situation.

But Melinda did not deserve to get the boot. I guess the country just tired of her (note to Idol Pool participants - being the frontrunner is a bad thing....the whole pool has now been burned by Chris Daughtry and Melinda Doolittle in back-to-back years). And it means the 35 people who had Melinda #1 (and to a lesser extent, all of us, felt like this girl:


Farewell to Melinda. Easily one of the best voices in the show's 6 seasons, and definitely the strongest performer this season week in and week out. She's really talented.

Of course, that doesn't mean anything in American Idol. Although, if I were the "producers", I might be a little (to quote Tony Soprano) relieved? Was Melinda really going to sell a lot of albums? I'd think Jordin could be a big success - she's young, so her voice could still be popified a bit more.....PS - has anyone heard her demo?

Blake might not end up being a good live performer, but I bet with some time in the studio, he could release some good rocky-poppy songs.

It's definitely weird - Melinda was clearly the most talented, but was she the most marketable?


So, the loss of Melinda changes the pool thusly - almost everyone is now frozen and maxed out.

Since no one has Jordin winning, and only two people have Blake winning, there are only two people that can move up next week, and there were only a small amount of people who moved up this week (those that had either of the finalists #1 or #2).

Currently, the top 5 looks like this:

#1 - Will (still!) - 251 points
#2 - MB - 250 points
#3 - Paul Peters - 245 points - with Blake #1!
#4 - Kristin - 242 points
#5 - Jennie - 240 points - with Blake #1!

So, if Jordin wins, no one goes anywhere, and this will be the top 5! Good news for Will, MB, and Kristin. But Paul and Jennie want more.....

If Blake wins, the top 5 will look like this:

#1. Paul P. - 257 points
#2. Jennie - 252 points
#3. Will - 251 points
#4. MB - 250 points
#5. Kristin - 242 points

It's the same 5 people just in a different order.

Congrats to Jennie, Kristin, MB, Paul P., and Will - you guys are the top 5 this year no matter what! It all just comes down to the order at this point...

If you look at the standings, you'll see some people are tied with the same score, and some people aren't. That's because we've applied the tiebreaker to the standings this week.

There's only one tie that could be broken next week - the three-way tie for 12th among Grant, Adele, and Mike. Should Blake win, the three of them will tie for 12th. If Jordin wins, then Grant will break the tie (by calling Blake out correctly at #2) and will finish 12th by himself. Mike and Adele will finish tied for 13th. So, Grant is a Jordin fan this week because he wants to finish 12th by himself.

And guess what?! With Melinda's exit, the love birds Don and Karen Lane will finish tied together in 32nd. Amazing. How do those two do it?


Who is attending an American Idol Finale Viewing Party next week?! We need pictures of participants partying their pants off!


Go Jordin!
The Master


PS, Paula is crazy.