Down To This - 
by B-side
Can you feel the excitement in the air? It's the final night of American Idol competition. All the singing, all the heartache, all the drama has come down to this! Good God. I sound like Ryan Seacrest. So yeah, Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee battled it out for supremacy one last time tonight. I'm pulling for Katharine (based on star power), but I'll be hard pressed to say she out-performed Taylor. Even I can't deny that overall Taylor had a better night. But still, in a post Chris and Mandisa universe, I don't know if I can ever call Taylor an American Idol. I just can't. That won't be his problem though. He's probably gonna win. The full rundown after the jump.
The night begins with a solitary image: a beanpole cloaked in darkness. Yes, Ryan Seacrest greets us in front of a shadowy, mysterious background. Hmm... I wonder if the lights will suddenly come up and reveal the audience? Just as it does every year. Sure enough, that's exactly what happens, and the crowd reacts with exhilaration. It's like one massive game of peekaboo. Ryan yells, "THIS is American Idol," which is good because for a second there, I thought I was watching The Sopranos. OF COURSE IT'S AMERICAN IDOL.
The credits roll and then we see our first dollops of celebrities for the night. Why, there's Mandy Moore, star of Idol satire, American Dreamz! And look! Who goes there? It's Ben Stiller, looking angry and simian. He seems to be hiding behind a pleasant looking Muslim girl. George Bush has already called her in for questioning.
"They can see me!"
We then see the judges. Randy looks the same as usual. Paula seems to be wearing the sartorial version of a deconstructed rainbow, and Simon is wearing... a blazer! Wow. Very classy. If only his dark t-shirt underneath were a turtleneck. Then he'd be the perfect Blacksploitation movie villain.
"I'll get you, Foxy Brown!"
Ryan asks the judges if they have any words of advice. Randy says it's "now or never." Paula babbles about something incoherent. Simon suggests that each singer prays that the other one forgets their lyrics. Polite laughter all around. Let's just get on with the show. Ah, but before we can get to singing, Ryan tells us that we're going to watch each of the finalists' journeys -- which means a montage set to, you guessed it, Journey! Get it? Journey?? Oh, American Idol. You're a pistol!
We then watch the sappy video segment, and I can't help thinking, "Is Taylor really in the finals?" I mean, look, his enthusiasm and passion are great, he's consistently very good, and he's an amusing entertainer -- for my parents. But let's be honest. The guy's going to churn out some junk for Lite-FM, and then it's off to the cruise ships and obscure casinos in the middle of Nevada (Primm comes to mind).
After the montage ends, we go to commercial, and when we return, Ryan appears in the audience. He enthusiastically hugs Chris Daughtry, relishing the brief moment when neck touches neck, soul touches soul. All Ryan feels is the firm yet gentle embrace of Chris's man muscles, his swelling biceps clutching his body, enveloping him with the delicate touch of Aphrodite's finger tips. It all happens so fast, and yet, for Ryan, each second is a breathless eternity. The heart skips a beat, a bead of sweat appears on the brow, and deep, hidden impulses surge. In that instance, Ryan feels complete.
Love lift us up where we belong...
Anyhoo, once Ryan commands Chris to return to his chair, our intrepid host ambles down to the McPhees. Dad isn't crying yet, but he notes that the night is young. And how. Katharine then takes the stage and performs "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" again. She starts off well and seems mildly preoccupied with feeling up one of the drummers on stage with her. It starts as just a quick caress, but soon, it's a full-scale ass-grind. She's trying to force the McPheever out, but it's like a bottle of ketchup -- sometimes, it takes more than just a few shakes to get things going.
That's not to say it's a bad performance. I like it quite a bit. But it's just not at a total MCPHEEVER level. Eventually, Kat starts to go on melisma runs, and unfortunately, she's just not seasoned enough to do this. Paula is right -- Katharine's strengths are when she keeps things under control. Nevertheless, the song ends fairly quickly, and I think it's a good way to start the night. Randy says she looks like she had fun and that she sang it better than the first time. Paula also calls it fun, and Simon says it was "a good with a small g." The audience boos (they really like capitalization), and Simon reveals that he just didn't really like the song. He says it was more like a warmup. Not the best reviews. Not the worst.
A few minutes later, Ryan asks Katharine why she chose that song, and she gives a litany of reasons, one of which being that it "kind of can show the public that I can, you know, be in the Top 40." Translation: I'm commercial! Taylor's not! Please vote for me!!
We also learn that apparently, Katharine's fans -- the "KatPack" -- sent her a thousand roses to her dressing room. Was it the KatPack? Or was it CHRIS DAUGHTRY?!?!? Sorry, I just completely fabricated that rumor.
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