MiniCap: American Idol

Last night on Idol, Seacrest started us off with a promise — a promise that many fans of the show would be extremely disappointed by the results. Oh Tink, those words come from your waxen face every week, as though you were introducing some new idea to us — as though we’ll be shocked to find someone got voted off. The surprise is really the glacial pace at which some of these episodes move.

Also surprising — none of the songs from this musical were performed. Steven practically requested it on Wednesday night!

On Wednesday , there was a lot of time to fill so we got those crazy duets. And last night we got some pretty thorough video recaps followed up by Jimmy Iovine hoarsely shouting his opinions about the contestants at us. It’s OK, Jimmy! The microphone works… use your indoor voice. And how about a little Just for Men for those eyebrows?

The first performance of the night was a group medley from the contestants. They did a mash-up of Carole King’s hits. For me, the highlight was Lauren and Haley covering “One Fine Day.” They sounded good together, although their disproportionate sizes made them look odd. That Lauren’s an Amazon, huh?

Second performance of the night came from Crystal Bowersox who seems to have spent the past year or so making sure those dreads stay ratty looking in the back and non-existent in the front. What can I say about Crystal? She always did what she wanted to do when she was an Idol contestant and it was good, though not thrilling. And it looks like her career is headed in that direction. We should all be so lucky.

There’s a segment in which Tink asks the singers to answer questions submitted by the public. They are all lame: “Where did you work before you were famous?” “What is the hardest thing about the show?” Geez. What is this — your company softball game? No one cares about that shit. Here’s what we want to know: Who’s getting laid in the mansion? Are there nudie pics of any of you out there? Does Casey smell like an old gym sock?

Haley is the first person Tink calls on stage and after recapping her performance, there’s a clip of Jimmy saying Haley doesn’t know what kind of artist she is and that will hurt her. Back on stage, Haley tries to dispute that. She knows who she is! She’s either jazz or blues or back up or — It doesn’t matter because she’s safe.

Scotty is called up next and Jimmy says Scotty has subtleties that this type of audience may not appreciate. Clearly they don’t because he’s sent back to the couch BUT he’s not safe.

Lauren has a confidence problem that Jimmy calls her out on and instead of helping her work through that, Tink further erodes her esteem by sending her back to the couch without labeling her in as safe.

After Casey’s called up we get a clip of Jimmy talking about how tired he is of Casey’s growling. But he does think Casey will be safe. Casey’s sent back to the couch with no indication of his safety.

Jimmy thought that James Durbin should sing more songs the way he sang on Wednesday night and stay away from heavy metal. Jimmy sometimes seems super crotchety for a guy with one of the coolest jobs in the world. James is safe, of course.

Finally, Jimmy gets in a pretty good (in an eye-rolling kind of way) zinger about Jacob’s hideous outfit the night before, calling it a Dancing With the Stars costume. He predicts that Jake has “banana peel status.”

Tink calls Lauren, Casey, Jacob and Scotty to center stage… and sends Lauren back to the couch because she’s safe. The bottom three are left to sweat while Bruno Mars performs a song about slackers with his band of slacker friends. Did anyone notice the dog on the couch? Was it real? How high do you think that entire band was? I wonder if the dog was high, too…

OK, after Bruno Mars sings about chillaxing in his Snuggie all day, it’s time to get to work. Final results… Jacob his safe — and shocked-looking. Scotty is safe. And that means that Casey is leaving.

After a video recap of his Idol ride, Casey sings “I Put a Spell On You” and walks through the audience kissing and hugging everyone. He ends up on stage singing to Haley at the end. I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of speculation about that.

So that was the night! Were you surprised that Scotty was in the bottom three? Or that Casey went home?