American Idol: First One Out of Top 13

Wow, could we have been more wrong. We thought we’d be seeing some of the guys in the Bottom 3 tonight but NO! It was 3 of the girls.

The elimination show is only an hour but it is made excruciatingly long by the constant procrastinations of Ryan Seacrest and his penchant for putting contestants and judges on the spot. We’ll be hearing a lot of “it’s really hard” statements in the coming weeks over whether they will use the wild card. So monotonous. Synonyms, anyone? How about tough, challenging, demanding, complex, complicated. Our favorite would be Herculean.

To save or not to save? Ryan, it’s a Herculean task, and although we don’t wish to break anyone’s heart or make Jennifer Lopez cry, we must have a unanimous vote before anyone can be plucked back from the jaws of obscurity. Of course they didn’t say that and probably won’t, but just think — if they did, it would leave less time for Ryan Seacrest’s long drawn out blarney and make us think of Hercules.

Oh and did we mention that Randy Jackson was a prominent feature of tonight’s show, giving a rundown of everyone’s performances from last night — what advice he gave, whether it was followed, who was dope, etc.

The Top 13 opened the show with a performance of “Counting Stars” and “Radioactive.” ‘Season 12 winner Candice Glover was on hand to perform a medley of her singles “Cried” and “Same Kinda Man.” And 17-year-old Jake Bugg, (chosen as special guest by Keith Urban who plainly thinks he’s the cat’s meow), played guitar and sang a pretty good song. We think it’s call “Me and You.”

Around 15 minutes into the show, we found out that Malaya Watson was in the bottom three. The other reveals were spread out between the entertainment and the judges getting the name 5 things treatment, complete with a running gag about seeing Keith Urban naked, started by Harry Connick and picked back up by Seacrest. M.K. Nobilette was the second to be sent to the stools and she was later followed by Kristen O’Connor. Out of the 3 of them, M.K. actually earned the most praise from the judges last night, and she was the first sent to safety. Malaya Watson earned the least, but we attributed that to sound problems. Malaya was sent to safety second.

So Kristen was left to try to win the judges over with one last performance, no doubt knowing it was a lost cause. Did anyone seriously expect them to use it right out of the gate? It would have been better, however, if the judges had shown Kristen the common courtesy of actually listening to and watching her performance instead of conferring with each other during it. You watch, you listen, you vote nay or yea. How hard — uh, we mean, Herculean — is that?

Kristen turned in a better performance of Adele’s “Turning Tables” than she did with Kelly Clarkson’s “Beautiful Disaster,” but sadly, it just wasn’t gonna happen. She was a Wild Card choice and at that time, Harry Connick, Jr. said they needed a KO — using her initials as a joke, but the real KO came tonight. Kristen is a very pretty and talented girl with a very upbeat personality and we wish her lots of luck in the future.