American Idol: Our Top 24

Well, that was quite a two weeks in Hollywood.

The group sing week was about as dramatic as a viewer could hope for, and I lost some real favorites, including Rob Bolin (he of Chelsea and Rob, the “exes”), and Emily Anne Reed and that Caleb kid. Ashley Sullivan positioned herself as Most Likely To Actually Commit Suicide On The Idol Stage, and Clint the Junebug became one of America’s Most Hated. Fabulous.

This week we brought the top 50 or so to Vegas, to Cirque de Soleil’s Beatles stage, to sing The Beatles in duets or trios. There’s a Rodney Dangerfield joke in there somewhere. Some of it is great, some of it is hideous, and best of all, we get to see Jimmy Iovine and his entourage, which is everything I had dreamed it could be.

There are more brutal cuts here, and we are down to, well, I’m not sure exactly because no matter what Ryan says it always looks like there are 100 people in the “holding room.” Then everyone gets one more chance to solo for the judges, in an airplane hanger (are we still in Vegas?), and we don’t see much of that, and then it’s cut time to get to 24.

We are back to 12 boys and 12 girls. I hate that.

So Chris Medina takes a fall, and in what might be the most embarassingly self-obsessed moment in history (well, since Marie Antoinette, anyway), JLo turns his rejection into something about her, and sobs so hard her eyelashes might fall off. I need to learn that celebrity tissue-dabbing technique. It really is something.

So Randy and Steven take a few moments to tell her how well she crushed that poor kid’s dream, but she is inconsolable and they need to take a break. Meanwhile, Chris heads back to wherever he’s from to continue singing in crappy bars and taking care of his semi-vegetative fiance. Really, JLo? Really? This is just gross.

But she is able to soldier on, eyelashes intact, and they deliver happy news and sad news and happy news and sad news, spread over two nights and four hours, and I lose some more favorites and disagree with some of these decisions, and in the end, we have this:

Boys

• Clint Ju Gamboa, AKA Junebug, the karoake master who slayed Jaycee on group night.
• Paul McDonald, who I never saw until The Beatles night, who has sort of a Kenny Loggins quirky vibe and an interesting voice. He won’t last.
• Robbie Rosen, 16, he might go far.
• Tim Halperin, no idea.
• Scotty McCreery, 16 with the deep country voice. Buh-bye.
• Jovany Barreto, can’t stand this guy – he is everything I dislike about modern Top 40 music.
• Jordan Dorsey, the really nice piano teacher with the really nice voice and the really nice vibe.
• Stefano Langone, he is just like Jovany.
• Jacob Lusk, oversinger extraordinaire – ugh.
• James Durbin, Lambert 2.0 with great back story (autism, Tourette’s, poor)
• Casey Abrams, my new favorite and the one I shall make my first bold prediction with: he will win.
• Brett Loewenstern: 16. I would not have kept him. I would’ve taken that Colton kid instead. But they wanted to keep the Glee vibe going.

Girls

• Naimi Adedapo, gorgeous, can sing, great backstory.
• Haley Reinhart, over sings – expendable blonde.
• Ashton Jones, gorgeous, can sing.
• Karen Rodriguez, one of many brunettes.
Tatynisa Wilson, eh.
• Julie Zorilla, the very over-rated Colombian.
• Lauren Turner, no idea.
• Rachel Zevita, the girl representative of quirky. We’ll see.
• Kendra Chantelle, expendable blonde.
• Lauren Alaina: 16 (15 when she started), a rocker; might be headed for Dr. Drew early.
• Pia Toscano: she is good friends Karen Rodriguez; beautiful, can sing.
Thia Megia: 15-year-old. I’m not sure why this kid bugs me but she does. I would’ve picked the girl who was turning 25. Far more interesting personality. Plus she has tried out 7 times, if she won, what a story that would be …

So here we go America. Time to start voting next week. Boys are on Tuesday, girls on Wednesday, results on Thursday. So much Idol, so much time.