Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

Turns out, I like the combination of the Final Five better than I like any one of them individually. Kat? Taylor? Elliott? I don't really care that much, especially since I think (and have thought for weeks now) that Taylor, my least favorite, is going to win. He's never been in the bottom three (shades of Carrie Underwood); the handwriting's on the wall, if you ask me.

And that's fine. Taylor's fine. His personality annoys me to an alarming degree, but I've got no issues with his voice, and I don't expect him to show up in my dining room any time soon, so he can be his precious barmy self all he wants, and the only relationship he and I will have is through my daughter's radio. I can live with that.

(There are Idolettes I've HATED—Scott Savant and that grinning clown Fantasia come immediately to mind—but Taylor isn't one of them.)

Last night, hmm. No one was at the top of their game. Elliott sounded fine. Three times. Fine. I'm hard-pressed to remember what he sang.

. . .

Nope, it's gone. (Like Elliott? We'll see.) He needed to super step up tonight, and he just didn't. But was he bad? No. He's rarely outright bad, which you can't say for the princess and the horndog. But, unlike them, Elliott rarely inspires seizures of devotion, so what can you do.

So then came the princess, and I am completely at a loss. Didn't Kat used to have an amazing voice? Wasn't she Best in Show? Who the hell is messing with her mic?!!! She sang her first (stupid) (overplayed) song (what was Clive thinking? Or, I should say, what were the people who dressed Clive's body and propped him up thinking?) weirdly (what was the arranger thinking?) and didn't sound good at all. And then the Katharine McMagic kicked in, and she sang an almost unrecognizable (in a good way) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," beautifully and magically and spine-tingly amazingly, and I was enraptured and in love and dizzy with joy (I've got McPheever!), and I mentally began fitting her with the Idol crown. And then she sang song number three, some bluesy thing, and she was fun and sounded okay, but it wasn't great, and was such an anticlimax besides, and I am simply at a loss. Who is Katharine McPhee? Is she a great singer who's had a couple of off weeks? Is she a potentially great singer who doesn't know what to do with that fine instrument she's got? Is she an average singer who can turn some vocal tricks to her advantage? I don't know enough about music to answer this myself, but it seems to me that these are the $64K questions.

And then there was Taylor, who sang "Dancing in the Dark" exactly like Bruce Springsteen (though I still enjoyed it, because I like Mr. Springsteen and I like that song), then sounded fine on "You Are So Beautiful" while looking completely barking terrified of (a) the mic and (b) the camera. WTF? And then he gave my favorite Taylor performance, ever, minus the last 30 seconds, on "Try a Little Tenderness." I'm so glad we got to hear him do that song after all! (For those not up on their Idol conspiracies, Taylor was planning to sing this during Big Love night but got told the day before that it wasn't "love songy" enough. As if! Suspicious minds, indeed.) Perfect match of voice and song, he sounded gorgeous, and then of course spazzed it all to hell in the last few seconds, because that is who he is. Ah, well. I enjoyed a lot of it a lot.

So, how did you vote, Lady C? Fine question. I soul-searched a bit (while doing a crossword puzzle—keeps me razor sharp) and then decided to give Katgirl the benefit of the doubt, so I picked up the phone and readied myself to sacrifice Elliott.

Oh, silly me.

Couldn't get through, not once, not ever, and I tried pretty consistently for the whole two hours. And I even tried to vote for Elliott once, just to see, and couldn't get through for him either. Beats the heck out of me how Taylor racks up so many votes every week—how does anyone get through?!!!!

Who will go tonight? Couldn't tell you. (See: "yam, prediction ability of a") Maybe they'll vote Chris off again (and it will hurt just as much the second time).

Lady Chardonnay OUT.