America whittled the top five ladies down to four tonight, and two past Idol favorites, Clay Aiken and Fantasia Barrino, returned to the stage.
It was a sad night on the Idol stage, as the sisterhood was broken up, and one of the top five girls was sent home. While it wasn’t a surprise, it was still sad to see sweet, sassy Janelle Arthur eliminated. The rest of the girls were pretty emotional, especially Janelle’s close friend and fellow contestant Kree Harrison. In fact, when they were playing Janelle’s farewell video, it was hard to tell who was crying more, Janelle or Kree.
Janelle performed her unique arrangement of The Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin On” from Motown week, for the judges’ save. However, while Randy confessed that the judges were split 50/50, their decision needs to be unanimous, so they were unable to use the save for Janelle. But Janelle was very gracious and smiley, even when saying her goodbyes.
The top five kicked off the results show with a medley of diva Donna Summer’s biggest hits. The girls sounded great, but in a questionable choice, Idol felt it necessary to bring in a bunch of over-enthusiastic male dancers to distract from their performance, as if the girls couldn’t hold it down all by themselves.
Remember when Idol used to do Ford music videos? Remember when those music videos turned into blatant Ford commercials that only occasionally showed the contestants singing along to a pre-recorded track? Well now they’ve scrapped the singing entirely, and just show the contestants driving around completing useless tasks in a Ford Fiesta. This week they went on a scavenger hunt that led to Glee‘s Matthew Morrison, sitting in a barber shop.
Clay Aiken updated us on what he’s done with his life in the 10 years since his second-place finish on Idol. Apparently he’s been working as a UN ambassador for education, traveling to countries as far away as Afghanistan and Uganda. Clay reminded us why he earned all those votes back in season 2, with a repeat performance of his finale hit, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The Claymates are right, he’s still got it.
Fantasia Barrino returned to the Idol stage to perform her new single, “Lose To Win,” and proved that she deserved that season 3 victory. Looking beautiful, Fantasia belted out the song, earning an enthusiastic standing ovation from all four judges afterwards. It’s very appropriate for Fantasia to have returned for divas week, because she has proven herself to be a diva in her own right.
In a weird blast from the past, they introduced Fantasia’s performance by doing an “Idol Update,” checking up on a past contestant. The contestant they chose to check in on was the season 3 diva that was not Fantasia or Jennifer Hudson: LaToya London, who has not done a whole lot of anything. Nothing to be ashamed of, but why would they have chosen LaToya London, of all past Idols, for a check-in?
Speaking of blasts from Idol past… After reviewing Candice Glover’s awesome performance of Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up,” who should walk out onstage to surprise Candice but the original Idol wackadoodle judge herself: Paula Abdul. Paula seemed as nuts as usual, and was wearing a dress that was at least 300% sleeves, but it was sweet of her to be so enthusiastic about Candice’s performance.
Tune in next week, when the top four take on one-hit wonders, and their own choice of song.