This week’s elimination resulted in lots of tears shed by both contestants and judges, but there was also a surprising romantic farewell gesture! Plus, season 4 winner Carrie Underwood made an emotional return to the Idol stage.

The top 7 was narrowed down to 6, after a challenging week of classic rock songs forced many contestants out of their comfort zone. Once again, while Wednesday night’s performances would lead one to believe that the clearly-out-of-his-league Lazaro Arbos would be going home, America chose differently. The contestant eliminated this week was Burnell Taylor.

Burnell sang one of his earlier favorite performances, India Arie’s “Ready For Love,” to try to win the judges’ save, but it looks like he had other things on his mind. To end his performance, Burnell walked directly over to fellow contestant Amber Holcomb, and sang the romantic song directly to her. Burnell had just confessed to his crush on Amber in a video shown during last night’s episode. No word on whether or not Amber was, in fact, ready for love.

The judges opted not to use their save for Burnell, since they are obviously holding on to that for some of the girls that are left. They did give Burnell a standing ovation, but that may have been more for his romantic gesture, than the performance itself; everyone loves a good love story.

In a change this week, the judges and mentor Jimmy Iovine revealed their picks for the top 3 performances. Everyone’s picks were a mix of the top four girls: Angie, Amber, Kree, and Candice. Ryan revealed America’s top 3 to be Kree, Angie, and, much to everyone’s surprise: Lazaro. Proving once again that America doesn’t really value trivial things like knowing the lyrics to any of your songs.

The top 7 took on another Queen song to close out classic rock week, “Somebody To Love.” The performance started out mimicking Queen’s iconic music video, with the contestants’ faces lit against a dark backdrop. To no surprise, belter Candice got the big note at the end, as she can always be relied upon to bring any performance to another level.

Season 4 winner Carrie Underwood returned to the Idol stage to perform her new song “See You Again,” off her certified platinum album Blown Away. Idol put together a short video package to show before her performance, charting Carrie’s journey from small-town farm girl to country superstar. Afterwards, Carrie got a little emotional reflecting back on her journey, and what American Idol has meant to her and her career.

This week’s results show also saw the return of season 9 finalist Casey James. Casey has also gone on to have a successful country career, with his self-titled debut album charting at number two on Billboard’s country charts. Harkening back to his initial shirtless Idol audition, Casey apparently forgot his shirt for tonight’s performance of “The Good Life,” and had to rush to the mall just before the show to find something to wear.

As a new feature this week, Idol kept the cameras rolling after the live show cut off, and showed bits of the footage in the commercial breaks during The New Girl and The Mindy Project. The clips were mostly just the judges comforting and giving advice to a shell-shocked Burnell. Most notably, judge Nicki Minaj was very tearful and emotional while speaking to Burnell.

Tune in next week to see the top 6 take on songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, as well as songs they wish they’d written.

What did you think of Burnell’s romantic farewell gesture? Do you think the judges were right to not use their save?