Jason's cover of "Forever in Blue Jeans" showcases his best and worst attributes.  Jason is a pleasant guy.  He seems friendly, goofy, and light-hearted.  He's the type of guy who'll help you move into your new apartment and not ask for so much as a slice of pizza in return.  But AI demands its contestants to pander and prostitute themselves in the loudest octave possible.  Jason just isn't that kind of guy.  There's nothing wrong with that--in the real world.  But AI is an artificial concoction and as such, requires artifical melodrama.  And that's something that Jason can never give.

David Cook hits the stage with "I'm Alive" and for all purposes, it's good enough.  Nothing spectacular, but servicable and in a season where most contestants can't find their way to the supermarket, the guy who can make a meal out of dandelion leaves is king.  It's not a satsifying meal, but it'll keep you from starving.  David Cook isn't that good of a performer, but he's all AI really has at this point.  It's their own damn fault.

Brooke has apparently been introduced to Xanax, because she's quite chipper tonight.  While she looks like a 1970's Hee Haw cornfield extra with that ruffled denim blouse, she covers "I'm a Believer" with cheery aplomb.  So hooray!  No need to hide the sharp objects from the Rated G Superstar tonight.  Thankful for small favors and such.

David Archuleta and his handlers could give a master class on Finding Safety in the Pop Music Universe.  "Sweet Caroline" is right between Archie's sweet spot of tweener girls who'd like to french him with their glittery lipgloss and grandmas who wanted to fragance his cherubic face with the scent of Cashmere Bouquet dusting powder.  It was adequate, it was compentent, it was a stagnant pond of algae and mosquito larvae.  Let us move on before the stench clings to our clothes.

Syesha serenades us with "Hello" and it doesn't make me want to scream "Be gone!" at my TV.  Actually, this is quite good.

And with the end of Act I of the Diamond Follies drawing to a closing, the fourth wall of American Idol's facade is cracked by one of its own.

Paula Abdul is the perfect judge for American Idol.  Her career was the stuff of Milli Vanill lipsynching and C&C Music Factory track layering.  She shook her pom-poms for Tinseltown's  Harlem Globetrotters, the Los Angeles Lakers.  And she's a Joe Gillis away from becoming the Norma Desmond of late 20th Century bubblegum pop music.  She's the perfect artifical sweetener upon which on AI builds its sugar-walled empire.  So it should come as no surprise that in a codeine and cocktail-fueled stupor, Ms. Abdul reveals to the carbon copy public that the judges listen to the dress rehearsal and base their judgments on that performance rather than the live one.  Everyone already knew this, but to have it out in the open cheapens the effect of pretense.   Why wear the mask when we have seen the scars?  Randy, Simon, and Ryan become a three-headed version of Max von Mayerling and roll the camera for the delusional Ms. Abdul.  The audience sat in stunned silence, not knowing quite what to do with the spectacle before him.  It's typical Hollywood:  flawed to perfection, real in its fake veneer.

With Paula's chemcially induced ramblings, Jason knows that he could have performed "September Morn" such that would put the ghost of Enrico Caruso to shame and it wouldn't have mattered.  Again, he was pleasant but droll.  Coffee shop/beachcomber/bong time music is his calling card.  He can't change it.  And really, it's not bad at all.  But for a show that prides itself on vocal hysterics, it's all wrong.  Jason is all wrong.

By choosing "All I Really Need is You" for his second song, David C. gave himself the freedom to put a different spin on an unfamiliar song.  He went for the Nickelback/Lifehouse treatment.  That's a good thing, I guess.  If nothing else, he's ensuring himself airtime on Top 40 radio with his pop-rock sound.  I wasn't impressed, but what you can do?

Brooke's version of "I Am I Said" highlighted what has been obvious for weeks:  she's wonderful when she's performing with just her piano.  But when the band kicks in, her vocals get lost in the mix.  She's an acoustic singer and needs to stick with that.

There are moments in everyone's life where you have to realize that none of us are actually prepared for the end.  One of those moments came for me during Archie's rendition of "America."  I'm not sure if I've ever been witness to anything so surreal appearing on my TV.  It was like being part of a tent revival where the jack-legged preacher sells you snake oil, claiming that it cures polio and whooping cough.  Your mind stops understanding at some point and you're just in a fog, delirious to the picture fading to black and you fall victim to false hope.  You realize you're confused and you know why, but it happens anyway and you can't stop it.  It burns a hole in your heart that no salve can soothe.  It's the most empty kind of pain known in the pop culture Pantheon.

I gave up the ghost with that performance.  I went into casket formation:  arms crossed over my chest while clutching a pocket-sized Bible as the funeral director tucked in my burial blanket just before closing the lid on me.  God is merciful all the time.  I couldn't handle it.  It was if a priest doused my eternally damned soul with holy water.  I recoiled and writhed in agony.  At the very least, I was channeling the Wicked Witch of the West:  I'm melting, melting. . .oh, what a world!  Oh, what pandering!

I've been told that Syesha was pretty good on "Thank the Lord for the Night Time" but I was too busy getting the old mirror-under-the-nose test administered to see if I was still part of the present world.  David Archuleta is the spawn of Satan, folks.  We have seen the enemy and it's a 17-year-old gasping lad with squinty eyes.  With his overbearing dad for backup. 

If anyone is looking for me, I'll be in my bunker, wearing a tinfoil hat and waiting for the rest of you to realize that this is the end.  David Archuleta is pop music's Anti-Christ.  Prepare for the Revelation.  I'll leave a glass of Kool-Aid on the nightstand for you.