American Idol 11: Top 3 Results Show
US Air Date:
Thursday, May 17, 2012 (8-9pm)
UK Air Date:
Friday, May 18, 2012 (9-10pm, ITV2)
The Top 3 perform “Got to Get You Into My Life.”
Ford Music Video: “Cinema”
Joshua Ledet is the first to be called over to Ryan Seacrest. After running through an extremely long recap of his three performances the previous night, we get Jimmy Iovine’s comments, and he wasn’t a big fan of any of Josh’s numbers, even the song that Jimmy himself chose for him. (But at least he took responsibility for it.) And we’ll have to wait a little big longer to find out his results — Head on back to the couch. Oh no, I can see that this is going to turn into a repeat of last week where we went through every contestant and each time they had to go back to the couch and nothing happened for about 50 minutes. Here we go…
Video: The animated characters of the upcoming Ice Age: Continental Drift keep calling Jennifer Lopez for tickets to the finale. And we get to see and hear the character that JLo herself is voicing in the new film. Then the Top 4 (so this was filmed before Hollie was cut) visit a Fox recording studio to hear a song that’ll be attached to the film, and they even got in on the action, recording some lines as well. (But I doubt any of that will make it into the final mix; it was most likely done just for fun and also so that we could have some filler for the results show.)
Lisa Marie Presley performs “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.”
Ryan has some season 12 info, announcing the dates of upcoming auditions in Los Angeles, Newark and Chicago.
Jessica Sanchez is up next and sent back to the couch as well. And during Jimmy’s commentary, once again he didn’t even like the song that he chose for her. Okay, Jimmy, your blunt and honest comments are what we need on this show (since we’re not going to get it from the judges), but maybe you shouldn’t be selecting the songs for these contestants. It kind of reminds of back when Clive Davis was still a part of the show and would make horrible song choices for the singers during Top 3 week.
Adam Lambert, season 8 runner-up, performs “Never Close Our Eyes,” which is a great pop/dance/club song. His new album, Trespassing, just came out this week and there’s word going around online that it holds a good chance of debuting at #1, which would be cool to see happen. I don’t have the album yet, and have only listened to a small handful of the songs on there, but I’m hoping to listen it in its entirety soon.
Finally, it’s Phillip Phillips‘ turn. Jimmy liked his Round 1 performance, “Beggin’. And he loved his Round 3 performance of “We’ve Got Tonight,” even calling it the best of the night. There ya go, Jimmy! Finally there’s one of your own choices that you like.
After nearly 90 million votes were cast this week, the first person to advance to the finals is…Jessica Sanchez! Whoah! After she delivered the weakest performances of the night, I had all but written her off. So I am pleasantly surprised by this. But now comes the bad news, having to let go of my other favorite, because we all know that’s about to happen…
The final person in the Top 2 is…Phillip Phillips! No surprise there. Joshua Ledet is eliminated.
Eliminated:
Joshua Ledet
Joshua closes out the show with a reprise of possibly his best performance of the season, “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” Even though he’s gone now, this number just proves how fantastically brilliant of a performer this guy is, and one of the best that’s ever graced the Idol stage. I can’t wait to see him on the tour because he’s the type of singer who thrives on performing live.
Usually at the end of my results show recaps, I analyze how do we move forward from here now that another contestant has been eliminated. But there’s no point in me going on and on because we all know Phillip Phillips will win; in fact, he had it in the bag weeks and weeks ago (the same way that Scotty McCreery did last year).
Now, having said that, since Jessica managed to get more votes than Joshua, maybe she does have large enough fan support to take it all the way. We’ll just have to see, and no matter what, I will be voting for her next week, regardless of the long odds she faces.
Next week, Phillip Phillips and Jessica Sanchez will compete one last time for our votes, and then a victor will be crowned. We’re finally at the end of the line. See ya then…
