Tuesday

Ryan emerges from the automatic doors looking quite put together and formal indeed. His tie is either purple or ice blue, which you wouldn't think would make a difference, except being an usher at Prince's wedding and being an usher at Cinderella's wedding would probably be two very different experiences. He is once again upbraiding the audience at home for their failure to vote -- the sin this time being allowing Ace to fall into the bottom three -- and as he says this, Simon turns his head around towards the audience in an unrelated maneuver which nonetheless gives the impression of "Yeah. What he said." Ryan says the eleven remaining contestants are "at [our] mercy," and if only, dude. Those eleven remaining hopefuls parade across our TV screens like the needy little attention monsters they are. They all try to pageant wave without exactly pageant waving, and no one does too well at it. Well, Elliott manages to wave like a child at Sesame Street on Ice, so I guess that's…something. Taylor, for the record, is dressed like Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber, when they try on the tuxedos. Looks like I'll be sticking with the hating of him, then. Good to know some things will remain constant. We meet the judges (as if for the first time!), and Simon does that thing where he just stares at Paula's shoulder, totally not paying attention, and then slowly turns toward Ryan like he just remembered he's on TV. You know, as affected as any of these contestants get, it's good to know none of them will ever be more affected than Simon. Of course, Ryan has to be a huge dork and try to organize a "thumbs down" movement in the audience, directed at Simon. This is such a children's show sometimes, I swear.

Ryan brings up this week's theme, music from the 1950s, and Randy says it won't be as challenging as Stevie Wonder songs (as the entire decade of the '50s begins writing angry letters), but he still thinks there will be a challenge. Paula gets super-cagey about "what I heard" and "who I heard worked with" the contestants, and I guess I have to remind her that Barry Manilow is not a spoiler! Her whole spiel has the black bars over it. Speaking of black bars, Ryan asks Simon about blabbing to the media about three contestants (Ryan will not say who, because he respects the Idolmerta code of silence) who he predicts will make it to the end. He said Taylor, Chris, and Kellie, okay? ["Okay, but don't ask me where the rat under your pillow came from.