Back to Santa Barbara, where group 4Shore is about to do their thing at Villa Abdul. They're determined to chase their dream and all that, and in front of Paula and Pharrell, they do their usual thing with the harmonies and the choreography, although both seem tighter than they have before. They go talk to Steve while Paula and Pharrell agree that their only drawback is being too clean. Better than the opposite, especially on that shiny dance floor.

James Kenney, who we've barely seen, is getting ready to sing for us, telling us about his five jobs that he's really hoping he doesn't have to go back to. He's counting husband and father among those five, so he'd probably be cool with holding onto those. He sings a song I don't know, which Nicole and Enrique take very seriously. They just wonder if he'd be better as a band's frontman than as a solo artist. Well, is it too late to make up a band to put him in? Wouldn't be the first time.

Time for Drew Ryniewicz, the 14-year-old Justin Bieber fan, if that's not redundant. She's loving France, and being one of the eight final girls who get to work with Simon, and walking around like she's shooting a video yearbook. Her sit-down performance of "It Must Have Been Love" by Roxette sounds an awful lot better than it looks, with her nervous stare at Simon's inscrutable face through the whole thing. She nails the singing, and Simon and the flunkies marvel about her being only 14, wondering if that's too young. Well, plenty of future, at least.

That's it for tonight -- 16 left to sing, and they'll do it Sunday, and half of them will get cut, and the judges will be really sad about that. Some singers might be too, but that would be telling.

M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.