American Idol: Episode 23 of Season Nine--And Then There Were 11

American Idol: Episode 22 of Season Nine

And Then There Were 11

By our guest blogger Catherine Fuentes

The time has come for me to stop beating the dead horse about what happened on last week’s result show. The time has also come for me to stop saying that Lacey Brown deserves to go home, because now she actually has.

How Lacey Brown managed to make it through each week always baffled me, and it was unfortunate, because she was most at risk after her best performances. But when it comes down to it, Lacey was not performing at the level expected for a Top 12 "American Idol" finalist.

After the shakeups last week, I made a prediction that I’m still sticking to: Over the next few weeks, there will be an oil and water style separation between the "Idol" elite and the people who squeaked their way in. As they perform new themes each week and the competition becomes stiffer, the strongest Idol contestants will prove themselves and rise to the top. The rest? I think they’ll start hitting the deck in the subsequent weeks. And as this happens, everyone will forget about last week, because when you look at the remaining 11, there’s some great peformers.

Yesterday, I correctly predicted that Paige Miles and Tim Urban would be joining Lacey in the bottom three, and I was not surprised in the slightest to see this actually come true. While both of them need to kick it up several notches to reach some modicum of safety in the competition, I am convinced that Tim will last longer than Paige, and that next week Paige is seriously at risk. Tim may not be the most talented, but he’s certainly made a stir with the viewing public, and the girls love him. On Tuesday night, Tim was the only Idol contestant to become a worldwide trending topic on Twitter – and people talking about you in that public a forum always trumps people not really caring, as is the case with Paige.

Like last year, there is a unique twist in these Result Show episodes: The Judges’ Save. After the bottom contestant is named, he or she has to quite literally perform for his or her life. At that point, the judges can vote unanimously to save the contestant one more week. This means that the following week, two people will be eliminated, and that at no future point in the competition can this one time only save be used.

It was obvious that this being the first week, this save was going to be shelved. Unless by some fluke of voting insanity Crystal Bowersox was at the very bottom, there’s no way the judges would use it this early in the game. It’s a savvy move to save it as the competition really dwindles down, at least past the halfway mark. At that point, the judges and the public really get to know contestants and what they’re capable of, and can more easily forgive an off night. My guess is that they also have in mind people they will certainly use the save for--my guesses are that Siobhan Magnus, Crystal Bowersox and Michael Lynche will be saved if need be.