you don't have to make me very happy on the spinning wheel ride...

I convinced myself that last night's beginning of the final round was not as bad as I had remembered.  I decided that it was not their fault, but mine.  I went into the show full of expectations of glory notes and foot-tapping tunes.  After all, we've just come off two weeks of terrific male performances, and I've been harping that this is the most talented field of 12 we've had thus far.  So with expectations that high, I was bound to be disappointed, and my complaints of last night were merely a knee-jerk reaction to being let down.

So I decided to start clean.  Watch the show again.  Listen to the mp3 files, to hear the vocals without distraction.  Give the kids a second chance, from here on known gettin' Nikkoed.

Show stunk.

There were some great performances.  There were some stinkers.  And then there were the rest.

What a letdown.

Stinkers:  Lindsey, Anthony, Jessica, Mikalah, Anwar, Nikko.

Stinking great:  Bo, Nadia, Constantine.

And the rest:  Scott, Carrie, Vonzell.

Who's safe tonight?  The stinking great ones.  It's gonna take dynamite to get any one of those three off the couch for the first half of the competition.  Bo and Nadia have the most consistency and have, essentially, FINALE metaphorically tattooed on their foreheads.  Constantine needs to keep choosing songs like he did this week, and sprinkle an occasional rock performance among them to earn the respect he seems not to have for his vocal ability.  He can cough through his next several songs and still proceed, just on the support of the "Constanteam", but he just may have earned a few new fans last night.  He's winning me over.  Slowly.  But it's going to take more than one impressive performance to get me to dial his number.  That's why his is the screenshot.  You may never see that again, but you can bet you'll see Bo and Nadia.  (These three have the sidebar mp3 file slot this week, so if you missed them, or want to just hear and not watch, click their names.)

Also safe are the usual suspects:  Anwar, despite selecting a song that curls my toes and then taking it in fifteen different directions all at the same time, you're not going anywhere anytime soon. Anwar, Ilove you my husband, but I would have preferred puppies.  Vonzell may have bought herself some time.  Simon was right.  She's like Jan Brady.  You know she's there, and she's not a disaster.  But she's not Marcia.  Oops, I mean Nadia.  She's just, well, Jan.  And Jan tends to find herself regularly in the bottom three, until she buys that wig and makes herself noticed.  (Sorry, I'm channeling Kim Locke right now.)  And Carrie is performing better than Lindsey, so that will keep her secure for the foreseeable future.  But farm girl is losing her favored-nation status fast.  At this rate, she may not see the halfway point.

Everyone else is at risk at this point.  So, having put half of the field in harm's way, here are my fearless predictions for this evening:

Bottom three:  Jessica, Vonzell and Lindsey.
And we will bid a fond, enthusiastic and overdue farewell to:  Lindsey.  (But of course, that means she'll be knocking on wood all over again. Alas.  It's the price we pay.)

And, in honor of this week's 1960s theme, I am officially proposing that tonight's group number be:  A Cowsills Retrospective!