Source: USA TODAY
No saves are left now. Tonight, one singer will go leave American Idol — the contestant with the lowest vote total from this week and last week. But will it be Candice Glover, Kree Harrison, Amber Holcomb or Angie Miller. Stay tuned and share your thoughts in the comments section! — Brian Mansfield
Whoever makes the cut tonight gets the big hometown visit this weekend. “We know that one of us is going home this week,” Kree Harrison says, “so there’s a lot of pressure.”
“Aside from the finale, this is the toughest cut of the season,” says Ryan Seacrest.
Season 7 champion David Cook will perform tonight, as will this week’s mentor, Harry Connick Jr., and will.i.am.
First, though, the final four will perform Crazy in Love, a song that appears in the new Great Gatsby movie. Because Jay Gatsby’s middle initial is “Z.”
***
“We’ve got no more saves, no more second chances,” Ryan Seacrest. He wonders if these two are the right ones to have in danger.
“It’s hard to say, because I love them all so very much,” Jackson says.
“I don’t know how we’re going to be able to lose anybody here,” Mariah Carey adds.
After 81 million combined votes from two weeks, the final person safe is Kree Harrison.
“Which means we have to say goodbye to the beautiful and talented Amber tonight,” Seacrest says.
She closes the show with Whitney Houston’s I Believe in You and Me. By the end, though, she’s so overcome with emotion that she can’t finish the song.
***
All four girls are holding hands now that it’s really time for some results.
Nicki Minaj has a word of encouragement. “You four are all superheroes, and I really, really mean that.” She thinks any of them can go out and rival the top acts working right now. “All four of the judges, we clearly love you. … I’m just happy that America got the best four of the competition to the top four.”
Seacrest stresses that tonight’s results are in no particular order. And, remember, the show combined last week’s votes with this week’s.
Angie Miller’s the first person safe.
Candice Glover, in the bottom two last week, also is safe.
So it’s down to Kree Harrison and Amber Holcomb. Not that they’re your bottom two — just your bottom one and one other. But, first, a commercial break.
***
We’re moving all over the place stylistically tonight — from David Cook’s bluesy rock to will.i.am’s ’20s-inspired R&B to, now, Harry Connick Jr.’s subdued soul-pop. With Every Man Should Know, Connick shows the final four what he was talking about last night. His performance is extremely understated, with no flash at all, but he has no problem connecting with the song or delivering its message. No need to show off, he just sings.
“After last night, I’m surprised there were no runs,” jokes Seacrest afterwards.
***
Will.i.am throws a little 1920s Charleston-style jazz into the start of his new song Bang Bang, which also appears in the new film version of The Great Gatsby. I’m not always big on will’s music, but I’m kind of loving the flapper dancer with him, as well as his white top hat and pants, as well as his scatting. The tap-dance routine seals the deal for me.
***
David Cook from Season 7 is back tonight to sing his new single, Laying Me Low. Idol, he says, has allowed him to perform music for his life’s work. “I don’t think I could ask for me.”
The new single has a minor-key, bluesy bounce that represents a change of pace for Cook. It’s got a catchy chorus, too, with cool guitar interplay and a breakdown that’s got some stomp to it. But the song’s rhythms seem to be throwing off the girls at the foot of the stage: They’re having trouble clapping in time.
Cook just moved to Nashville, he tells Ryan Seacrest, where he has a house, a yard and three dogs. (I’ll keep an eye out for him.)
***
Today’s Ford Fiesta mission is to design artwork wraps for the cars, with the assistance of Triston Eaton, based on the music the girls love.
Now, it’s time to start the night’s long results reveal, which, Seacrest reminds us, will determine who gets the hometown trips
Jimmy Iovine thinks Angie Miller had the opportunity to shut down the contest this week, but the Rihanna cover was the wrong way to do it. And Someone to Watch Over Me was good but not great, he says.
As for Amber Holcomb, she sounded karaoke on her Pink song. Iovine doesn’t think she had the time to adequately prepare. But he found her version of My Funny Valentine “magnificent.” He wonders if it was enough to save her, but he hopes it was.
Iovine thinks Bruno Mars should be writing songs for Candice Glover right now. “She was head and shoulders above the rest,” Iovine says.
Finally, Kree Harrison. “Kree just hasn’t lived up to her full potential for the last two weeks,” he says. He thinks he’d prefer a great performances and a weak one to Kree’s two “good” performances.
Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.