The News in Idol

Ah, Idol. Every week you give me new reasons to love and hate you. Some notes:

• Phil sounded not bad last night! He still looked like a cadaver, but he actually sang pretty well, which was a nice change. I don't dislike him so much as I... nothing him.
• Lakisha was really not great last night. I'm not as big a fan of hers as I am of Melinda, but she just didn't really hit it with "Jesus, Take the Wheel" last night, which is odd, because I pegged that as a homer for her. She should have gone with some Reba or Patsy Cline.
• Sanjaya... okay, first of all, is Bonnie Raitt even legitimately country? Because I don't usually hear that song on country stations. But we'll leave that aside. The dude's voice is just not strong enough. He's talent show at best, and he's not even the guy who would win the talent show, he's the guy who'd have a whole bunch of friends show up and then act all whiny and obnoxious when he lost to the Blake or the Melinda. He's going to live through tonight almost undoubtedly, and that makes me sad.
• Jordin is awesome and I am in love with her. Let me make that clear. But I'm not entirely sure what the lather was about last night. I really, really liked her, but she had a couple of clunker notes in there that I guess I didn't get passed. And she wasn't in the bottom three last week, so it's not like they were working on saving her. But whatever, because I love her and want to take her to Starbucks and so everyone should talk nice about her.
• Melinda was awesome. Melinda is always awesome. She sounded absolutely terrific, and though I was kind of harshed by Simon's "Stop acting surprised" bit, (although, how cute was he saying "Dude, I know.") the closeups on her reactions, the grin, the glow... she's frickin' awesome. LOVE.
• Chris Richardson is dead to me now. It wasn't the singing, because I actually liked it. Rascal Flatts tends to sound a bit nasally sometimes, so I got where he was coming from there. It also wasn't him getting snitty with Simon, although, dude? Don't you know he's the only one on the judge panel who knows jack? No, it was him getting snitty with his "nasal is a singing style" (granted, but there are few people who make it work) and THEN having the nerve to bring up the Virginia Tech tragedy. It would have been an entirely different thing if he had said something about appreciating Simon's critique, but he wanted to take the opportunity to send his love and prayers to the school. But he was a douchebag to Simon, he must have known it, and he either had already planned on saying something and decided to do it without really noticing it was no longer appropriate, or, and this is my problem, he knew he was a douchebag and thought he could pull that out of pocket to make up for his ass-hattery. Seriously, I don't care if the guy goes up and sings "Dick in a Box" next week, I'm done with him. People losing their sons, daughters, siblings, etc. cannot be compared in the same breath to Simon being mean to you.