It’s the Cs

Chikezie and Carly Smithson nailed their Lennon-McCartney performances Tuesday night on American Idol. I’m psyched about Chikezie—when he’s good, he’s damn good. Carly gave me reasons to like her and look beyond her frown lines and body ink. The two of them will bounce solidly into next week.

Brooke White and David Cook also turned in good efforts. They’re safe for another week.

Amanda Overmayr is in a class by herself. You either like her or hate her. I happen to like her, but she’s got to shitcan the Janis jive. Yay yay yay… baby baby baby…

The rest of the performances were pedestrian or worse. Syesha‘s pretty smile might not be enough to outweigh a forgettable leadoff number. She should go, but will stick around for one more week unless she really nails next week. Cute little Ramiele also jeopardized her future with a slacker song selection she couldn’t rescue. David Hernandez displayed his limitations. He won’t be around much longer.

Even David Archuleta showed his vulnerability this week. He’ll coast through because of the forgiving nature of his followers, the 11 year-old contingent.

That brings us to this week’s elimination prediction. I predict that tall, blond Kristy Lee Cook will be voted off the island. She tried to “countrify” Eight Days a Week and failed miserably. Everything about it sucked and appropriately, Simon Cowell called it a “complete mess.”

Simon had asked Ms. Cook to take some risks and show her country roots, but he clearly didn’t like her at all this week, prompting a nasty exchange between Cowell and Seacrest. Their complex relationship has gone from entertaining to tedious and predictable. Speaking of annoyingly predictable, Paula’s gushing over contestants while attempting to mitigate bad performances would be easier to take if she didn’t prattle on ad nauseam and if Simon didn’t add insult to injury by continually mocking her. However, she was much less obnoxiously obsequious this week than at any time in recent memory. Still, Cowell scowled. The judges are children: Fat Albert, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and Eddie Haskell.