AI Season 11- Top 5 Elimination, 05-03-12

We open with a Top 5 photo shoot full of poses and candids. We're reminded that last night JLo said that Joshua was the best singer she's seen in 50 years. Does that mean that JLo is AARP fodder?

Randy is in a black leather jacket with a bright yellow YO pin. Steven is in a sparkly suit. He has a pair of pink plastic lips hanging from a chain attached to his lapel. He occasionally applies the totally superfluous fake lips to his mouth, and then spits them out. Steven is weird, y'all. JLO is sporting tight black pants with several hip zippers. Her top is tight and silvery and the cap sleeves are jewel encrusted.

Ryan is in a charcoal 3-piece suit and tie, with a teal pocket square. He announces that one kid is going home tonight, which is a startling development, I must say. When did they start doing that? He also says that Coldplay and Carrie Underwood will both perform tonight, though I assume not at the same time.

We start right in with the results. Ryan calls Joshua (weird gray tee shirt with a cowl collar and shiny buttons) down. Iovine says that Joshua's performances are the ones to beat. He gushes and exclaims and then ends with a totally unnecessary Fat Joke at Randy's expense. Look, I don't like Randy either, but that was over the line.

Joshua is safe, to no one's surprise, especially Joshua, who never doubted it.

The Fordmercial is full of fairy tale weirdness, with the kids stealing golden eggs from an unseen giant. Also unseen: Phil, for the second week in a row.

Coldplay takes the stage to sing Paradise. The backdrops are black with neon graffiti, and the piano is all paint spattered. It will not surprise you that I am not familiar with the Coldplay oeuvre- I don't even know which one off them is Mr. Gwenneth Paltrow. This song isn't horrible but it's not one I would listen to again on purpose. The audience waves glow sticks in the dark, though it's not so dark that we can't see that the judges aren't in the room.

Next Ryan calls Hollie down (black scoop-necked leather vest, skinny jeans, very high heels, narrow pink belt, headband and curls) and Phil (long-sleeved tan tee). Iovine says that it was a critical week for Hollie- that he loved her #1 song but neither loved nor hated #2. He says that Phil is sick (news to us), which is too bad, but his song choices have been bland and that Phil deserves to be in the bottom 2 tonight. Phil looks a bit peaky onstage, but he engages in a bit of obviously scripted business with Ryan that involves spitting his gum onto Ryan's note cards, and then Ryan pretending to throw the gum to Iovine, who pretends to chew it. WTF? and also: eew!

To my surprise, Phil is safe. Hollie, however, does not look surprised as she heads over to the two (only) Stools of Despair.

Carrie Underwood is wearing a one-shouldered white toga/angel dress with tattered fabric streamers hanging from the shoulder. She's still incredibly beautiful, and she's learned a whole lot about owning the stage since Season 4. Her song, called Blown Away, is not very melodical or lyrical, and it's not in the least Country. The wind machine exposes Carrie's leg, and threatens to expose a whole lot more. The Judges are in the room for this performance. Gosh, Carrie has a new album to promote. Imagine that.

Skylar (in a bright green chiffon mullet dress and what I first think is a long black belted vest, but when she moves around, I see that the vest is really a long black scarf. She's also wearing fringed cowboy boots. In other words- she's dressed in a perfect Skylar Costume) and Jessica (dark skinny pants, and a one-shouldered, orange ruffle fest) hit the stage. Iovine says that Skylar is a fighter but she didn't quite connect with her #1 song, and #2 was pure Vegas. He says that Jessica's #1 song was a travesty, and that her dress was horrible and far too mature for a teenager (I stand up in my living room and cheer). However, Iovine loved every part of Jessica's #2 song.

Ryan asks the judges what they think of Iovine's assessment of Jessica's dress. JLo says that it might have been too much for Middle America (whereupon I shout at the TV that dressing 16 year olds up like hookers is unacceptable on the coast too). Randy allows that the dress might have been a tad over the top. But the dress wasn't enough to sink Jessica- she's safe.

Hollie and Skylar clutch each other in misery. They're Besties and it's easy to see that they're scared for themselves, but also frightened for each other, since one of them is going home.

Coldplay takes the stage again, and this song is enough like the last that I feel free to get up and fix myself a drink instead of taking notes. In my absence, the main guy (Mr. P, I presume) spends half of the song bent over at the waist, and the other half, standing up straight with his non-microphone hand floating precariously close to his nether regions. At the end, the entire place is showered with roughly a bazillion post-it notes.

The show tries to pretend that Coldplay just performed live by sprinkling a few bits of paper on Ryan, but since the stage is swept clean, we know better. Ryan says that nearly 60 million votes decided who is going home.

And that one is... Skylar.

Hollie falls apart and JLo cries, but Skylar pulls her shit together like the seasoned pro that she is, and attacks her final singout with high energy and a big smile. I thought that both of Skylar's performances were  the worst of last night, but that doesn't mean that I wanted to see her go home. By the look of things though, I think she's going to be just fine.