Tonight marks the official march towards inevitability that ends with the words, "your American Idol, David Archuleta!" Now, viewers new to the show might think that the show is typically a toss up with the winner emerging late in the season, but the truth is that through seasons 2-4, Reuben, Fantasia, and Carrie were shoo-ins from week 1 (the Reuben/Clay vote may have been close, but if you had bet on Reuben in week 1 like everyone else, you would have won that bet). Fantasia and Carrie were runaways. Even if this is the “most talented season ever”, David’s fanbase is something like 4 times larger than his nearest competition. And it includes a ton of texting kids. It’s almost not fair.

Speaking of which -- is this, in fact, the "most talented season ever"? It's hard to swallow this considering how many times they say it, especially when they say it in the context of Luke Menard or Kady Malloy, but I would begrudgingly agree (although just by a hair over season 3) in terms of top to bottom talent. That’s also because there aren’t any mascots like John Stevens (aka Conan O’Brien Jr) or John Peter Lewis (aka The Pencil Salesman) this year.

Tonight’s theme was Lennon and McCartney night, and in honor of the Beatles, I will actually list all the songs that the contestants sang.

Syesha Mercado – Syesha sang the Earth Wind & Fire version of Got To Get You Into My Life, and it sucked. Regularly off key, Syesha tried and failed to scoop to the right note three different times. It was an uncomfortable chore to sit through. Note that I wrote the rest of the blog first and almost forgot to write Syesha’s entry. So I guess “forgettable” sums it up. It’s very bad Idol form to be forgettable and go first. Wait – there is this one thing – Syesha wore her hair piled high and back, making the back of her head look elongated like that of an acid spitting Alien. What a terrible segue that was.

Chikezie – As Chikezie was introduced, my wife joked, “can we skip this?” So we weren’t prepared for what came next – he just ripped it up, singing She’s A Woman with power, finesse, and conviction. Chikezie has balls when he’s in his higher ranges, unlike the castrato-like Luke Menard or pretty much any of the other guys. Totally on fire, Chikezie busted out a Roger Daltry-esque stutter and hit a couple of strong falsetto yowls reminiscent of the Reverend Al Green. We I re-watched the performance, I did notice that he had a few pitch problems, but at the time, he sounded absolutely golden. My wife and I absolutely loved it. Dropping the whole Luther Vandross style crooning works for Chikezie because he can’t deliver that consistently. Tonight, he got it going. Paula said that, “the reward paid off”. You mean the risk paid off, Paula – the reward is the payoff.

Ramiele Mulabay – Well, at least she wore something acceptable, even if she did recycle it from her junior prom. My complaint this week is the exact same as the previous three weeks, which is that the song just doesn’t go anywhere when she sings, but even more, it seems like she plans to go big but eventually chickens out. It was overly breathy and soft in the beginning of In My Life, which usually means it’s going to end up in the stratosphere by the end, but instead, we just got a couple of runs. She even hesitated before her last big note and then honked it. It was also disappointing that she dedicated it to her fallen comrades (especially Danny Noriega, for whom she was an inconsolable mess), and then imbued the song with practically no emotion. I really like her voice, and it was very pretty tonight, but it seems she lacks either the experience or confidence to be the little girl with the big voice we saw in the auditions.

Jason Castro – Well, I guess after last week anything was going to be a letdown. I did think this was his weakest performance to date, and I blame a lot of that on If I Fell. Don’t get me wrong, I love the song, but it is emotionally simple and obvious, and Jason needs songs with grayer emotional shades to be able to interpret and make his own. The net result was a coffeehouse/open mike night level performance, and the screwy faces (like the one that made him look like a cross between Robert DeNiro and Popeye) were distracting. Jason can take solace in another onstage bong hit. Hold it! Hold it! Now exhale.

Carly Smithson – Holy crap! What a tedious piece of shit that was! It’s like someone attached a referee’s whistle to a leaf blower and opened the throttle all the way. There’s no sense of dynamics (it’s started at 11 and ended at 11), and it’s shriller than my teakettle. It’s a two minute long banshee wail, and the effusive praise heaped upon her by the judges is simply baffling. When she sings, Carly looks like an extra from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She’s usually just uneven, but by God, that rendition of Come Together was simply hideous.

David Cook – Did anyone else notice that David’s version of Eleanor Rigby was the same kind of arrangement he used last week for Hello? I don’t know about you, but I had my fill of monotone pretentiousness topped with screaming last week, so this week’s performance did jack shit for me as well. This isn’t risky – it’s formulaic. David’s jacket looked like something he stole from the closet of 80’s punk rocker Adam Ant.

Brooke White – I enjoyed Brooke’s rendition of Let It Be, but I expected it to be more. I don’t know if it’s provincial of me to want/expect a crescendo or some sort of rise and fall in every song, but I felt like she was singing the middle part and never really finished the performance. I liked Brooke’s voice better this week than last week – she still has that Asia’h Epperson-esqe thing where her voice sort of cuts out, but she didn’t sound sick like she did last week. I tell ya though, this chick has a pair of sumbitch big feet. The wardrobe department must go crazy finding sasquatch shoes for her every week. Maybe she can borrow a pair from Sideshow Bob.

David Hernandez – How uncomfortable is it watching David talk about what he did pre-Idol knowing that he was giving nude lapdances at Dick’s Cabaret just as he was auditioning for the show? Worked in a pizza bistro my ass. I knew he was in trouble when he mentioned that he picked I Saw Her Standing There because it was “fun” and upbeat”. That’s code for “crapola”. Instead of basic karaoke, we got a cheesy, mugging version with so much theatrics that it seemed like something Wayne Newton does in Vegas complete with dancing girls (or in David’s case, dancing boys). He was hopelessly trying to dress up the early Beatles rocker into something it wasn’t, and it just sucked up, down, and all around. I wished that he would have changed “her” and “she” in the lyrics to “him” and “he. At least the song would have been interesting that way. It would have also described his typical workday at Dick’s Cabaret.

Amanda Overmyer – Having never gotten into the Hard Day’s Night album, I was unfamiliar with You Can’t Do That (although I have heard it before). I give props to Amanda for not changing the gender in the song (it made it less jarring to listen to), but as much as my wife loved it, the same inconsistencies in pitch and rhythm made the first part slightly cringe inducing, and I felt like she was growling for effect and not because she connected with the song. Not only did Amanda look younger tonight (a plausible 25), she actually looked kinda pretty, like a young Melanie Griffith with a little Gretchen Mol thrown in. I think it’s either makeup or detox. Take your pick. The hair is still horrific.

Michael Johns – Without the rockstar posturing, Johns sounded like he could actually sing tonight, making his way through Across the Universe without yelling or going off key. It reminded me of his Bohemian Rhapsody performance during Hollywood Week, and I came to the conclusion that he can either just stand there and sing with nice, throaty tone (although slightly too goaty for my tastes), or dance around and do sub-par karaoke. I don’t think the two-headed performance Simon is looking for is within Johns.

Kristy Lee Cook – Sleepy Face and Crazy Eyes are back! Chinese Kristy didn’t make an appearance this week, but she replaced it with Squishy Face, which she busted out at least three times. Also awkward – robo-dancing and random head shimmy. This weeks countrified rendition of Eight Days a Week was an unmitigated disaster, a completely disjointed and unsynchronized flop that had Kristy singing some slower, lower energy song while the band fiddled at a tempo reminiscent of Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance. Kristy reminds me of Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan because of the facial resemblance and the air of clueless naiveté. I know she wants to be a professional singer, but I don’t think she knows what the f*ck she’s doing on stage. Maybe she’s better off singing to horses.

David Archuleta – I felt sorry for David from the get-go because he didn’t know any Beatles songs. I felt even sorrier that the only thing he was familiar with was a Stevie Wonder version of We Can Work It Out. I felt sorrier still when he forgot the words. Like four or five times. I believe that was the biggest ever case of forgetting lyrics post Hollywood week. On the flip side, I didn’t think it was all that bad when he got into the groove, but the performance kept stopping cold whenever he forgot the words and he only had a couple of moments when he sounded good. I think that David would actually need to forget the words to the entire song and then start talking about how awesome Scientology is before he would lose enough votes to even be in the bottom three. Actually, that would have to happen two weeks in a row before he was in the bottom three. So fret not Froggy Face!