Let’s get the Melinda Situation out of the way first. Did Melinda deserve to go? Over Blake? Are you kidding me? That’s just ludicrous. That’s not even a valid question. But to understand why she went is precisely what I’ve been harping on for weeks – Melinda sounds old. Real old. And her fans can go on about how she was gypped because of her looks, but the truth is, she made no effort to sound, say, younger than 60. Do you realize that the only song she sang from the 21 century was Have a Nice Day during Bon Jovi week? It’s just mind-boggling. And yet, she was in the thick of it because she was very talented, and that talent coupled with a humble demeanor brought out the vote of wheelchair bound geriatrics who slowly dialed her number every week (slowly because of their arthritis and rotary dial phones). These were the voters that gave Taylor the crown last year, and while the higher age limit seemed to win over all sorts of older viewers (including the likes of David Hasselhoff and Judge Judy), the show kind of got pulled out of the kids’ hands, sort of like when Dad gets the kids a Nintendo Wii and then ends up hogging the controller all night. “Go to bed kids, daddy wants to go bowling.”

Before I spell out exactly why Melinda got voted off, you have to understand that when there is a limited number of phone lines and everyone is trying to vote at once for a small number of contestants, a bottleneck is created. So if all three contestants’ phone lines are at capacity during the voting window, the result is that all three contestants end up with the same number of votes (BTW, I read this once on a forum, so if you can poke holes in this argument, remember that I’m just the messenger). Which means… the one with the most text votes wins. But what’s different about this year’s final three vote versus last year’s?

Here’s my senryu on the subject:

Melinda ousted!

Unlimited texting plans

don’t help old singers

Up until this month, text messages either cost fifteen cents each or you could buy a plan with a set number of text messages included for flat fee (say, 300 texts for $5). While text voting is still limited to Cingular phones, Cingular subscribers can, for $20 a month, vote hundreds or even thousands of times at no extra cost. This means two things – 1) the kids have taken the show back, and 2) unless they figure out how to level the playing field for next year, a gang of texters can simply take over the show. By the time someone dialed Melinda’s number 20 times (and registered maybe 3 votes), their grandchild texted Blake’s number hundreds of times. Which is why Melinda got the boot.

Before we get to the show, I have to ask – WTF was Blake thinking by going first after winning the coin toss? You always go second. You want to see what you need to beat. You don’t want to be the one to set the bar, especially when, in Blake’s case, the bar is set so friggin’ low. Did you think Jordin was nervous in any way after watching him embarrass himself on stage all night? What a numbnuts.

Blake – You know what? It’s not just that I think the sounds effects are lame. Or that the shtick with the stuttering and beat boxing is so cornball it’s practically vaudeville. What I don’t get is this – who likes this stuff? Or thinks it takes real talent? Or that, even if you found it entertaining, how does it redeem the total lack of vocal talent? In the immortal words of Simon Cowell, I don’t want to be mean but… do you like Patch Adams and listen to Amy Grant? And are you excited about next week’s Full House marathon? Let me guess – Easy Cheeze on a Ritz qualifies as an hors d’oeuvre? Oh, and BTW – the performance was LAME. Also, I made up the part about the Full House marathon. Sorry.

Jordin – My concern with Jordin was that she hadn’t really been able to string together more than two solid performances in a row before unleashing a shriekfest on national TV. Even worse – most of the solid performances had one too many blemishes for my taste. So I was pleasantly surprised at how solid and spot on Jordin sounded tonight. There was a bit of shakiness during the bridge, but this is about as good as she’s been this season, and she really just blew Blake away. I have no idea why Simon gave this round to Blake – did he dip into Paula’s pain medication?

Blake – As I suggested last week, Blake chose another song with non-descript vocals in order not to be upstaged by the original. And again, he chose a Maroon 5 song. But this time, the results were quite lackluster. Besides the usual vocal mediocrity on display, Blake was frequently flat and had a pretty weak falsetto – it reminded me of the episode of the Brady Bunch when Peter sang It’s Time to Change with a cracking pubescent voice. Oh, and the song itself was plodding. I didn’t know who wanted to get it over with more – me or Blake.

Jordin – While slightly shrieky at times, A Broken Wing was another impressive outing for Jordin, and this time my wife got goosebumps. An almost flawless performance, Jordin totally blew away Blake this time around. Maybe if Jordin were following Melinda her nerves may have gotten to her, but after the Blake’s pathetic display, Jordin had no pressure and knocked this one out of the park. And if Randy can take sartorial tips from Idi Admin, Jordin can take a fashion page from the Emir of Kuwait.

Blake – If someone stumbled onto Idol for the first time by watching this episode, they would probably wonder how this is a “competition” in any sense of the word. Because Jordin is so far out front that Blake is like an afterthought to the Jordin Show. This is easily the most lopsided final since Justin v. Kelly, and at this point, Blake appeared to just give up the fight. After being thoroughly outclassed twice, Blake had the unfortunate task of singing a song that was way too rangy for him to tackle. And for all the talk of “originality” surrounding Blake’s arrangements, when faced with the prospect of singing an original song with no point of reference to guide him, Blake choked big time. Big time. For one thing, there were enough bum notes to fill a homeless shelter. For another, he seemed to run out of breath, run out of steam, and lost focus. It almost sounded like he was winging it at the end. How pathetic was the performance? Not even his parents could muster up much enthusiasm. And I just couldn’t understand the outfit – the cuffed short sleeves made it look like a waitress uniform topped off with a bedazzled sweater vest and a skinny tie. He should lose for the outfit alone – seriously. I can only assume he dressed that retardedly to distract from his terrible performance.

Jordin – As she was about to sing, the one thing than ran through my mind was, “it’s in the bag – just don’t choke.” And when she started rather shakily I thought, “oh no – she’s gonna choke!” And then… she didn’t. She just chewed up Blake and spat him out. She totally went Nagasaki on him. Now, let’s be honest – for all the hoopla about a song writing contest, it was the same sounding dreck from previous seasons. It’s plodding, it’s uninspired – it’s just another variation on A Moment Like This (I mean, come on – it’s called This is My Now – how much more similar can it be?). That said, she did a nice job with what she had, taking advantage of all the opportunities to let loose with soaring notes (that gave my wife goosebumps), and there was enough emotion to make it listenable (she even choked up at the end). I don’t think there are any words or pictures to describe how much Jordin outperformed Blake other than to say he was the proverbial one legged man in an ass-kicking contest. I almost feel sorry for Blake except that he did perpetrate the Jimmy Walker Blue video, and that plus his last outfit should banish him to the ring of hell reserved for self-deluded dumbasses. If you dare to watch it (and I don’t know anyone who lasted more than 30 seconds), that video is 10 minutes of tortuous unfunniness – but the almost incomprehensible thing is, if you think about it, that those were the 10 best minutes they had – in other words, there are hours of even less funny footage out there. We must collect all of that footage, place it in a rocket, and point it to the nearest black hole for disposal. For our children’s sake.

Unless there is a disproportionate flood of text messages for Blake, it looks like Jordin will win this without breaking a sweat. I mean, even if you went into tonight’s show liking Blake, you couldn’t possibly want him to win after that debacle. Could you?