Every season, I have gone into the final episode with a wistful, “gosh, it’s over so quickly” kind of regret. NOT THIS SEASON. I am relieved that this is finally over and now wait in baited breath for So You Think You Can Dance, which is sooo much better than Idol at this point that it almost seems like Nigel is sabotaging AI to pump up the legitimacy of SYTYCD from bastard step-child to number one son. If you’ve never watched it, the talent level absolutely dwarfs what Idol has to offer, and the auditions are actually entertaining. All of the excitement and anticipation that Idol used to offer can be found here. And now that the other network shows have wrapped up their seasons, there’s really nothing else on to pull you away. Seriously, there is no excuse to not watch this show.

Back to the unwatchable.

The night started out with an extended boxing theme that stretched out over the course of the show. This is emblematic of the old fashioned creakiness that the producers work from – no one under the age of 60 watches boxing any more (those who want to see people getting beaten up left boxing for ultimate fighting and bumfights years ago), and the only plus to having Michael Buffer introduce the show tonight was that there was a little less Ryan to go around. Forcing the judges to work in boxing metaphors was the height of lameness. The show is really down for the count.

David – I initially though that Clive Davis’ choice of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For was a mistake because it was too high for Cook considering his upper register is pretty weak. It turned out that I was half right – Cook’s upper register is weak, and the washed out, partially strained vocals were somewhere between karaoke and just okay. But it’s a great song, and you don’t have to do too much to make it work. Clive Davis, by the way, was recently demoted from his position at Sony BMG. For Clive’s sake, he won’t be demoted further and become an invisible man around the offices. And Cook’s hair was higher than Ryan’s tonight. Actually, Ryan appeared to have scaled back his fauxhawk before it reached Jimmy Neutron proportions. For Cookie, it was a bit too late.

Archie – Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me is one of those slam dunk Idol song s that, assuming you can sing, shows off range, has big, soaring notes, and is well known enough to be memorable. And Davey pulled this one off, hitting all the emotional notes and showing off all of his vocal skills. After several weeks without a real homerun, David knocked this one out of the park, delivering one of his best performances of the season. When he’s really hitting on all cylinders, Davey doesn’t need to move around or “perform” – like Jason, when he’s getting genuine emotion across, the best thing to do is to stand still, because that’s the most worthwhile thing. Cook, on the other hand, needs to pull out his rock star tics, make strained faces, and walk through the crowd and whatnot because if he just stood there and sang, it would be boring. For all of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s admonitions, Davey ended up performing with his eyes closed at times. Well, at least he doesn’t perform with his eyes closed all of the time.

Cookie – I couldn’t figure out exactly how the songs were chosen for the second round, but I assume that the singers got to pick one out of the bunch of retarded dreck that made it into the Idol songwriting contest. In a case like that, Archuleta has a distinct advantage because he needs to select something that shows off his voice whereas Cook needs something to hide his vocal weaknesses. Since most of the shit is greeting card level inspirational pabulum with frequent big notes, Archuleta has a large pool to work with – anything resembling rock and roll doesn’t make it through this vetting process, and so Cookie choice dwindled down to a leftover track from the Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers CD. It’s the kind of song you hear at the end of some tweener movie when the nice girl triumphs over the queen bee and snags her guy and they go to the “rock and roll” concert, complete with the light show and randomly sweeping camera work. It’s bubblegum pop with electric guitars and loud drums. That said, Cook did that thing where he mumbled and growled to the point of incomprehension, and if he happened to be screwing up all the words I don’t think anyone noticed.

Porkchop – This is the kind of song that the Idol songwriting contest attracts like flies, and is for what it’s worth, it was one of the better performances of this type of crap song. The beginning was shaky, what with the stupid lyrics that Davey seemed to struggle with. But when it got to the point where he had to sing the chorus over and over again, David hit those notes and did a little something different with each pass to the point where it was almost worth listening to.

Porky – The World That I Know started off with some bad, arrhythmic guitar playing and the typical mumbling and growling that David does to cover the deficiencies in his voice (the other trick is to have the band play really loud so he can strain for notes he can barely reach without hearing him veer off key). For this song, Cook also dusted off the bad falsetto he’s attempted a couple of times this season. I believe that Cook has the worst falsetto in the history of Idol, a strangled, washed out whisper that sounds like a high pitched, tightly clenched fart. And then he ended the song with another one! Again, I could not make out a single word he sang. Is the song happy? Sad? Is it about getting hit in the crotch? I have no idea. Cook definitely peaked with I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. From certain angles, David looked like Richard Chamberlain. So not all of my David Cook separated at birth collages need to end up with unflattering comparisons to orangutans. Like this one, for example.

David – For all of the criticism that Simon had or Cook not replaying one of his greatest hits, Archuleta showed why this strategy isn’t a lock – sometimes lightning doesn’t strike twice. Lost in the judges’ Porkchop coronation was the fact that this version of Imagine simply did not live up to the first version – it seemed a bit more draggy and had less of the emotion and purity of tone that he delivered in week two. It was good, but it lacked that extra oomph that made the first time such an eye-opener. On the other hand, Davey’s had such a hard time delivering a solid performance in the past couple of months that maybe this was his best play. What he didn’t need to repeat from a previous show were cameltoe pants. And yet, he did. Not a good look – especially for a dude.

So, the big question is, who's going to win? Who will take the crown? Who will be the next American Idol?

Who cares. Bring on the Dance!