American Idol recap: Arrivederci, Amigo

“You’re hot. I love you. That’s all.”

Thanks to J. Lo for succinctly summing up the season 10 run of Stefano Langone, the increasingly likable half-Italian, half-Spanish, smiling chocolate chunk cookie of a young man who was voted out on last night’s American Idol. I’m not surprised at America’s choice, but this lil’ wild card had been improving and was just a funny kid to have around. I liked how he couldn’t stop wobbling back and forth with emotion during his Idol Journey clip show. What I liked even more was that after all that and despite his utter disappointment, Stefano could not wait to sing.

I about lost it when, right at the end of Stefano’s final performance of “Lately,” James Durbin scooped him up for a few death-defying ballroom twirls and the cameras caught his dad clapping through the tears, shouting “FANOOOOOO!”

Meanwhile, Haley Reinhart and Jacob Lusk joined Stefano in the bottom three. Stefano’s heartfelt solo might have been the high point of a fairly tepid results show. “Hey Soul Sister” by Lauren, Jacob, Stefano, and Haley was an awkward mess with four competent yet ill-blending voices. Casey, Scotty, and James’ “Viva La Vida” was a bit better, with Scotty sounding the best out of the three — when I’d assumed a Coldplay song would be the Durbs’ chance to shine instead. Scotty should go out on a limb (fist-pump to Randy!) with a pop song more often. Carole King week could actually be a sweet spot for Scotty.

Esteemed Colleague Email of the Night:

Yup.

Meanwhile, Katy Perry got beamed down from some laser-y spider-space to mouth her way through “ET.” The tiny mic hovering near her mouth was perhaps the most ridiculous of her many, many props. Speaking of which: Way to steal the light/liquid-passing-through-tubes-on-body idea from Robyn’s video for “Indestructible,” Katy Perry’s production team! (The comparison is tenuous, I know — but everyone should listen to that song anyway. Happy Friday.) Katy looked completely disengaged with the lyrics, like she was just (the robot version of) happy to get through the choreography. Oh, it was quite an event. Even Kanye showed up in one of his finest fur vests.

NEXT: We also had a liiiiiiiive one! Season 8 winner David Cook sounded awfully sharp on “The Last Goodbye,” but hey, it’s his song, he can sing it however he wants. Compared to Katy Perry, David Cook was AMAZING. The best thing to hit the Idol stage in minutes. Seriously, though, I bet this song will be big with grads next month. Dads and grads, even. Cookie’s got a lot more hair now, right? Either that or they’ve come up with more creative ways to shuffle around the old tufts. He looked good and he is just the nicest, smartest guy. I still can’t decide who my favorite character was from this segment, though: David’s band member with the polka dot guitar (!!!), or David’s mom with the crush on Steven Tyler.

The Idols got some time off, which meant that we viewers got some lovely footage of Stefano saying “Play ball!” with food in his mouth and a slo-mo shot of Casey executing the World’s Worst Cartwheel in a bowling alley. James Durbin couldn’t hit a single pin for the life of him. “I think it’s my form,” he reasoned. No, dude, I’m pretty sure it was your red tank top. Later on, they unwound at the spa. Blah, blah, blah.

Oh, this was definitely not boring: Scotty now has a butterscotch cupcake named after him in his hometown. That sounds amazing. I suddenly like Scotty a bit more. Meanwhile, I’m trying to decide which Casey Abrams-related plot point is more fascinatingly creepy: the painting of him and his dog emblazoned onto his upright bass sent in by a fan, or the fact that he originally didn’t mean to kiss J. Lo during Wednesday’s performance — he just meant to BREATHE IN HER FACE. Yikes!

Farewell, my delicious treat. Que Viva!

See you next week, friends. Now and forever, you are a part of me….

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