By: Mary Cavaliere

After 31 million votes, tonight was the second elimination show on American Idol.  Another two girls and two guys were sent home leaving the remaining 16 to continue battling it out next week.  Although I didn’t agree totally with the contestants that were sent home, there were no big surprises based on this week’s performances.

I was happy to see Luke Mendard and Robbie Carrico in the bottom two since they were the two I chose to go home tonight.  Well at least one of my wishes came true.  Robbie Carrico was eliminated from the competition.  Jason Yeager was the other male contestant eliminated, probably for the same reason he was not one of my favorites.  He has a great voice, a great smile, and he’s good looking, but something was always missing in his performance and presentation.  I’m not even sure what it is.

As for the ladies voted off, I was a bit disappointed that Alexandrea Lushington was one of them.  Although she didn’t do great last night I was hoping America would give her another chance to strut her stuff.  But unfortunately they didn’t agree with me.  It was no surprise that Alaina Whitaker was voted off.  She is very much like Jason Yeager.  She has a great voice, she’s beautiful, and her style resembles that of Carrie Underwood, but for some reason she didn’t connect with the audience nor did I find her to be captivating either.  So there was no disappointment for me there. 

What was a little disheartening however was watching her struggle to sing at the end even though she said out loud “I can’t”.  I said it last week and I’ll say it again.   I wish Idol would smarten up and eliminate this part of the show.  It’s brutal to ask these kids to perform at such an emotional moment in time.  And do we really now have to watch the parents standing on the sidelines watching their kids be beat up?  I’m sure it is even more awkward for the parents than it is for us the viewers. My goodness Idol. Just wish them well and send them on their way! 

So Carly Smithson made it through another round.  I’m going to stand strong to my opinion that she doesn’t belong on the show.  She had a six-album deal with MCA back in 2001 and her first album only sold 378 copies.  So if she wasn’t popular then, why would she be now?  Like I said before, I can’t pin my finger on it, but I just don’t like this girl (and neither does my 12 year old daughter).  So hopefully viewers will “feel” what I feel and vote her off soon.  I do not want her to be MY American Idol.

The most exciting part of the night was when Ryan Seacrest made a few announcements about upcoming shows.  April 9th will be this year’s Idol Gives Back episode.  Seacrest let it out of the bag that quite a few headliners will be participating in this show.  We’ll get to see Brad Pitt (which probably means Angelina too), Chris Daughtry, Carrie Underwood, Mariah Carey, Snoop Dog, and Reese Witherspoon.  As much as I loved this effort last year, and look forward to it again this season, I was even MORE excited to hear that on March 11th, when the Top 12 performs for the first time, the theme for that week will be the Lennon-McCarthy song book that evidently Idol has been attempting to purchase for the last six seasons.  Now THAT show will make this hippie extremely happy!
 
You can read more of Mary’s television blogs at www.myspace.com/italiangirl57


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