FOX
Quick spoilers for last night’s American Idol:
Karen Rodriguez went home last night, which I will file under “mild surprise.” I didn’t think she was going to go all the way, but I had pegged her to stick around for a while longer. The big unknown with Karen was how successful she could be targeting herself specifically as a Latin singer, going for an audience I don’t recall an Idol finalist so directly trying to tap. (I know she said the other night that she didn’t want to be seen as the “Latin” girl on Idol, but she then proceeded to sing another verse in Spanish.) I thought that—and her conventionally Idol, if a little dull and pageant-y, ballad-singing—might carry her for a while. It didn’t, though who knows if it worked against her or if she was just too underwhelming.
I was glad to see Naima stick around. I didn’t think she sang well the other night, but she’s one of a few performers this season who makes me want to see what she’ll do next. She has style and a distinct musical sensibility—as opposed to a nice voice and a willingness to do whatever it was the judges apparently wanted last week. Can she win? I doubt it more than ever, but she has the potential to turn things around with a really attention-getting and on-pitch performance. And at this point she needs to.
As usual with the results, I leaned on the fast-forward button, so I missed most of the Black-Eyed Peas from Space, as well as Lee DeWyze reminding the finalists that an Idol win is a sure ticket to megastardom, and/or appearing on the show at least once next season. But I did catch the interview piece in which Pia Toscano talked about her dog, a “shih-tzu”—and Idol bleeped out the first syllable because it sounded like oh my God, are they serious?
And this was, mind you, not an aggressive finger on the live dump button, but a taped segment (they even employed the American Idol logo over her mouth). So now either the producers of the show look like prudes (or idiots) or a chunk or the audience now believes that sweet, pretty Pia goes off on random, filthy rants about her tiny, adorable dog.
I weep for America. Shih-tzus, you deserve better.