Russell...DETHRONED??? & The Idol Ladies

Wednesday night. Jill's Big TV Night.

And I've realized we're going to have a conflict. Survivor and American Idol, on at the same time. Oh, the decisions.

So last night, seeing as I had already missed hearing the boys sing on Tuesday, I decided to keep my focus on Survivor, while catching bits and pieces of the ladies singing on commercial breaks.

We'll start off with the Survivor re-cap:

• It's quite clear that Rob has his talons in Phillip. Hardly a peep out of the big goof last night. Rob's got him under a strict order of silence. Smart move by Rob. But for Survivor entertainment level? It's bad. Phillip's stupidity was missed last night. I did get a good laugh at Phillip's expense, though, when Rob tricked him into getting up out of his lounge chair because he saw the clue to the hidden immunity idol beneath it. Direct quote: "If Phil wasn't so fat, and that chair wasn't bending, I never would have found the clue!"
• Francesca was floored to see Matt show up at Redemption Island. She fully expected it to be Phillip. Oh, but didn't we all?
• Russell & his angels went hunting for the hidden immunity idol. It gave me great pleasure to know that Ralph already had it. I hate Russell. And I hate his twitty angels.
• The twittiest of the angels? Stephanie. She annoyed the crap outta me last night. Her big idea was to create a fake idol and then carry it around in a bag protectively all day so that everyone would think she had the idol. Brilliant plan. Except that everyone else already knew that Ralph had the real idol, idiot. Major fail there, Steph.
• Apparently the clues to finding hidden idols this season are not very helpful. After Rob read his clue, he said they might as well have put "The idol is somewhere." I guess since people can find idols without clues at all lately, they might as well not even bother!
• Francesca and Matt had their Redemption Island showdown, in this build-a-long-stick-and-use-it-to-grab-three-keys-and-release-yourself-from-prison challenge. For a while, it looked like ol' Franny was gonna mop the floor with Matt's ass, but he got his act together and stole the win out from under her. She's gone home, and Matt gets to wait on the Island for his next competitor.
• Russell's tribe had this awesome idea to throw the challenge in order to blindside him. Russell, of course, figured this all out, and did his damndest to sway Julie to become one of his angels. And for a while, I thought he was successful. The way Julie kept smiling at him at tribal council, I was sure she was now one of the angels. But maybe, after she saw Angel Stephanie SPAZ OUT, she decided it wasn't such a good idea. Russell's little empire crumbled around him when it was revealed the votes were split - 3 for him, 3 for Ralph, and 3 for Stephanie. A re-vote was ordered, with none of them taking part, and that spelled doom for Russell. I was super-proud of the tribe for pulling off the blindside and dethroning the pompous arse; however, I fear for them, as we all know Russell is just biding his time on Redemption Island. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of him yet...
• Oh, and look out to those who voted out Russell. Angel Stephanie declared, "The storm's a coming..." in a very threatening voice after he was ousted. Ooooh, scary. Pipsqueak. Without Russell around, the whiny little brat is toast.

Now, onto Idol. Because I only saw bits and pieces of the first hour, and then the last four singers, my thoughts aren't very complete. But for what it's worth, here's my take:

• The first chick, Ta-Ta-something...Do you really think Rihanna was the best choice? And if you're gonna take on RiRi, is "Only Girl in the World" the best choice? This girl sounded totally out of breath and out of tune. I didn't get to see them all, but based on what I did see, she'd be my vote to go home.
• Oh, Julia Gorilla. You're last name is Zorrilla, but it makes me think of gorillas. And you're a lovely girl, but your take on Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway" was pretty bad. Very karaokey-ish. I hope you stay because I think you're better than that.
• Haley's take on Alicia Keys' hit "Fallin" was the first time I sat up and thought, "Wow, she's pretty good."
• Thia Megia (is that a real name??) was very memorable. She's the youngest competitor, but you couldn't tell by her voice. She started out acapella, and it was incredible. She even had Randy Jackson comparing her pure, beautiful tone to that of a young Michael Jackson. Score for Thia!!
• Lauren Alaina (again, does that not sound like a stage name??) is one of the judges' darlings, and also one of the younger girls in the competition. She rocked out and did a fantastic job. They're calling her a cross between Idol alumni Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. Lauren's there to stay for awhile.
• Pia? Pia, my dear, where did you come from?? I don't remember seeing you throughout the audition rounds, and then here you are, closing out the show, and absolutely raising.the.bar. Fan-tastic. I haven't seen an Idol performance like that in a long, long time. Beautiful. Breath-taking. My favourite of the night!

So isn't it my great luck that the last four singers were by far and away the best of the night? (At least, I think they were based on the snippet montage they show at the end before opening up the voting to the public). Those four girls should be homefree; the rest? I have no idea. But one of 'em's going home...Actually, maybe more than one of them are going home. I don't know how quickly they plan to whittle this group before starting the Top 10 round...

I think I should have just titled this blog post "Idol". I think I wrote the word 462 times in this post.