American Idol 2, April 21: The 'Halfway Home' Special

No questions for Kim, but a look at the evolution of her style. She says she is very conservative and has been singing for a long time, and therefore knows what people want. But she has some things she won't compromise. She says sexy comes from within. In other words, don't look for her to go showing a lot of skin.

We see some of the changes in her look. Early on, she had curly hair and glasses. Now she dropped the glasses and went to straight hair with some highlights (with a stop at disco huge hair along the way). And she only wears makeup because she's on TV.

Kim chooses "I Can't Make You Love Me," which I think is too bad. I wanted to see another performance of "New York State of Mind." But, hey, at least it's not "Over the Rainbow." In any event, she does it very well - not much else to say there.

After it's done, she tells Ryan that she wanted to sing it to Ryan on the couch but they wouldn't let her. Gag.

Ruben follows, along with his journey. He comes out without a 205 shirt. Ryan begins by asking him if he is obsessed with manicures and pedicures. Ruben says no, he just likes taking care of himself. Ryan asks about him getting them weekly. No, every two weeks. And he's been doing it for a while, not just because of the show. Well, that was certainly worth discussing…

They briefly discuss how Ruben was close to Rickey and he misses him (an "awww" ripples quietly through the audience). Ruben says Rickey will still be a success and urges people to go buy his album when it eventually comes out.

Now it's time for a pop quiz! Ryan asks: What is your home telephone area code? 205! What is 100 + 100 + 5? 205! If you drive from Stockton, California, to Tracy, California, what highway number would you take? Aha! It's 205! They are soooo clever!

Ruben sings "Superstar," which is also the song he performs on the AI2 love songs CD (which we have a little bit more info about now). He's as good as always, what can I say? But I do have to admit that I am getting a little tired of ballads from him. I wish he would have done "Sweet Home Alabama." But nobody checked with me.

Next is Trenyce. We see her journey way back in the time when she was still Lashundra Cobbins. She says she found out about her second chance in the competition when she was watching the fourth semi-final show and they listed the wildcard picks. Suddenly, there she was! She says she didn't know it 'til she saw it on screen. Hmmm.

Some questions for her. What inspires her and who is her idol? First, God (applause from all the God fans in the audience). Also, she meditates to keep her grounded. And next is Whitney Houston because she loves her music. Next question asks where she sees herself in five years. Trenyce response that she sees herself behind the scenes in music, writing and the like.

Her song choice is "I Have Nothing." She does a good job, putting lots of power into it. Very nice.

Finally, we have Clay and his journey. We address what I like to call the molding of Clay (aren't I clever?) from his original definitely non-popstar look to something that at least approaches one.

He is asked about how before he got into this, he worked with special needs kids - so is life going in the right direction? Clay says he loved doing that and it's where his heart is. But he can also do so much due to the influence he can have in a place like this. For example, he heard that the YMCA and autism society in his hometown received donations from people just because he used to work there.

How is he dealing with fame? He says it's interesting. It's not something he expected and it's sometimes hard to understand the screaming and the signs all for him. It's humbling.

So, where did the current look come from? Clay says it looks a little like Ryan. But he has plenty of help. Referring back to the question asked of Josh about what he'd miss, Clay says he'd miss having somebody around to do his hair. He tried it himself the other day and it turned out a mess.

He sings "Somewhere Out There" and nails it. It's classic Clay.

At the end, the final six perform a group song that they all agreed on - "All Night Long." We'd seen it before and this is pretty much the same, though missing a couple people.

So that's about it. Tuesday night we have our usual performance show, and Wednesday our usual results show.

But before we go, I know this isn't a "ranking" show, but hey, I can rank 'em if I want to anyway. That said, it was quite a difficult job because they were all singing in different styles and hopefully picked the songs that they could perform best. Numbers 1 & 2 were pretty much even, as were 3 & 4, but in both cases I still picked the one I thought did a little bit better:

1. Clay
2. Ruben
3. Trenyce
4. Kimberley
5. Josh
6. Carmen

I'm not saying that Carmen was bad. But we're down to six - if you're not awesome, you're just not going to move out of the bottom. We'll see how they all do Tuesday night.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at rno@pobox.com.

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