American Idol 2, April 30: Love Won't Keep Us Together

Finally it's time for some results. Now we're only doing the bottom two instead of bottom three. Kim is safe. Hmmm. OK, so that means Trenyce and Josh must be in the bottom two. Clay is safe. Duh. Trenyce is next and you automatically know she's in the bottom two 'cus otherwise it would mean both Josh and Ruben would be and that would eliminate the tension they are trying to provide. Indeed, Trenyce is in the bottom two. No problem, Josh will be joining her there and then he'll be leaving, right?

WRONG!

After reading through judge comments for both Josh and Ruben, Ryan announces that Ruben is in the bottom two! The audience boos. Simon mouths, "What?!" I don't know that I've ever seen him this stunned. Josh drops his head into his hands. He knows he shouldn't still be sitting on the couch while Ruben is in the bottom two.

Ryan asks for the judges' opinions, and oh boy does he get some! Randy says it's crazy! They're trying to find the best people, and that kid (Ruben) up there is brilliant!

Paula says Trenyce and Ruben should be laughing hysterically. It's ridiculous.

Simon says that he said enough last night. Perhaps he realizes that he threw down the gauntlet to Josh fans in saying Josh wasn't good enough to stick around? And those fans obviously picked it up and smacked us all with it. Anyway, he says that we have to respect the viewer decision because it's all subjective. He doesn't mean any disrespect, but he hopes the right one (that would be code for "Ruben") stays.

OK, here are my thoughts before we move forward. Is it surprising that Ruben is in the bottom two? Frankly, no. I wouldn't have necessarily predicted it, but nor am I shocked. Why? Because Ruben's fans have never been tested. He has gotten by on pure talent while the other fans have had to pull out all the stops to keep their favorites around. I got a number of e-mails from people about how they tossed a lot of votes to Trenyce or Kimberley. Not a single e-mail from anybody who voted for Ruben. After all, he's great, right? He's safe. He's going to win, or at least come in second. So people vote for the ones in "danger," like the two women. Problem is, that put Ruben in danger. And here he is.

Unfortunately, Ryan immediately plays right into the problem by telling viewers to remember to vote for your favorite to make sure they stick around. How about we vote for the best person instead of our "favorite" one? Sigh.

Both of the bottom two get to sing a song before the announcement. Trenyce performs "Proud Mary" while Ruben chooses "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do."

Finally, the time is here. Ruben… is safe. Trenyce is going home. I hear Phil Kural screaming at his TV all the way from here.

Trenyce's smile never breaks. She thanks everybody, especially Paula for bringing her through as her wildcard pick. Then she sings us to the credits with "Love Will Keep Us Together."

Or perhaps it won't…

I'd like to end this by announcing that we have officially found our Nikki of the second season. For a while I thought it was going to be Carmen, but she actually got voted out. That leaves only Josh. Mind you, he's not quite a Nikki as he seems to be an all-around better person (yeah, so I'm judgmental, sue me), but we seem to have the same situation: A person with much less singing ability is continuing forward in this competition at the expense of others solely because that person has a huge fan base who continually votes for them no matter how bad they are.

The worst part, though, is that I think Joshua really feels bad about it.

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

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