American Idol isn’t the only bit of reality TV viewing here at TIG headquarters. One of the other items on that list is Celebrity Apprentice.

Penn Jillette was the latest celebrity to be fired by Donald Trump, and in the car ride that closes each show he said something quite meaningful: “I can tell you the rules of chess, but I can’t tell you the rules of Celebrity Apprentice.”

Now, why did I detour from the land of Idol and bring that specific point up? Because in a very real way, that’s why Elise Testone went home from Idol. She either never quite got her hands around the rules of Idol – or, alternately, didn’t give a crap about them. If anything, the real miracle is how despite that, she lasted this long.

Rightly or wrongly, there are some “rules” that are expected of contestants on Idol. Be likable, don’t talk back, pick popular songs, etcetera. Elise… seemed to ignore most of them. She may well be the most “honest” person ever to appear on Idol. She chose songs that were foreign to most viewers. When she was pissed about the latest mostly ignorant comment from the judges, you knew. (Much as I like Elise, I have to admit that her stankface is one of Idol legend.)

As I’ve said before, Idol isn’t necessarily about being the best singer. It’s about being the one most people like. That was a part of the game of Idol that Elise never seemed to fully understand. Or maybe she did, but was just uninterested in playing that part of the game. There’s no way to say this without sounding overly rude, but: she was the oldest left by a decent mile. By all appearances, she was far less willing to put up with what she perceives as nonsense. It’s the sort of thing that might come with age.

Age was a double-edged sword for Elise: it definitely helped that her age gave her experience that helped her turn in polished performances. The downside of that, though, was she seemed very set in her ways: outside of Vienna, her five-star performances were songs she was already familiar with from before Idol. But you need more than that to do well on Idol; you need to be able to deal with themes and songs that you’re not familiar with.

The one cardinal rule of Idol is: you have to be able to roll with the punches – musically or not. Ultimately, that’s what doomed Elise. Ryan asking her if she thought she was held to a higher standard was a giant trap question – and she walked right into it. Elise wears her feelings on her sleeve. Unfortunately, that’s not always something that works on Idol. Of course, she got pretty far despite that tremendous handicap. How did she do it?

There’s really only one good answer for that. When she was ‘on’, she was untouchable. Whole Lotta Love will probably be this season’s best performance, and has a good chance of going down as an all-time Idol great songs. But good as it is, that’s not her best work for me. Vienna holds that distinction in my book. It’s not the rocking Elise we got with Led Zeppelin and Queen, but there’s an elegance to it that I don’t think has been matched so far this season. The studio is simply superb. One can only imagine how things would have gone if Elise had been able to perform with just that bit more consistency.

The Power Poll

I haven’t been able to do the Power Poll for a few weeks, so here’s the top 5 as I see it:

1. Phillip Phillips

This early, I’m already mentally preparing myself for the idea of Phillip winning. This might get ugly.

2. Jessica Sanchez

Ungodly talented, but needs to get back in the rhythm she was before her save. Hasn’t really been the same since.

3. Skylar Laine

If a WGWG has to win, please let it be a girl.

4. Joshua Ledet

How badly screwed is he with the British theme?

5. Hollie Cavanagh

Please, Hollie: surprise us. This is a theme that’s basically made for her.

The history of Queen on Idol is mixed, at nest. There have been some highlights, but plenty of lowlights. Bohemian Rhapsody by itself has both: just think of Constantine Maroulis for the highlight, and Kellie Pickler for the lowlight. Unfortunately, given this season’s track record with older material, I wasn’t particularly optimistic that the Queen part of the night would do well. The fact that the top six was mostly bereft of rockers did not really help either.

Round 1: Freddie Mercury They’re Not

Two words about Elise Testone: she’s baaaaack. She’s really the only person left with any sort of rock credentials left, so it would have been a shock if she didn’t do well. The staging was off in some parts – the tambourine and the flashing lights just didn’t seem necessary. But make no mistake: this was the best we’ve seen of Elise since Whole Lotta Love. Fantastic job.

The Show Must Go On really showed the good and the bad about Skylar Laine. Fortunately for her, there’s a lot of good and not too much bad in this. The good: she connects and “sells” songs incredibly well. Only Elise can outdo her in that department, and Skylar can do it consistently (Elise is sometimes hit or miss there). There are some pros who could take notes from her in that department. The bad: Skylar can’t power through songs the way Jessica or Hollie can. That doesn’t stop her from trying anyway, with very mixed results. Still, you could do a lot worse than how she did.

For a non-rocker, Jessica Sanchez did an okay job doing Bohemian Rhapsody. It wasn’t just a good fit for her – it’s too far from her ballad/R&B roots. I would have liked to see Jessica do The Show Must Go On, since it seems so much closer to what she normally does. As for the song itself, it was in some ways typical Jessica. Yes, she hits the notes dead-on – but she can’t connect to the material. And it’s not because she’s an emotionless pageant-bot. To draw an analogy to acting, some actors don’t really act; they play themselves playing a character (and not even that well, either). It’s rarely just Jessica singing a song and connecting it; it’s Jessica playing Jessica connecting to a song. It just doesn’t feel right or real.

And may the ghost of Freddie Mercury forgive me, I had this on my mind while writing this part of the recap:

From there it went wildly downhill. Joshua Ledet was not just bad; he was so bad this was bordering on self-parody. The whole thing was just… strange. And not in a good way. Look, I get it: Joshua wanted something uptempo to balance his second round song, and the theme was not in his comfort zone. But all that can’t excuse the god-awful performance he dished out for the first half of the show. And this got a standing ovation? Are you kidding me?

Phillip Phillips… he does what he does. I’m sure it was entertaining for the teens and swaybots, and maybe even everyone else watching it live. On TV, though…. no.

For at least one round, Hollie Cavanagh went back to her unemotional sing-bot ways. Perhaps more than any artist – because you are in the shadow of one heck of a showman in Freddy Mercury – you will get nailed to the wall if you can connect with Queen songs. Not good at all. I mostly agreed with what Jennifer Lopez said, even if she could have used half of the words she used and still gotten her point across. Unfortunately, top six is really late to hear that kind of advice. She could have used it a couple of weeks ago.

Round 2: Redemption

If there was a theme to the “open” round, it was this: redemption. People who needed to improve from their first half songs… by far, did. Given a chance to pick their own material, this season’s finalists really are exceptional at picking songs that suit their strengths. On the flip side, though, those same choices also tend to be safe: there’s nobody here who’ll take a super-high level of risk. Even Elise picks songs that seem risky, but aren’t that much (because she’s done them pre-Idol.)

Best to worst again. The top spot, for me, is tied – between Hollie and Jessica. It’s basically a coin flip who’s better of the two. They both went back to their stylistic roots and picked songs that they could sing well and connect with. I think Jessica had a harder song to sing (plus points for difficulty), but Hollie’s was just that bit more polished. Either way, the second round showed both ladies at pretty close to the peak of their Idol powers. Well done.

Joshua and subtle isn’t a combination that I’d expect – but truth be told, something like Ready For Love – restrained vocally, but loaded with story and emotion – is far more interesting than the over-the-top numbers I’ve come to expect from him. This was excellent.

The only person in the second round who took any real risk in my book was Elise. Yes, she’s sung it before the show – but the vast majority of people watching haven’t heard that. That said, it was good, but not great: I have no familiarity with the original, but from what I heard on the show it sounded like it really suffered from getting cut down to fit Idol‘s time constraints. That said, Elise was supremely comfortable and confident with this song. Elise did the best with what she chose, but what she chose may not have been the ideal strategy to win. However, you can respect the artistic integrity in that decision: she’s going to pick songs that she’s good at, no matter what it means strategically.

After a strong first round, Skylar’s second round song was very disappointing. It’s not so much that it was a bad song – Skylar will never sound bad singing country. But if this was a twelve-song album, this would be right around the worst or second worst song. It was boring and completely unexceptional.

No, The Stone does not describe what I wanted to hurl at my TV screen when I heard Phillip sing. While I think the song suited him, that doesn’t make it sound strategy. The Idols are, at some level, familiar with the Idolsphere’s views. He has to know he’s getting compared to Dave Matthews – and not favorably. So what does he do? He sings Dave Matthews. I would give him some credit if he knocked it out of the park – but he didn’t. The whole “artist” discussion has to be one of the dumbest comments from the judges in the history of Idol and it’s likely to get the voters of other constants voting harder instead of helping Phillip out.

Overall, I rank the Idols from best to worst after this night as:

1. Elise
2. Skylar
3. Hollie
4. Jessica
5. Joshua
6. Phillip

It’s very close from 2-5, though. Elise is at the top because she was the only one who had two above-average songs; Phillip didn’t have one at all, so he’s bottom.

Might As Well Pick Randomly After That

This year’s talent is loaded, no doubt about it. All six can look back on their performances and say, “I did something pretty damn good this week.” With no obvious weak horse, calling the boot is going to be incredibly hard.

You can make an argument for just about everyone to leave. Phillip sang poorly. Hollie’s been in the bottom three a lot of late – and even a good performance will not keep her out of the bottom three (see last week). Joshua’s fanbase is still suspect (bottom three after Runaway Baby). Elise has been in the bottom three for three straight weeks and made song choices that no one knows about. Skylar sang poorly – in her country song! Jessica Sanchez didn’t really do anything to address the problems which got her (almost) booted in the first place.

For those reasons, I’ll have very little confidence in my picks this week. They’re basically my instincts talking. The only person that I’d consider a “shock” would be Skylar; even Phillip going home would not shock me at all.

Bottom three: Phillip, Elise, Hollie
Going home: Elise

We’re halfway into this season’s finals and one thing is crystal clear. Give this group of finalists young songs and they shine. On old songs, they’re liable to resemble the Keystone Kops and fall over the place. The first hour was an entertaining, above average show that Idol could be proud of. The second half… was an hour of TV that I would like to have back.

Let’s go over the first hour, best to worst.

Hollie Cavanagh’s song choice could have gone wrong in so many ways. Like Elise last week, it could have suffered from Season 10 comparisons. If there’s one artist that has been overdone this season, it’s Adele. And yet… this was Hollie’s best performance in a long time. She sang it pretty damn well, and she wasn’t the Amazing Emotionless Singing Robot we’ve seen of late. It was good, but there really wasn’t a standout moment that elevated it from good to great.

I’ve talked in the past about how good Skylar Laine is at country-fying songs. She did a very good job with Born This Way. It was odd at times, but given how far a departure this was from the “normal” version that couldn’t be helped. It was also a song that played perfectly into her great performance abilities. Again, no standout moment, but overall it was good.

After last week’s events, Jessica Sanchez needed a showpiece song that would show the obvious: she could sing really damn well. That she did, but she always does. Fallin’ was something of a “safe” choice, but she sang it quite well and – like Hollie earlier in the night – she sang with emotion. Good way to bounce back from last week.

I’ve given Phillip Phillips a lot of criticism in the past few weeks, but I try to be fair. U Got It Bad was a very inspired song choice, and so was his arrangement. When a song fits Phillip, it really fits him. By a fairly good margin, I’d say this was his best performance all season long. Did it deserve a standing ovation? No, but the value of that has been severely devalued all season long.

Jimmy got Elise Testone’s situation right. She’s being judged on a week-to-week basis. Everyone else gets some credit for previous performances, but she doesn’t. It wasn’t terrible – Elise is a good enough performer that short of her flirtations with Big Ballad songs (Whitney and Foreigner), he generally sounds at last competent. However, that’s as far as I’d classify Elise this week.

Colton Dixon doing Lady Gaga was… appropriately staged. Lady Gaga has a tendency to let her over-the-top showmanship overshadow the actual singing. The same thing happened with Colton. The singing itself was so-so, but he dressed it up in his typical Colto style. He is as guilty of sticking to his own style as Phillip is; the only difference is that he’s infinitely better at showing different facets every week so it doesn’t sound the same every week. Oh, and if Simon Cowell was around, this would have received the I word: indulgent.

Worst in the first hour… Joshua. It was the worst song choice in the history of Idol. Coronation songs are all completely terrible; so picking one of those to sing is a ridiculous move. The only way this decision could have been worse would have been if Joshua sang No Boundaries.

As far as the second hour…. can we all just pretend it didn’t happen? Where the top 7 was at ease with new songs during the soul songs the all looked uncomfortable. Colton was exceptionally awful; some songs just sound awful given the emo touch. The only person who did better from the first hour was Joshua, but even his later effort was marred by oversinging. The second half was just so bad that I really don’t want to go through the hassle or reviewing that many bad performances.

Very Even Top 7

This year’s top 7 boot is going to be tough to call. This week’s performances will have very little to do with the results. No performance was good enough to send normally unaligned voters running out and voting for somebody. So it’s a straight-up test of fanbases. Which means we have too look at previous fanbase performance. That suggests something like this will happen:

Bottom three: Joshua Ledet, Hollie Cavanagh, Elise Testone
Going home: Elise Testone