Idol Chatter & Voice Views

If I were into conspiracy theories, I’d think someone was personally sabotaging American Idol’s female contestants this season.

It started in week one of the finals, when Janell Wheeler and Ashley Rodriguez were sent home. Potential season nine Idols? Perhaps not. But they showed potential.

The capper was last night.

First, voters jettisoned Katelyn Epperly, who admittedly wasn’t very good Wednesday, but had performed pretty well up to that point.

Then, just to prove they could be even more foolhardy, Lilly Scott gets a ticket home.

You read right: Lilly Scott. Now, Lilly did herself no favors by singing Patsy Cline’s “I Fall To Pieces” for her final semifinal performance. But, heck, to me she looked like one of Idol’s top four or five contestants this year.

Gone.

Instead, we have Paige Miles. She butchered Kelly Clarkson’s “Walk Away” two weeks ago. Just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, she did worse with “Smile” this week. I rated that as the worst performance among the girls this week.

Instead, we have Lacey Brown. I dubbed her Lucky Lacey because no way she should have survived week one’s “Landslide.” Week two’s “Kiss Me” wasn’t much better.

Wow, what were voters thinking.

Oh, well, time for the results recap in the format I’ll be following through the rest of the season.

Deserved his fate: Curiously, Todrick Hall turned in his best performance after being eliminated. It was certainly heads and shoulders above his performance during the first two weeks of the semifinals. He deserved to go home then. I wouldn’t say anyone else who was eliminated Thursday deserved to be. I predicted Alex Lambert would go home, but that elimination could have gone to any one of two or three guys.

Very, very lucky: We’ve already covered the luckiest — Paige Miles and Lacey Brown, neither of whom deserves her spot. Among the guys, the luckiest might be Andrew Garcia. Not that he shouldn’t be in the finals. But he’s been a disappointment ever since establishing high expectations with his acoustic version of “Straight Up” during Hollywood Week. I really wasn’t certain who would stay and who would go when he and Alex Lambert were standing side by side on the stage last night.

Stock rising: Siobhan Magnus. At least the people voting for the girls got that one right. I still think Crystal Bowersox is tops among the female talent, but I wonder if she’s as versatile as Siobhan, who had a punk rock and theatrical background. Anyway, Siobhan hit that big note and got rave reviews from the judges two weeks ago, then topped that with a brilliant job on “House of the Rising Sun” this week.

Stock sinking: Aaron Kelly’s, or at least it should be. He didn’t stand out once in the semifinals, after bungling his lyrics in Hollywood and still getting a free pass. His week three semifinal performance was his weakest yet and he was singing to his strength, country music.

On the bubble: Tim Urban squeaked into the top 12. Will he be a sleeper among this year’s finalists? My guess is that he’ll need to deliver “Hallelujah”-like performances to survive the next couple of weeks. If he does that, he should hang around. Someone else among a rather mediocre final 12 will surely stumble.

Of course, after Thursday night, whether they pay the prices for stumbling is anyone’s guess.

Coming tonight or tomorrow morning: The Associated Press should move photos of the Final 12 Party. When they do, I’ll post them.

Coming tomorrow evening: Exit interviews with the unfortunate four — Katelyn Epperly, Lilly Scott, Todrick Hall and Alex Lambert.