"American Idol": Don't say I didn't warn you...

In my “American Idol” post yesterday, I told you that Ryan would divide the Idols into two groups of three and then make the seventh choose which group was safe. I told you that method was known to produce surprises.

Looks like I was right on both counts. But because of time constraints and a contestant who refused to play by the rules, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as it could’ve been—or as Ryan wanted it to be.

In case you missed it, Taylor Hicks, who was safe, was asked to choose which group was the top three. Was it Elliott, Kellie and Katharine? Or was it Chris, Paris and Ace? I couldn’t believe that Katharine would be in the bottom three, but how could Chris possibly be? He was awesome!

Taylor walked over and shook Chris’ hand and Ryan said, “I’m sorry” as Taylor walked over to the other group, which forced Ryan to change his dramatic announcement that Chris’s group was the bottom three. Obviously, Ryan expected Taylor to choose Chris’ group, but Taylor knew better. The quick change gave the audience little time to react to Chris making his first appearance in the bottom three.

And the audience had even less time to react to Chris being in the bottom two with Ace. Now, no one said that Chris got the second lowest number of votes, so I can’t help but wonder if his appearance in the bottom two was merely some manufactured drama to keep people guessing—and maybe to get his fans to rally. I was certainly regretting not voting for him more.

But any possible surprise was quickly extinguished as Ryan sent Ace home. Though he wasn’t the worst performance last night, Ace did deserve to go. His good looks (as good as they are) could only carry him so far.

So what happened to Paris and Chris? As I said last night, the audience might have been turned off by Paris singing an older song in that jazz voice of hers. But as to why Chris was in the bottom three? I have no idea. Maybe my instinct about people forgetting him since he went first was right.

Next week’s theme is the greatest love songs of all time. Maybe this one will be the snoozefest we’ve been waiting for. Or maybe it will be yet another hard choice for America.

Stay tuned…