'American Idol': Judging the Judges, Week 13
Only two days left for the real stars of American Idol to feign interest! Welcome back to Judging the Judges, our weekly power ranking* of Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez, and Harry Connick Jr. as Fox’s reality behemoth croaks its way to sudden death (a low note) this Thursday, April 7.
* Unlike Keith Urban’s commitment to unbridled enthusiasm, the Judging the Judges points system is 100 percent arbitrary and subject to change.
KEITH URBAN
It was another banner week for Keith in the face of virtually zero competition!
+100 for delivering another incredulous “Wow!” yelp right in time with La’Porsha Renae’s most dramatic lilt during the 22-year-old’s cover of “Glory”…
…and a BONUS 500 for cracking everyone up while announcing that it “felt like a Baptism.” (J. Lo is particularly sold. Someone dip her in water!)
+300 for crooning the actual lyrics to “Tennessee Whiskey” along with Trent Harmon so the 25-year-old would have somewhere to look if he messed up.
Woof. -400 for continually employing “Daltonize” as a verb even though it is clearly, even to Keith Urban, the dumbest word Keith Urban has ever invented.
Aw. +1000 for making us feel the power of his most renewable resources (love, hair) without any help from the wind machine on his own single, “Wasted Time”.
JENNIFER LOPEZ
+25 for accidentally letting slip her most honest critique of fourth-place finisher MacKenzie Bourg to date: a “This boy cannot be serious” self-contained giggle.
+50 for virtuously admitting to inspirational vocalist La’Porsha that there are some things even the best artists in the world cannot provide to the public.
+200 for expertly yanking up her dress to avoid boob fallout without breaking her seasoned seated bounce.
Somehow Jenny’s physical antics were really doing it for me this week. So what the hell: Our Lady of Perpetual Inferior Vogueing gets +100 for turning nearly every critique (in this case, the hard-hitting “I like that we got to see more of your range”) into a stylized dance move…
…yet knowing when to pause for dramatic effect every so often and just let her earrings do the talking.
Normally J. Lo’s automatic deduction for mentioning “goosies” is -200, but this week -400 seems more fair considering she somehow managed to infect the other two with her signature phantom virus on the last night it could reach out and grab her (emotionally) on Stage 36.
I shudder to imagine the bumpy roads Wednesday and Thursday’s episodes might barrel down as Jenny ghosts her way through finale week. This is a Judging the Judges TRAGEDY! I could have sworn she’d hit the positive integers this week.
HARRY CONNICK JR.
+200 for encouraging middling vocalist Dalton Rapattoni to embrace the truth: that he’s still around due to charisma and cool hair. “You’re a good singer in a competition with great singers,” Harry said, leveling with the emo bot.
-500 for making the judges’ song choice for La’Porsha (Adele’s “Hello”) sound like pure sabotage: “We wanted to give you a song that was so immensely popular that you’d be forced into a corner.” WTF?
But ugh, +100 for so adorably clutching La’Porsha’s baby while he said that.
-500 for having no idea what’s going on with the show (though to be fair, does anyone at this point? Correction: -450.) Harry runs the risk of technical error whenever he veers from his usual self-important nonsense, this time encouraging viewers to vote if they loved “one of these four” singers. “That was three,” J. Lo stepped in to prove at least one of them could count.
HONORABLE MENTION: RYAN SEACREST
+500 for convincingly tearing up following Trent Harmon’s moving Hometown Heroes visit. What a long, strange red blur this American Idol journey has been!
D’oh! -300 for asking La’Porsha’s scene-stealing baby girl, “Do you mind if we come back and see Trent?” mere moments before his final Top 3 performance.
DISHONORABLE MENTION: SCOTT BORCHETTA
-1500 to the Big Machine CEO and Farewell Season figurehead for being so damn pleased with himself all the time, particularly this week after he forced La’Porsha to sing about begging a no-good man to take her back, even though he knows standing up for herself in the midst of an abusive relationship is, like, the definition of her jam. Scotty don’t care! Give him all the money and props!
FINAL TALLY FOR WEEK 13: IT’S A FAREWELL SEASON TRIUMPH
Keith Urban wins with a nice, even 1500!
Ryan Seacrest: 200
Jennifer Lopez: -25
Harry Connick Jr.: -650
Scott Borchetta: -1500
But this months-long nightmare of looping self-applause isn’t over just yet: Judging the Judges will return with a final cumulative tally on Friday! That means J. Lo and Harry have three full hours of airtime to crawl out of the negatives and into the light.
Can they stun us all by being tolerable? Watch the “magic” happen on the final episodes of American Idol, airing Wednesday and Thursday at 8 p.m. on Fox.