Dead Locke-d

• Idol Chatter: Week Two of the Semi-Finals.
• Jasmine Murray, singing Sara Bareilles' "Love Song": They had been selling this girl as the full package -- great voice, cute, marketable. It would help if she actually could sing. Her timing and pitch were not good. Really disappointing. Randy, with his George Burns glasses, agreed with me.
• Matt Giraud, singing Coldplay's "Viva la Vida": We love this kid. Going in, he was probably my second favorite to Danny. But, dude... Dawg... You pick a contemporary song like this and we're going to compare you directly to Chris Martin's voice and you easily lose. If he makes it through, I can't wait to hear which song he will sing entirely in vibrato next week.
• Jeanine Vailes, singing Maroon 5's "This Love": Next.
• Nick Mitchell, singing Jennifer Holiday's "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going": I don't know what to say... He might just win this whole thing on the wings of uncomfortable suckiness.
• Allison Iraheta, singing Heart's "Alone": Such a winning personality! You know the first four this week were really awful when they made her seem passable. (Aside: She was really awful, too.)
• Kris Allen, singing Michael's "Man in the Mirror": He came out looking like David Archuleta's older brother. He sounded like David Archuleta's less-talented, boring older brother. Not bad, just boring.
• Megan Corkrey, singing Corinne Bailey Rae's "Put Your Records On": She was one of my favorites from the audition round. She was a bit robotic (read: white) and the big note was horrible, but I think she was pretty good. Good enough for tonight's crapfest.
• Matt Breitzke, singing Tonic's "If You Could Only See": I really like this guy's Everyman vibe. I have a problem with his slow dance during the heavier part of the song. He lost a lot of stage presence points there. You can't hate him, he's just not remarkable.
• Jesse Langseth, singing Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes": Best of the night up to this point. She was pretty tight on with the recording, cool presence. She doesn't jump out at you, but she was good. Again, I'll point out that "best of the night" is not necessarily saying so much. I kind of hate her exchange with the judges. It reminds me of Brooke White's from last year, which I grew to hate. Dude, you're not one of the judges. Shut up.
• Kai Kalama, singing Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted": This episode has gotten a lot more boring as it's going along, which is actually quite a compliment. This guy is seasoned (read: he kind of looks old) and he can sing. Not great. I guarantee nobody will be great tonight. But solid. Have to think, in spite of the judges, that he has a decent shot of going through.
• Mishavonna Henson, singing Train's "Drops of Jupiter": I missed her performance because I was typing her first name. No, she was fine, just like the last however many contestants. Okay, but boring. Her facial expressions reminded me of Melinda from a couple of years ago. Which would be great if "facial expressions" meant "voice", but not otherwise. Unless Nick Mitchell catches some Sanjaya/Vote For The Worst wind in his sails, ain't nobody from tonight winning the whole thing. Like can they replace whoever tonight's three people will be with people from another night?
• Adam Lambert, singing The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction": He took arguably the greatest rock and roll song ever (not even my favorite Stones song, I prefer "Brown Sugar") and overperformed the hell out of it! He's obviously going to get through (with, I think, Megan and Nick), but don't fool yourself. He sucked in an awesome way. Nobody likes the idea of Pete Wentz singing like Cher. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Adam Lambert.
• Lost Comments/Questions of the Week:
• Nice Obi-Wan Kenobi thing going on there with Locke at the beginning. And we also now know that the two other people in first class made it to the island. And that the plane seems to have landed, or crashed gently. We know where those canoes that Sawyer and company were in came from.
• But when are those other people? Did they crash back in the Dharma time like Jack, Kate, and Hurley? You'd think no, since Sawyer and company found the camp there with the canoes.
• Was Widmore the leader of the Others when Ben and Richard purged Dharma? And then Ben kicked him out? If so, why did Richard go to Ben behind Widmore's back? And who, then, started the Dharma Initiative?
• So if Matthew/Daniels told Locke to go to Australia and he "gets people where they need to go," then was he guiding Locke towards the island? Did someone know, because of Foccault's Pendulum, that Oceanic 815 was going to end up on the island?
• Helen Norwood died on 4-8. Nice.
• I was wondering how Daniels was on the show now that he's on that new crappy show on Fox. Guess he won't be on Lost any longer.
• There was the whole thing, when Michael went back to LA, about how he couldn't kill himself. And Locke didn't kill himself and was reincarnated when he got back to the island. Does that have something to do with why Ben had to kill him?