Idol Chatter

I seriously considered skipping Idol this week because the guest mentor was Miley Cyrus. Unless she's mentoring people on how to be 17 and date a 37-year-old, I don't know what she has to add. But my need to mock outweighs my need to not be miserable and I need to watch to make sure that Miley doesn't escape the bottle. Getting my shows mixed up. Here's Idol, Lost comes later:

• Lee DeWyze, singing The Box Tops' "The Letter": This is up there with "House of the Rising Sun" as one of my favorite songs of all time. I don't like the hip take on it and I feel like the tempo was getting out of control at times. Lee's voice is good, though. Too cool, not passionate enough. An okay start for the show. At this point, there are only two contestants I actually care about (Crystal and Siobhan), but Lee's near the top of the rest.
• Paige Miles, singing Phil Collins' "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)": Could Miley wear shorter outfits? Dude, Paige is awful. If I was facing a Stephen Strasburg curveball, I'd be more on pitch than she was tonight. I'm going to ignore how bad Paige has been all along and blame it entirely on the mentor. You take this round, Cyrus. Miley, 1; good music, 0. This girl is going home tomorrow night.
• Tim Urban, singing Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love": I think Miley smokes. She kind of has that raspy voice. She really does creep me out because she carries herself as so old. Tim Urban isn't boring at all. He has great rhythm and soul. When sings, I just want to get off the sofa and dance. What? April Fool's Day isn't until next week? Sorry, guess I was early. I know mummies with more soul than him. He makes me want to listen to Miley's music, which, to his credit, is quite a feat.
• On a side note, it makes me like Kara a lot more when all of the kids boo her. Also, Simon is so back tonight: "I can understand why you did the slide because it distracted from the song."
• Aaron Kelly, singing Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing": Who else is excited to hear this guy sing this song? Good times. Aaron Kelly, the worst Aerosmith song ever, and Miley Cyrus. It's a recipe for fantasticness! I just realized that beyond being Brunette Ellen, Aaron also looks like Midget Peyton Manning. Not as awful as the last two, but just as sappy and unlistenable as I expected. I suppose MPM didn't disappoint, but he did give me... SPACE DEMENTIA!
• I'm freaking in tears having watched that video. So freaking funny. I'm giggling. I watched that three times.
• Crystal Bowersox, singing Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee": Finally! We've come through the wilderness to hear the best do a song that's perfect for her. Also, we got an answer to the question of what could Miley possibly say to Crystal. It seems like the answer was a predictable "nothing." A straightforward version of another of my favorite songs and, while she doesn't have good a voice as Joplin, she was very good. Not shockingly good like Siobhan last week, but very good. Of course, my expectations for Crystal are much higher than for anyone else. She's just so mature as an artist compared to the others and, while she's not as creative as David Cook was, her maturity is reminiscent of Cook's. By the way, Simon said that this was Pink's version, but it was Joplin's version as well. Here's video of Pink singing the song; I had no idea her voice was that good.
• Michael Lynche, singing Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman": Miley is really creepy. That laugh? When Mike said, "I want to speak to the lovers out there," I immediately prepared to hate this. Dude can sing, though, with his Kenan Thompson facial expressions and all. I think if Sisqo were the mentor one week, he and Mike could totally do a killer Good Burger skit. He's good, with DeWyze at the top of the second tier.
• Andrew Garcia, singing Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine": He's so typecast that anything else comes off as fake. It really felt like he was just going through the motions and his voice was a bit pitchy as well. I'm just about to lose my mind with how much I hope he's gone soon. You're going to try to sing Marvin Gaye's version and mess it up like that? Man...
• Katie Stevens, singing Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry": The idea of Miley and Fergie in the same sentence just made my ears bleed. Oh, I think I feel some grey matter leaking out, too. Now I have brain all over my shirt. Thanks a lot, Miley and Fergie! Anyways, the performance was really nasal. Even though she tried to be more contemporary than she's been, she also seemed like she's trying to be older than she is. Not feeling it.
• Casey James, singing Huey Lewis and the News' "The Power of Love": "I am a big fan... of your dad's." Awkward! "I don't have anything crazy to say." I think she meant "worthwhile." We all know the best performance of this was when Marty McFly used it as an audition for the school dance and Huey Lewis shut him down. This was a fine performance, not different at all from Lewis' original version. Simon, in pointing that out, had his best critique of the night. Casey doesn't have the character in his voice that Lewis does and he skipped the bridge, which made the chorus seem too repetitive, but it was fine. Kind of boring, but not bad in any way.
• Didi Benami, singing Linda Ronstadt's "You're No Good": What was up with the slow motion hug at the end of the video? Weird. She's been one of the better singers, but the key was off on this. Plus, I didn't believe her singing it, which has happened a bunch tonight. Dispassionate. "Making the song their own" isn't only about changing up the version, it's about making a connection with the song so you can buy them as really delivering whatever the message is. Not happening. That can make anything boring. I always write these reviews while the song is going on, so nothing makes me happier than when the judges (Kara and Simon, in this case, which means more) say pretty much exactly what I say.
• Siobhan Magnus, singing Stevie Wonder's "Superstition": Miley could not be any less genuine. "I'm really excited to hear your song," she says monotonously. It was sort of Annie Potts-from-Ghostbusters-ish. What is up with her hair? Trying to channel Sheila E.? Tough song to sing, good vocal. She definitely backed up last week's performance with a pretty good one. She's really come out of nowhere.

With that done, it's on to the Lost Comments/ Questions:

• Answers, answers, answers. No new questions in this one, as far as I can tell. Here's what I have in terms of that.
• The last few weeks, they've been toying with us and making us think that maybe Jacob was really the bad guy. I think that idea is done. I already thought of the island -- and, by association, Jacob -- as the prison for the Man In Black. They painted it in much more dire terms.
• We finally know exactly where Richard comes from and his motivations. We also know where he fits into the struggle between Jacob and the Man In Black.
• We know where the Black Rock came from.
• We know how the statue got destroyed, though I don't totally get how a ship destroyed a huge statue and ended up in the middle of the jungle.
• I found it interesting that Jacob told Richard that he never interfered, yet he did visit the candidates. He did also give them a choice, though, rather than trying to tempt them the way that the Man In Black does. Similarly, we got a good look into the motivation behind why Jacob acted the way he did as Ben was about to kill him.
• More than anything, maybe we don't yet know who put the island there or where Jacob and the Man In Black come from, but we do know what purpose the island serves. That's pretty big.
• Have to end by saying that I'm questioning why I read analysis of this show the day after. There's some great stuff out there on washingtonpost.com and ew.com that helps you catch things you may have missed and helps point out certain themes. At the same time, it makes certain revelations less shocking because they've already been guessed at. So many of the answers tonight seemed more like confirmation than actual answers. Maybe that's what leads commenters on such sites to complain about not getting enough answers. I think I'll keep going with it, especially with so few episodes, and I think the positives outweigh the potential negatives, but it's food for thought.