American Idol Recap: Semifinal Week 2: The Girls

Tonight on American Idol and Local Craft Faire: Kara has borrowed Jermaine's butter dish in order to sculpt her very own hair tumor. Simon uses the word "misunderestimated" in all seriousness. The girls take their turn sharing little known facts about themselves. And we learn how to make a pin cushion out of a thrifted wool sweater!

CRYSTAL BOWERSOX: What don't we know about Crystal? Crystal has a twin that was too square for her, so she absorbed him into her body while they were still in the womb, and now wears him as a second liver. "I love you, bro, but you're so square and you know it!" she says kiddingly at her own abdomen. She also carries with her the shrunken heads and teeth of her fallen enemies in a small Chinese pouch. Did I mention teeth? Crystal is still missing several of hers -- I guess the medical emergency must have been a dreadlock stuck in the vacuum cleaner, not mouth surgery as I had guessed. She sings "As Long As I See the Light" by Creedence Clearwater Whatever, and promises she's going to gospel/church it up, which to her means taking a week to slide up into all the big notes. She does a confident, credible job and the judges build a temple for her worship. I'd say at this point if the judges get their way, between giving her pimp spot on week one, executing an unprecedented schedule change so she could recover from her illness, and tonight's fawning, that we're looking at a finale of Crystal Bowersox and Lee DeWyze. If America gets her jumpy, pimply way, it'll be Tim Urban and Alex Lambert in the finals. YIKES.

HAELEY SOMETHING: Haeley reveals a secret about herself: she likes to make headbands and hair accessories! I hope she's already got her Etsy shop in place because she's going to have a lot of time to wind that ribbon. She delivers a completely flat, one-dimensional performance of what was already a really annoying, one-dimensional song: Hannah Montana's "The Climb." She wanders hopelessly around stage, warbling past the pitch now and then, lisping, clutching, tottering around like a kindergartner in Grandma's heels. The judges "keep it real" and filet her with a sharp knife. Camera cuts to her small, gaunt, long-haired grandmother, who blinks her tired, sunken eyes and mouths these words to the camera: "I will cut out your heart and eat it raw if you don't vote for Haeley."

LACEY BROWN: Lacey's secret is that she refurbishes antiques to sell. She says it relaxes her -- and this is exactly what Haeley said about her headband creation. Because that's what you want in a pop star -- someone who knows how to relax with a glue gun. Not sexy, ladies! She's going to sing "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer, on Kara's recommendation. She has a bigger, maybe better voice than Leigh Nash. However, what she doesn't have that Leigh Nash has is the ability to sing "Kiss Me" without making me want to open a trap door under her feet and send her to the bowels of the earth, to be eaten by a balrog. She is either nervous or secretly forty-five years old, but the cute bounce and the wink and the twinkle play really fake. She seems like a nice lady, though. A nice, middle-aged lady.

KATIE STEVENS: Katie interviews so cute. She's goofy, she's irreverent, she laughs at herself -- what's not to like? Here's someone who, in stark contrast to Lacey Brown, is actually young, and in bangin' shoes she kills "Girl, Put Your Records On." You know who she reminds me of? Katherine McPhee. A lot. I bet she has a real moment later on in the show with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." The judges criticize her fiercely -- WHY? I thought she sounded fine. Don't worry, she'll be ok for next week. I like to think that Katie is a closet nerd, who is, like, always on time with her papers and does all the extra credit. Ryan asks her what she's going to do about their critique of her song choice, and she says, "I guess research and look up stuff." Katie, I love you! Google it!

DIDI BENAMI: Didi reveals that she was the school mascot in middle school, and then a cheerleader. She plans to bring up her "star meter" a little bit by singing "Lean On Me" by Bill Withers. In my opinion, she succeeds. I mean, she bopped around on stage too much and had too much fun, like, overly connecting with the lyric, but I thought the voice was strong. Didi has been compared to Brooke White, and I get that, but Brooke could never have pulled off Bill Withers. The judges disagree, and skewer her with a hot poker. They hate the song choice, call it screechy, a disaster. Ellen suggests she should have sung "Lovely Day." Yeah, because that's one where she could have really showed what Kara calls her "vocal stylings." Glory notes left and right. Am I watching a different show than the judges are? Is Didi's actual flaw in the judges' eyes is her failure to be Crystal Bowersox?

MICHELLE DELAMOR: Michelle reveals that she is the children's choir director at church, and the tape shows her pre-show prayer and meditation, just so everyone knows what team she's playing for (the good guys!). Last week the judges called her safe, so this week she's going to sing "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed, because a song with a four-note range constitutes taking a huge risk. It goes about as well as you think it might it would -- listening to her was at least as fascinating as watching a bulldozer fill in a small pool. The judges (AGAIN) criticize the song choice. Randy hated it, Kara loved it, Simon agrees with.... Kara. Oh whatever. And you know how many people are going to buy Delamor/Creed on ITunes? Not a lot.

Hey, I have an idea -- what if the judges just criticize the song the contestant is singing and the performance that actually happens on stage, instead of dangling this other thing they might have done, something that the judges can't quite define, that the singers should definitely do next time. I'd like to hear "That was bad," or "That was good," but I am not interested in "What if this or that?" You know what it is? It's lazy. they focus so much on song choice, you start to think it's all about that. And when you realize that the song choice is *not in the contestant's control* it becomes harder and harder to pretend this whole thing isn't ridiculous.

LILLY SCOTT: Since the coaches have been working with Lilly to get her to open her eyes more, I may not get another opportunity to say: HAPPY VALENTIMES! The surprise that Lilly reveals tonight is that she was born by the river in a little town. Apparently just like that river, she's been running ever since. She sings her Sam Cooke very well, the judges scream with love, prompting a confused Randy to say "That's something we will never say about you, that you're unique, you're your own person." Huh? Oh well, she has silver hair.

KATELYNN EPPERLY: They give her a white grand piano, a miniskirt, and the "this is a moment" spotlights, and Katelynn delivers a really sweet Coldplay cover. Adequate as a mild but name brand mouthwash.

You know what does not make entertaining television? Watching someone do something on their IPhone. Like something really pedestrian and uninteresting. With their fingers in the screen saying, "I push this button, and then this thing happens, and then I push this button." It's like getting a video game tutorial from my 10-year-old son, an experience I have compared to being boiled in goat oil. If I don't have an IPhone, I don't care. And if I do, I already have figured out how to send a video with it. K?

PAIGE MILES: Paige relaxes by coloring. Literally coloring animals in a coloring book. With markers and crayons. Then she sells her nicely outlined , tidily-colored pictures on Etsy. Paige looks better than she did last week, but I think I've identified that it's the green contacts that are giving me the "I've actually been dead for weeks, look how fistfuls of my hair come out in my hands" vibe from her. Paige sings a Kelly Clarkson song that Kara wrote. The judges give a mixed review -- Kara indulges in a little "Hey, who wrote that? Oh, me? Right, me!" and points out that when she wrote it, she wasn't happy with the guy, so maybe Paige shouldn't be smiling. I realize that a lot of time has been spent tonight in debating whether these women are happy or not, if they should smile or not. If I cared, at all, I would be all -- did they ask the boys? whether they are happy people? or -- but wait, I don't care. At all.

SIOBHAN MAGNUS: Siobhan reveals that her method of warming up before the show is blowing raspberries. If that doesn't make the "Let's look back on your journey" clip montage, I don't know what will. Dressed like a second grade teacher doing a walk of shame (complete with a headband that might even relax Haeley), Siobhan sings "Think" by Aretha Franklin. She screams her way through it, mouth open, teeth flashing, hitting a note so far in the stratosphere that it instantly kills all the fairies in the room. The judges love her.

Let's look back at the weirdos in the competition, in reverse order: Siobhan Magnus, Lilly Scott, Crystal Bowersox. Then there are the boring people: Haeley, Lacey, Michelle, Paige. Regular people: Katie Stevens, Katelynn Epperly, Didi Benami. I think the boring people will go first, the weirdos will blow up at some later point, and it will be Katie Stevens standing there at the end. That's what I think.

What do the judges think? Well, just in case we forgot, because Crystal was first out of the gate tonight, they remind us specifically that like Crystal the best. Crystal, Crystal, Crystal. The judges will really cry when she goes home. They'll rant and stomp their little feet. But the teenaged girls of this fine land are not going to vote her into the finals. Consider that they're trying to get Lady Gaga to mentor -- can you see this field taking a crack at that catalog?

How do you relax? Have you ever bought a coloring book page off Etsy? What's in Lacey Brown's hair? Who won the week -- girls or boys?