American Idol Recap: Almost Liking You Again

Oh Idol, we’re almost to that part of the season where we start to like you again. It’s been rough, what with the loooong episodes unsuccessfully padded out with going nowhere narratives and sub Hills levels of manufactured drama.
Let’s just get right to it:



 
The Good
 
Nathaniel Marshall
We’re not generally into face peircings but he did an impassioned version of Rihanna’s “Disturbia” in bare feet and (who knew) that’s kind of all it took. Nathaniel is like your gay best friend at art school who take everything a little too seriously but has a great fake ID and knows where to buy all the cool import singles.
 


Anne Marie Boskovich
Proves that we have something to look forward to if we’re actually planning to invest in this season as a, you know, singing competition. 
 





Matt Giraud
If you’d told us we would ever voluntarily subject ourselves to the stylings of a dueling pianist we would have been like, all, no way in hell. But, um, we are into this guy. He’s really engaging.
 




Scott McIntyre
How can you not love a guy who describes Paula giving him a standing ovation as the greatest moment in his life even though he couldn’t see it because he’s blind. Also: nice pipes.
 




Anoop Desai
Justifies our enduring love for New Edition which is enough of a reason to keep him around. Also, he kept things kinda loose and funky on a night where every single contestant seemed to be a girl belting out a cheesy chick-flick soundtrack worthy ballad or a gay boy doing the same.
 



Lil Rounds
We keep getting just enough of her in every round. She is clearly being saved for later.
 





The people Idol producers keep around juts to amuse/annoy you depending on how you look at it: Tatiana Del Toro and Norman Gentle/Nick Mitchell - the contestant that performs as a disco queen/ugly American tourist. We like Norman but we’re over him. This joke is just stale. Re: Tatiana, please! The looks on the faces of her fellow contestants when she suddenly joined their group said it all. She is the absolute paragon of tedious reality TV crap. Just because Idol is lowbrow doesn’t mean it has to be stupid, and pretending this girl deserves to have made it this far just shows how confused the producers are about why we watch this show.