Hollywood week began in American Idol Season 11 Episode 9, complete without any actual singing. Preparations complete, they are ready to perform during a 2 hour episode. I’d be fine with 1 hour.
Jennifer Malsch, Cherie Tucker, Cari Quoyeser, Gabrielle Cavassa, and Brianna Bell take the stage first. Their performance is about as rough as their rehearsal was. Jennifer and Cari survive the cuts, as Cherie blames the Idol bug.
Reed Grimm, Nick Boddington, Creighton Fraker, Aaron Marcellus, and Jen Hirsh escaped both the drama and the sickness of the night before. Their reward is that they all advance, following a standing ovation.
Kyle Crews, Brielle von Hugel, Joshua Ledet, Shannon Magrane, and some fifth person named Amber get on stage in their group that Brielle and her mother think is all about them. Kyle is the only one of the lot to get cut.
Before they get on stage, Jacquie Cera faints, but she’ll be singing anyway, along with Dustin Cundiff, patient zero Amy Brumfield, and Mathenee Treco. They struggle in general, including some lyric forgetting. Mathenee is the sole survivor.
Crystal Duffield, Jasmine Antoine, and the rest of their group continue the trainwreck. They are not alone in being completely unable to remember the words.
Christian Lopez, Alisha Bernhardt, Samantha Novacek, and the other girls and that guy have the audience yawning. They are all eliminated. Perhaps they should have sung Joy to the World like the angry cop wanted.
Ariel Sprague, Eben Franckewitz, Gabi Carrubba, David Leathers Jr., and Jeremy Rosado deliver a solid performance, and they are all safe.
Imani Handy joins the growing chorus of fainters, but she crawls her way on stage to perform with Bryce Garcia, Johnny Keyser, and Kristi Krause. This rough performance concludes with an unsurprising collapse by somebody who’s already fallen twice. Johnny survives the carnage.
We now head to the not OK Corral with a battle of cowboy against everybody. Heejun Han, Jairon Jackson, Richie Law, and Phillip Phillips pull together in spite of their differences, and they live to fight another day, though it’s primarily based on their previous performances.
With group night over, those who survived will sing one last time before the results are revealed.
Joshua Ledet had to be badgered into sticking around. His oversinging of Christina Perri’s Jar of Hearts receives a good reaction. Colton Dixon, who also had to be badgered into auditioning let alone sticking around, and he sings Daughtry’s What about Now while playing keyboard. Phil Phillips continues the positive momentum.
Jen Hirsh follows with a standing ovation for her performance of Georgia on my Mind, her second of the episode. Creighton Fraker continues this with What a Wonderful World. Having been in Jen’s group earlier, he, too, sees his second standing ovation. Shannon Magrane also thinks it’s a wonderful world, receiving the same reaction.
Reed Grimm is informed 30 minutes before going on stage that he cannot sing a cappella as planned. This is stupid that they could not have told him this earlier. Thanks for the fake drama, Nigel. He spends most of his time dancing around his troubles rather than preparing, but he decides at the last minute to play the drums. Seemingly out of nowhere, he pulls together a strong performance.
Skylar Laine is out of the hospital. Wouldn’t know based on that she’s been sick. Steven says that’s one of the best performances of the day, and Jennifer is reminded of Reba. Fellow country singer Rachelle Lamb messes up, so she starts over, delivering a convincing performance on her second attempt.
New father Adam Brock says he brings white chocolate to the stage.
Performances done, they are divided into four rooms.
Room 1 gets their results first. They are through to the next round. This room includes Jermaine Jones, Lauren Gray, Adam Brock, Joshua Ledet, Creighton Fraker, Jen Hirsh, Erika van Pelt, Hallie Day, and Johnny Keyser.
Room 2 also makes it. In that room are Reed Grimm, Phil Phillips, Skylar Laine, Shannon Magrane, Eben Franckewitz, and Jessica Phillips.
A tense and fighting room 3 is up next. They have been eliminated, with casualties including Brittany Kerr, Jennifer Malsch, and Rachelle Lamb.
Lastly, room 4 is also advancing. Bailey Brown, Gabi Carrubba, Heejun Han, Angie Zeiderman, and Britnee Kellogg are among those heading to Vegas.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of American Idol Season 11 Episode 11, which airs Thursday at 8/7c on Fox.