Last night, the Top 12 finalists for Season 9 were revealed, and America got it shockingly, mind-numbingly wrong in at least one case.  Never in the 9-year history of this show do I remember a contestant as talented as Lilly Scott being sent home at this early stage.  I mean, Katie Stevens over Lilly?  Really??  What went wrong?  I have a couple of theories:

The remaining eight guys took the stage last night, each one hoping to secure one of the highly-coveted slots in American Idol's Top 12.  Along the way, one contestant gave what the judges thought was the best performance of the season so far, and although I agree that it was the strongest of the (lackluster) night, I don't think I heard the same thing they did.  Let's get to the reviews:

When season 9's Top 12 is announced tomorrow night, only six of these girls will advance...and the pressure showed.  Several of the contestants were nowhere near as good as they were last week, and a couple were downright awful, but thankfully there were a handful of standout performances.  Let's take a look, from best to worst:

Four more contestants made their exits from "American Idol" last night, three of them accurately predicted by the poll on this website.  John Park, Jermaine Sellers, and Michelle Delamor all received the lowest number of votes from our readers.  Only Haeley Vaughn was thought to have at least one more week in her, although I'm happy that the sweet singer from Ft. Collins, Colorado ("Go Pooter!") was shown door, if for no other reason than to keep her from becoming this season's Sanjaya.  Also, as "Idol" super-fan Lucila Massey pointed out, the flowers in Haeley's hair were strengthening her resemblence to Niecy Nash, and we just can't have that.  But what I'd really like to discuss was the return of last year's 3rd place finisher, Danny Gokey...

It was a nostalgic return to the stage for American Idol Season 8 finalist Danny Gokey who performed his new single "My Best Days Are Ahead of Me" on Thursday's results show where we said goodbye to Michelle Delamor, John Park, Jermaine Sellers, and Haeley Vaughn.

Gokey joined Ryan's radio show Friday to catch us up on life after the Idol and he offered some sage advice to recently booted contests of the show.

"I've always had a different theory," said Gokey. "Once you get to the show that's given you so much push and so much audience and so many people to look at you, have a plan and do something with it. Instead of sitting around." Watch Ryan's interview with Gokey above!

When the show opened and Ryan first took the stage last night, the drama was high and the question remained: was Crystal Bowersox still in the hospital?  Thankfully, she was released in time to perform and helped make the night an overall memorable one for the girls.  As the men had done the previous evening, the ladies likewise stepped up their game and proved that there are more than a couple of talented singers among them, and at least one star.  So, let's take a look at the reviews, going from best to worst:

After last week's dismal showing, the pressure was really on the guys to step things up and prove to the naysayers that this year's crop does indeed contain some real talent.  And while there's no doubt that last night's performances were by-and-large a dramatic improvement over the previous week, I'm still not feeling that an obvious STAR has emerged from this bunch...yet.  So let's get to the reviews, starting with the best of the evening:

And then there were 20.  "American Idol" said goodbye to four contestants last night, and although a couple of exits may have been a tad premature, I don't think any of them were headed for the Top 10.  Retro-rocker Tyler Grady was the singer I most would've liked to have seen again, but when he basically blamed the judges for his elimination, I didn't feel too sorry for him.  Janell Wheeler was probably shown the door a little too soon as well, but she handled her farewell very gracefully.  Joe Munoz and Ashley Rodriguez were also sent packing, but weren't even fully on my radar to begin with.  Here are a few more random thoughts from the elimination episode: