OK. Let's just get it out of the way: Didn't see that one coming! OK. That's over. Now, let's go on and discuss the elimination of Scott and hopefully not make any more terrible jokes.

Oh these elimination shows... What's worse? The turgid opening with all the grim, clashing music? The trotting out of some tired old person to sing a song? The insanely awful group numbers? The horrid Ford commercials? It's all a misery.

This week the opening reminded us that this was a singing competition. Which is good to remember. It's easy to forget that when you have Danny Gokey using his mouth as a meat grinder and Adam blowing dark, glittery smoke up the judges' asses. So yes. It's about sing-sangin'!

The old person that they trotted out was essentially a means to an end to make an extended joke about Simon's age. The year that Simon was born Frankie Avalon had a song called "Venus". They showed a clip of the dude singing it and then—!!!—Avalon himself crawled out of the TV and was there in person. The audience pretended to know who he was, and Simon made some joke about actually being born in 1969, not 1959. So Simon is 50 years old. There you have it.

Then it was time for the group number, which was that "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" and shiver me timbers was that thing a fucking unmitigated disaster. See, the kids have been getting shit for a few weeks because they've been lip syncing on the group numbers. So, this week they actually sang. Lil Rounds just peeled off at one point and started doing Tuvan throat singing. Poor Scott wandered around aimlessly, while Anoop danced awkwardly, Matt Giraud preened like an asshole, and everyone sang the wrong words and the wrong notes and somewhere in Thailand, because of the butterfly effect, everyone died.

After that they did one of those behind-the-scenes at the Ford Commercial bits, which was more of Matt Giraud thinking he is some sort of dynamic person. He tried to do a funny voice and then laughed, fakely, and said "I can't do it without laughing [fakely]." Because bloopers are so fun! They mean you are light-hearted and oh, isn't my job great. So that was annoying.

Back in the swirling hope den that is the Idol theater, it was time to announce the bottom three. Predictably Adam and Gokey and Matt were safe. Surprise, DialIdol, but Krissy was also safe too. As was, glory be!, dear old Allison. Which meant that for once America got all three people in the bottom right. 'Noops, Scott, and Lil. Perfect. Simon said there was "one person especially we'd really consider saving," obviously meaning Anoop. I kid. Of course he meant Lil. But you wouldn't know it from the performance that all four judges put on when Scott was announced as the loser and sang his sad little "rescue me" song. Simon said that the vote was split, they spent more time forcing Scott to beg, they hemmed and they hawed, the whole thing went on for minutes, and then finally Simon said "No!" Which, of course, was always going to happen. But blind people can't see, so they can't take being treated like an adult. Ryan strapped Scott into a harness and they flew him up into the rigging where he'll be kept until the finale.

So there we have it. Seven remain, none of them dwarves. Based on the applause-o-meter, Adam seems to be pulling pretty far ahead of the Gokster, thank god. Might we actually get a Kris/Adam finale? Might, also, we get a Kris/Adam... somethin' else? Hah, doubtful. No one sees Adam without his skinsuit on, except maybe that fetching, fey little blonde character they keep cutting to and describing as Adam's "friend." I did some very very sad and shameful inter-research, and evidently he's a show queen named John. So there you have it once more.

OK! Goodbye Scott! I won't wave, I'll just yell at you and treat you like a baby and recite Paula's awkward tribute tone poem over and over again because you are like a gift from singing to America's dreams of people overcoming hopes in themselves when singing is talented and you are blind.