The fuck? The long-threatened veto was finally exercised last night. On Lil! Wait, no. On Gokey! Oh, hm, not that either. On Matt Giraud. Really, Irdol? A season's worth of build-up for... Matt Giraud.

Not that Matt isn't good. I mean he's great if you like fourth-rate Justin Timberlake impersonators who sing like they're underwater. If you like that kinda thing, I mean, if that's your bag, if that's what you're into, if that knots your knickers, if it kibbles your bits. Me? I think he's an overgrown Cabbage Patch doll who found a falsetto in a creepy old chest in his granddad's attic and has tried it on for fun.

Anyway.

The episode! So many things happened. The kids went to go advertise 17 Again and it was their first movie premiere—they said this like it was their first date, or their first time at the rodeo. They'd be here again. Because, you know, that's what people do. They go to movie premieres. This our first one. Oh fuck off.

Then, golly, I dunno. Jennifer Hudson showed up. She looked great and sounded good and isn't it remarkable how in only a few years' time, someone can go from raw and unwieldy in front of the camera to smoothed-over soundbite machine? She was a regular pro up there, trading witticisms with Riley Oceanview and his Doo Wop Quartet. Good for her. She's had a shit year, but she pulled herself together nicely.

Miley Cyrus was also wheeled out for a pre-taped performance that involved smoke and fog machines and a spangly gangly dress and the London Symphony Orchestra and the crystalline tears of Billy Ray falling gently from the sky, like butterfly-kissed snowflakes, and holy moly, are we really supposed to buy that creature? Ohhh she gives me the shivers! Isn't she so creepy? I just want to drive a stake through her heart or whisper some ancient incantation so she'll lurch back into her sarcophagus. Aieee! I'm getting scared just thinking about her. Miley Cyrus is voodoo. She's old, bad magick. Kill it, Oceanview!

The bottom three were announced and Adam chuckled and thought about how silly it is that he's never been in the bottom, because... you know... buttsex. The anti-winners were unsurprising: Lilitia Roundelay. Anoop Degarmo. And Matt Girmaund. All three of them should have just been set ablaze and left to smolder there as a warning, lest anyone else dare to try and get to the top seven on a string of bad performances. But there are some pretty strict fire codes in Los Angeles, so that dream could not be made a reality. Instead Loopy Noopy was sent tar-heeling back to his smug compatriots on the Couch of Relief Orgasms, where everyone was shifting in their seats, awkward and gooey. In the far, faraway future when they're interviewing decrepit old Idol contestants, they'll ask them what sums up the show more than anything else. They'll all nod their heads gravely and say: "Sticky underpants."

So we were down to just Lillian Hellmann's and Mappy the police mouse. Ryan did one of his awkward reveals: "Lil... I'm sorry... that you're going to win... at a losing contest... if it's opposite day... on the South Pole... because hamburger tiddlywink... Eddie Cibrian's haircut... the smell of bacon in the kitchen when you wake up on a Saturday morning... you are... going home... if you consider... home... to be... the Semen Sofa. Congratulations Lil. You've lost... at losing. You're safe. Let's go to commercial."

Lil was safe. She yelled "Hallelujah!", and it was off-key. So poor Moaning Mattle was the ousted. The dejected and the scorned. But what was this triumphant feeling in the air? What was this hum and shrill when he sang his stupid Bryan Adams song for ladies? Kara and Paula just didn't care who knew they biddness and just started freak dancing right there at the shimmerdesk. It's as if they knew something was going to happen... For his part, Simon tried to look concerned and interested while King Koopa Randy over there practiced his phonics.

At the end of the performance the giddy, stupid live audience—flush with the presence of Zac Efron, elated by the pure pheromones and teenage boy-stink that is pumped into the auditorium, oddly turned on by Paula's strange, creaking, rhythmic gyrations—started a cheer that was something like "Save him! Save him!" or "Rescue him! Rescue him!" or "Matt Giraud graduates to the top seven of Idol! Matt Giraud graduates to the top seven of Idol!" Whatever it was, it flicked some switch on in Simon's obsidian insides and he grinned his toothy, wicked grin and he said "Matthew... it's good news." So everyone pissed themselves and splooged all over each other's faces and the world erupted into a happy chaos not seen since Admiral Ackbar and his friends blew that Death Star the hell fucking up for a second time and there was an Ewok orgy. Everyone was just so goddamned happy. Because history had been made that day. Never before had American Idol flagrantly ignored the will of the people so.

About Matt Giraud? Really?

I guess the judges cleave to that idea that if you don't use it, you lose it. So they're almost at the Top Five veto cut-off and what the hell. Here's hoping the Gokester ends up in the bottom next week and they'll be stuck with their be-ringed thumbs up their asses and they'll have to sacrifice Kara at Aulis just to steer this thing into port. Fingers crossed. And who else might go home? 'Cause, you know, it's two people next week. Lil and Anoop. It's time.

It's really, really time.