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Another death on last night's installment of American Glitterdoom, and now we're left with four. Just four! The bees are buzzing, the leaves are on the trees, and only four Idol contestants remain. Which means it's almost summer! Hooray!

Oh mah gah. Weep-demon. I have become a weep-demon. Jaaaaaacob. Nooooooooo, Jacob. What will we do without the big stupid goopy heart of this show? Hm, what's that? We will do just fine because Jacob was lame and annoying and the real weep-demon in this situation? Oh, OK. Gooood to know! Great to know. Yes, Jacob is dead. Dead as the musical genre he excels at. (SORRY, but that's facts.) What happened before all that? I'll tell you.

The episode began like all other elimination episodes, with a clunky whunky group number, this one a medley of tunes from... Oh who knows. It was just tunes. They should rename this show American Tunes Manglers. It was just some tunes and they mangled them and everyone just sort of had this monkey's expression, one of sudden exasperation and confusion and a slight hint of fear. We are so tired of this season of American Idol and yet we fear it ending, because then time has passed. Then we are five months older and there's a pile of discarded time we'll never get to use again. What a waste, what have we done with ourselves? But also we get that little monkey's expression because it's yet another biffed group number and it seems like maybe they should have gotten their shit together by now.

Then we saw a lame Ford ad where everyone had amazing talents — Jimmy Durbin balancing a chair on his chin, Lauren Alaina throwing cards into a wall, Baby Lock'em riding a motorbike in a zany fashion, Jacob lusking around luskily — except Haley, whose trick was driving a Ford that can parallel park itself. Good message for American Idol viewers. Let the machines do it for you. That's as good as any innate human talent! "Submit to the robots." - American Idol/SkyNet. Um, yeah, so that happened and then there was an interview thing where all the dumb kids put on silly clothes and talked about how they choose songs and it was just sort of sad, because there they are, loving to be in front of a camera, making silly-times. And it will all be over so soon. Forever, for most of them. Most of them will never, ever be on television or be famous ever again. Sorry, but they won't.

Was last night when they did the Gordon Ramsay thing? With making omelets? I can't even remember anymore. But yeah, there was an omelet thing that was lame and dumb and yet another reminder that the elimination show could be five minutes long. They could do it during a commercial break of an exciting, all-new episode of Fox's hit crime show The Bones. "Tune in for a wacky, yet sexy, new murder case tonight on The Bones, and stay put during the commercial breaks to find out who went home on Idol Fart." I should be writing Fox TV promos! Give me that job, please. Job man, give me that job!

I'm stalling? I'm stalling. J. Lopes sang a ditty that this here webbasite has another post (actually, more than one post) about, so I'll leave that to the experts and just say that J.Lo should not be writhing sadly like this when she is in her 40s and doing a whole different job. Like when she's up there behind the sparkledesk, she has some authority, she seems respectable. But down there on that ruddy old stage, wriggling awkwardly and speak-singing, she just looks weak and sad. Poor J. Lo. Poor all of us! Cruel time. Cruel fates. The time for stage-wriggling has ended, and it is time now to put away childish things and be men and women. Let the kids have their stage and their wriggling. That's a game for the young. Which we aren't anymore. (28th birthday coming up in a few weeks guys and kiiiinddaaa having a freeeakoutttt.) Alas!

Still stalling! Still stalling. Lady Antebellum came out and crooned at us and it was cheesy but pleasant. They are, as a singing group, by and large both cheesy and pleasant. I feel like they should be so much more edgy and risky with a name like that, but nope. They are always gooing away about summah love and honey and America and wistful wishin' for people to come back. That's all. There is nothing political or pointed or anything about what Lady Antebellum is singing about. It's just easy music for uneasy times. It's the kind of music you listen to in the late hours of an Austin backyard party, a few stragglers, a thick haze of beer and wine, the last couple cigarettes in the pack. Someone murmurs "I kinda like this song," and the host turns it up a little, and everyone just sits and listens and lets the dark world spin. That's what Lady Antebellum is doing, at least with the slow songs like they sang last night. At least then.

No more stalling! Ryan racked his shotgun and waved everyone to various corner of the stage, yelling "schnell, schnell!" He put Haley and Fatso Durbin on one side and Lauren and Jacob on the other and then he had Scotty in the middle (just where he wants Scotty when he whispers naughty things in Tim's ear back at home). He told Scotty that he was safe, and that he's never been in the bottom even though it kind of seemed like he was last week, and then he said "Pick a side. Who do you think is safe? Haley and Fatso or Lauren and Jacob?" Scotty was like "Nooooo, don't make me do this man, don't make do this" (something he'll also say later, drunk at the finale party, alone in a room with Ryan, Stefano, and Tim) and Ryan finally was like OK, fine, and brought Scotty over to Haley and Fatso. "You're safe!" he said to them and Fatso fell to the ground and put his face in his hands and it was so annoying. God I really dislike him. I really, truly do.

So this meant that Jacob and Lauren were in the bottom and poor Lauren was a teary mess, all sad and vulnerable. Man it's going to suck for her when she goes home next week. Oh well. But her tears were in vain, at least last night, because Ryan put on his Proton Pack, threw out the trap, and captured Jacob the Slimer ghost. Yup, he's finally been busted. Adieu, screeching old creature.

He sang a song at the end, his patented "A House Is Not a Home," and had fun riffing and running on it and once again Fatso fell to the ground and I really wish he'd stop doing that (the stage probably wishes he'd stop crashing down on it too) but what can you do. We are powerless to stop the Durbin. As we are powerless to stop anything else. The one thing we can hope is that with one of his screeches, Jacob tore a hole in space-time, through which we can crawl into another dimension where everything is slow and easy, instead of all this quick, bright hurt. That would be Jacob's gift to us. And we'd thank him for it, every long day, from dawn to lusk.