TheGreenKnight

I'm glad they made sure to give Joy her time in the second segment since she didn't get to say more than a sentence or two in the first segment, since they'll do the same for Sara and Ana. I did think it was a bit odd, because they tend to have a sort of order to the way they talk--Whoopi introduces the topic, then Joy, then Sunny, then conservative guest co-host, then Sara, then back to Joy and Sunny for a little back-and-forth with the others, then Whoopi gives the final word and commercial. I don't like Tara, but at least she hasn't shouted this week like she did the last time she was there, I can't take shouting outside of moments where it's needed (usually to stop someone like KAC last week who is a rat-a-tat-tat sort of talker who never ends a sentence). That clip compilation they played at the beginning of today's show...just wow. Inserting transphobia and racism into a conversation about shootings--truly obscene.

Why is Setmayer there the day the original hosts are back? Or is the stuff with the original hosts just going to be a video shown in the second half and not them at the table? That's a shame, if so. Aside from Meredith and the other original hosts, Sara Bareilles is really the only part of this week I expect not to be awful... Since they were determined to encore one of the episodes with Granger, at least they picked the one Paula Faris was on this time.

This. I think there's no doubt that what Joy said is true, that if you want something to be done about gun control, there's really only one option to make that happen. Whoopi's delusional if she thinks otherwise.

I agreed with Sunny today--too bad Abbott and those others don't show that kind of energy towards gun violence. Loved seeing Rachel Dratch and Vanessa Williams! Those Barbara and LL Cool J clips were worth showing again. As for Joy interrupting Sunny's legal note, much ado about nothing to me. It was surprising Meadows' own lawyer was contradicting him. I personally thought Sunny started over to make sure she hadn't misread the statement and that the names were correct, since Sunny said a month or two back that she has trouble seeing the teleprompter at times.

I've felt that way about Whoopi hemming and hawing whenever Sunny is speaking the past two days, especially when she confused the abortion discussion Monday. She did it again while Sunny was talking about her personal connection to someone there today. How annoying to come into today's show looking forward to having the original co-hosts back and have to deal with her neverending ego and jealousy issues. I guess the original cast will be here tomorrow; the one consolation is one less day with Alyssa Farrah than previously planned. Whoopi's meaningless kumbaya platitude Yoda act is never more hollow than on days like today. Joy was right that even people like Romney and Cheney have and will block any action on gun reform, Whoopi should stick to stuffing her face with crumpets and shut up. No idea why Ana's hair looks like she walked out of a tornado today.

A country guy--or a White guy of any genre for that matter--doesn't need help going far on American Idol. The Platinum Tickets were more about keeping the top 10 diverse to keep the audience watching more than anything.

Yeah, but Phillips Phillips hasn't had any hits out since that would trigger people to look back at his old music like Carrie Underwood does, so it's not a reasonable assumption at all. By that logic, No Air would've eventually passed Home if merely existing meant more sales accrued; Carrie is still in the limelight unlike Phillips and Sparks, that's the difference. Stronger has more of a chance of having grown with time than Home considering Kelly Clarkson is everywhere these days. You're the one who made the statement "Home" was the highest-selling song--prove it, because the 7X certification CU received at the Grand Ol Opry says otherwise. And my point to you is your "claim" has no more weight than mine does. IMO, he was TCO. He was packaged as the first audition of the season like many of their other TCOs.

Well, BHC has a 7X certification and Home has a 5X certification. Certifications aren't handed out by Wikipedia, so... What Chayce is marketed as has nothing to do with what he was on the show since the show has little control over what happens to them with the label afterwards. We can simply agree to disagree, but I'm not sure that's what you're interested in here. My opinion isn't changing, if that's what you're expecting.

Quite a step around what you actually said. But that would still require we agree that Chayce was a country contestant, and we don't. Comes from 2020, apparently, and the song's probably sold more in the two years since with her Gospel and Christmas albums putting her name out there on a loop.

Chayce may be country now, he wasn't on the show (much like Casey James), he was a rock contestant. And, anyway, I believe you're missing Samantha Diaz in there.... And I deleted it before because I was unsure before checking it further but: "Home" was #1 at one time (like "Stronger" before it, and "No Air" before that), but apparently "Before He Cheats" has passed it over time because of continuing sales; at least "Home" is listed as 5.4 million and Before He Cheats 6.8 million (with a 7X Platinum certification). At first, I thought that was simply sales of the album BHC came from, but the album is certified 9X Platinum, so the 7X Platinum for the single must be accurate.

Chayce was not country. I believe I said "all coronation songs trend towards bad," thanks. "I Believe" and a couple of others are also good, but most of them are bad...

Personally, I think they wanted Noah to win this whole time. His audition was the first one this year and I could tell immediately he would be the winner then because he was so good and country--a lethal combo on this show. Then the week before the finale, they switched the order at the last second for him to have the final spot (the pimp spot) over Nicolina to ensure he'd get into the Finale. Then on the finale, they broke the voting into parts. If the voting was split three ways and the third and second place weren't revealed until the last 10 minutes along with the winner, one of the women might've actually had a shot at winning, but zero chance in a one-on-one vote the way they broke the show in halves, and Idol knew that. Personally, I don't mind it since Idol has always had their favorites (we have a Grassy Knoll thread here somewhere) and I do like Noah. The Voice does the same thing to get the winner they want; I don't know why Idol didn't think to do a 5-person finale last year to help Willie or Grace win. Anyway, they probably wanted a star on the 20th anniversary they can promote in the coming years and hedged their bets thinking they might be able to get success with a strong country contestant since Gabby Barrett was the most recent "success" story they've had (and Carrie, Scotty, and Alaina are all still having hits--the latter two not as consistently as the former, but still). It's much harder to push a pop winner now with Idol's diminished audience than it is with a country contestant; most pop listeners and young viewers aren't watching Idol for it to translate to success these days, which makes it an uphill battle post-show. Probably a calculated decision to get the sympathy vote. They did the same thing with other contestants who've had a baby (like Fantasia, La'Porsha, etc.). And they did the grandmother thing once already this season with Nicolina's grandmother, so... (I remember something similar happening with Elliot Yamin's mother back in the day.) I admit I did find Noah's grandmother really sweet and the fact that the baby had his eyes was so apparent. Btw, didn't say it before, but I love the single cover of Noah's song. I wish the song itself had been better. Yeah, yeah, all coronation songs trend towards bad, still this one was weaker than usual.

How fun seeing the Trump Administration Barbies attacking one another right now.

That last part--I was going to say something along those lines, but didn't want to take a chance of going too far.... There's a specific phrase I was going to refer to (BDE). He has a similar thing to Harry Styles--it's the opposite of "high maintenance," and it can be fun to be around, I imagine. I have always found Davidson to be cute though, so...

Yeah, while the show wasn't perfect today (I felt like they didn't really hit the nail on the head of the opening topic), there were several funny moments for sure between Joy and Ana, the "Teddy" one being the best of those. I loved Sara pointing out that Pete Davidson defends his girlfriend against Kanye more than Ted Cruz ever defended his wife against Trump. Personally, I can see very well why Davidson is attractive, it's his laidback nature, he doesn't come across controlling at all. Manny actually looked like he did pretty good in that dance, good for him.

So happy Noah won! Literally the only reservation I had was Idol's history of horrid WGWGs which always makes me root for the women on principle. But Noah is actually really talented unlike most of them!! (Laine, Kris, and Cook are the only other ones I'd say that about, unfortunately.) Noah had 4 great moments this season--"Stay," "Landslide," "Working Man," "Painted Blue." The only performance he had all season that I thought was outright bad was Disney week, although he was drowned out by the band on "So Small." And he was the only one I liked in the Bruce Springsteen round tonight. Glad to see someone I like win on the 20th anniversary, too. Really hope he has success post-show! Hunter Girl, I was never crazy about aside from when she was singing her original songs (I would've still been happy if she won for that reason). That said, she and Noah both went out a high note tonight--"Riot" and "Stay" were both great. Gabby Barrett really has been getting songs I like ("Pick Me Up," "The Good Ones"), it's too bad I've never liked her voice and it sort of ruins them for me. But I am happy she's managed to have success even though I've never been a fan. Buble, Melissa Etheridge, and James Arthur were good. Sara Bareilles and Ben Platt's duet was the highlight of the show, and I loved seeing Bareilles duet with Nicolina, too. Platt is so cute with the facial hair.

My least favorite characters on the show were Cheyenne and Brock for sure. So unlikable and seldom funny. Van is probably my favorite after those three. Like BJ, he really shined more as the show went on, where he was more boring in the first season. I guess I always liked Kyra because she was like a young version of Reba to me. I rarely found her truly mean-spirited, most of it was an act (as on display in the episode where they find out she was the one who stole the tape for Cheyenne's baby to add her own message). Kyra being a young Reba reminds me of how Darlene was sort of Roseanne in younger form on Roseanne. (Another character that often had funny barbs that was only truly mean-spirited occasionally.) I do like that one. My favorite Kyra moment is her at Barbra Jean's family get-together, where she develops a close relationship with BJ by helping BJ learn how to "handle" her jerk of an older sister.

So where do we post about the finale? I would make the thread, but I'm not sure non-moderators are allowed to do that...? Too bad we don't have a thread to rank the winners, or talk about our favorites over the years anyway.

The show was fine today, not too much to say about it though. I was surprised the interview went so long. Not that I minded it, but they've had much better guests that they only give 2 minutes to is all...

Okay show today, It was like Grisham wasn't even there, tbh. The whole role reversal therapy discussion was worth a laugh. It is great for teaching empathy, but, like Sunny said when mentioning MTG, those who need it most would never even entertain the idea of therapy or an exercise like that one in the first place. Sara making fun of the idea of Boebert's children holding AR-15's at Christmas was one of the highlights there. I didn't know what was going on during the Downton Abbey segment at first with all the tea sets on the table... What a weird choice. Whoopi was the only person who seemed interested in the food at all. She was already buttering a crumpet or whatever before she'd even got the intro out, lol.

I didn't always consider myself a "fan" of Carrie Underwood. I could always recognized her undeniable talent and could enjoy a few of her songs. It wasn't until her fifth album, Storyteller--on top of hosting CMAs, which she was hilarious at--that I became a fan of her. It was when I finally felt like there was something there, instead of her being a singer only with other people pulling all the strings where it comes to songwriting and so on. I didn't think she was too odd with Nicolina? I wondered last night if Nicolina might have had COVID considering her unexpectedly weak vocals (especially on "Blown Away"), considering Fritz and Noah had it the week before. I do think her not making the top 3 is a travesty, especially with the performance order not making sense considering she should've had the final spot, but not as big a travesty as there have been on this show. Chayce beating Grace and Willie last year is the only major one since they've been on ABC; Jeremiah going out at around #7 is another one. The travesties were nonstop the last 5-6 years on FOX, in comparison.

Sunny said exactly what I was thinking in regards to the Vogue topic. Ultimately, magazines are a business like everything else... Melania's unpopularity would have been a hindrance in moving their product if she had been the cover, don't blame them for caring about their bottom line. And I agree with Joy, the media is better off not acknowledging Tucker outside of the most egregious cases. Her reaction to the Sean Hannity clip made me laugh. Stephanie looked orange today--somehow that feels appropriate.

I feel like they want one of the country contestants to win. HunterGirl was given a Platinum Ticket and I believe Noah had the first audition of the season (just like Scotty on his season). They know how hard it is for a woman to win this show these days, so while HunterGirl is probably their preference, Noah is the ace in the hole. I like these two much better than Lauren and Scotty; they probably did better finding country talent this time because of Luke Bryan being one of the judges. There wasn't a country judge back in season 10 which could account for why the people they pushed then were horrible.

Yeah, we know there are some people (*cough* Teta *cough*) behind-the-scenes that want antics. But I do enjoy pointing out that so far the ratings haven't shown audiences are missing them. I'm not really worried who they hire of the guests, they haven't been able to poison the whole show even when I dislike them. Nobody's ever going to get the kind of pass the last one did. Good for Sunny today! I agree with her, that her simply talking about race issues that affect her personally is not "racism." Makes me laugh, but I have heard such a criticism directed at Black commentators before.

Poor Nicolina! I thought she would be top 3 for sure--her and Noah both. I mean, I didn't like her as much as Grace last year by any means--still... Sort of sad the only big voice on the show gets eliminated the night Carrie Underwood coaches. :/ Nicolina's "Blown Away" performance was very weak (and, worse, they dressed her terribly there), but I never would've thought Leah would make it over her. I did think it was suspicious that Noah sang last when Nicolina should've been going last according to how they performed in the first half of the show.... Noah did poorly on "So Small," which was unfortunate because I love that song. If the arrangement had brought it down some, it would've been perfect; but as it was the band drowned him out a lot of the time. Thankfully he knocked out his second performance. Now Nicolina's been eliminated, I'm fully in Noah's camp. I had a feeling he was going to win anyway, but I couldn't help sort of rooting for Nicolina in case she might somehow manage it. Noah's the best country guy they've ever found though, imo, better than Laine and worlds better than McCreery and Chayce (hated both of those, the latter wasn't even "country" until the finale). I wouldn't be mad at all if HunterGirl managed to win, she seems nice and her original material is good. She actually did okay tonight with her two covers, whereas usually I don't think she sounds too great. Sad for Fritz. I wish the third slot had been either Fritz or Nicolina instead of Leah, that way I would be happy no matter who won next week. I just don't care for her. Her 2nd performance was actually decent, but, aside from that, I think there was only one song she had a couple weeks ago that I liked. *shrug* It would be just my luck that the next time a female contestant actually wins, it would be someone I don't like, lol. She would be the first woman to win this show I didn't like.