Tonight’s episode of “American Idol” was the results show, where four of the 24 remaining contestants learned if they were continuing on or going back home. As has been the case for the past few seasons, this show was excruciatingly long. One hour to announce that four are going home? As you can imagine, they filled the show with lots of crap and lots of commercials, which, let’s face it, is really why it was an hour long.

First there was judge banter…blah blah blah. Then there was a group performance, which is always dripping with cheese, and I mean the kind of cheese you spray on crackers from a can. Tonight the group sang the Eagles’ “Take it Easy,” which was good for only one thing–a royalty check for the songwriters. Then they showed clips of all the performances of the last two nights, complete with judge comments.

All of the 40 million people who voted must have been saying along with me, “Let’s get ON with this already.”

Finally the women were seated in rows and they told everyone who was safe that they were safe, and brought Kinnik, Becky and Brenna to the middle of the stage. One of these women had the least number of votes. I’ll tell you who, after the break……
oh wait, this isn’t TV. It was Becky O’Donohue, the one who was a news topic today as photos of a Maxim spread from 2 years ago re-surfaced. Hey, she’s cute, and there’s no reason to believe Maxim or some skin rag won’t be calling her tomorrow. But her singing career is likely over. Of course, then they made her sing…..ugh. Stop torturing us and the ones going home, and just let them walk off the stage and into the sunset!

Then it was the guys’ turn. The bottom two were Bobby and Sway. Spike Marley was right in predicting Bobby would be the first to go….that big gay Mexican cowboy thing was just not going to fly (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Bobby so wanted to take a parting shot at Simon but couldn’t get up the balls to do it. Either way, America made the right choice.

Then the girls were rounded up again, and the next to be eliminated was Stevie Scott. Once again, Spike Marley was correct in predicting she would be one of the first to go. She just sang too softly and was so uninspiring.

Then back to the guys, and after trotting six of them out to the middle of the stage, country boy Bucky and raisin thief Patrick were left to learn their fate. The winner (or loser, actually) was Patrick, whose song choice of Melissa Etheridge’s “Come To My Window” proved to be his demise. Simon even re-iterated that. Paula, as she always does, said she was so sad to see Patrick go…..um, Paula is sad to see anyone go. She should just have another drink.

So there you have it…of course, they had to show this stupid montage at the end of the four–Becky, Stevie, Bobby, and Patrick–and their journey to get this far before bowing out.

Now we are down to 20, and what have we learned so far? America is not stupid, and is only going to accept greatness when ultimately choosing the next American Idol. See you all next week. And Patrick…we do know you stole the box of raisins from George Costanza.

Marley, Out.