First off, Casey Abrams is in the hospital again and was unable to appear on Thursday's American Idol.
Ryan Seacrest had no other details to reveal and could only wish that the 20-year-old "get back here soon" (and Fox wouldn't add to Ryan's comment), so we can't say yet whether Casey's having another flare-up of the stomach issues that landed him in the hospital before the Top 24 was revealed.
We really hope he feels better and can get back to work soon.
Speaking of which, there was some business to take care of tonight...
The Top 13 turned in relatively poised performances last night, but as always, some did way better than others.
Before tonight's show even got under way, we had a few bottom three predictions:
• Karen Rodriguez, who made "Hero" special with Spanish lyrics but underwhelmed when tackling Selena's "I Could Fall in Love." (There's a reason Jennifer Lopez lip-synced in that movie—Selena had a big ole voice.)
• Naima Adedapo: She's only still around thanks to the judges' wild-card privileges, and, reggae chops or not, she butchered Rihanna's "Umbrella."
• Tie between Ashthon Jones, the gorgeous but surprisingly boring wild card who sang Diana Ross (Zzzzzz...), and Haley Reinhart, whose take on LeAnn Rimes' "Blue" was a snooze, too.
Were we at all right?
We were right on the money, almost.
Karen, who blamed technical difficulties for the inconsistent tone of her song (rather than nerves and discomfort, which is what the judges saw), was the first victim of Ryan's gross Idol trickery. He gathered Karen, Jacob Lusk and Stefano Langone together and declared them to be "all safe...except Karen."
Cold.
Naima was perfectly safe, hooray, but Haley and Ashthon ended up in the bottom three. (Hey, you put people to sleep, they snore right through the designated voting period.)
Meaning poor Lauren Alaina apologized for Shania Twain's "Any Man of Mind" for nothing. "
"It sucked," the 15-year-old tearfully said on second review of last night's performance. "[The judges] were right. It wasn't good, and I'm sorry."
Don't worry, dear, America appears to love you almost as much as Steven Tyler does.
In the end, it was the so-promising but ultimately uninspiring Ashthon Jones who got the boot tonight. Because of the "save one contestant" rule Idol implemented a few years ago, she sang one more time for the judges in the hope that Steven, Jennifer and Randy Jackson would use their only veto of the season to save her.
"Not this time, baby, I'm sorry," Lopez regretfully informed the 25-year-old.
And while we would have liked to have been a fly on the wall in J.Lo's dressing room, no drama was apparent whatsoever between the diva and her ex Sean Combs, who as part of Diddy-Dirty Money performed "Coming Home" with Skylar Grey.
When they were done, Lopez offered a big round of applause and leaned over to Tyler and said, "Nice."
Adam Lambert also did an acoustic version of "Aftermath," which was nice, but we prefer him with all the bells and whistles.
So, that's that. Ashthon is gone and 12 remain—presuming Casey Abrams gets well soon. As J.Lo would say, "We're rooting for you, baby!"
(Originally published March 10, 2011, at 6:10 p.m. PT)