Good news for Jennifer Lopez!
Eliminations are no longer hers to decide as American Idol locked up a Top 24, meaning it's up to the voters to whittle away the competition from now on.
With Naimi Adedepo, Ashthon Jones, Clint Jun Gamboa, Paul McDonald and Haley Reinhart already having reached the promised land, another 19 hopefuls got the good news Thursday.
With last night's surprise ouster of Chris Medina already in the past, did anything unexpected happen?
Not so much, except for the fact that Fox went for the two-hour special instead of the one hour this amount of action deserved.
After a whole minute of cliff-hanger concerning J.Lo's emotional state, she pulled herself together and Lopez, Randy Jackson and Steven Tyler proceeded to cast off some and confuse the rest.
"That's why it's so hard for us to say...you're coming through," Tyler informed Rachel Zevita, who didn't dare to believe her ears, so sure she was that the boot was coming.
"There's 24 spots at the end of the day, and that means that a bunch of people are going home today, and that's what makes it difficult...But luckily for you, that's not the case," Lopez informed music teacher Jordan Dorsey in what was perhaps the most humbling moment he's experienced so far this season.
As tends to be the case, there was room for only one cowboy, the spot going to the Randy Travis-channeling Scotty McCreery instead of John Wayne Schulz. So long, pardner.
Jessica Cunningham, who has auditioned seven times and made it to this point last year, was cut on her 25th birthday in favor of 15-year-old Thia Megia.
The judges, however, ushered Jacob Lusk, the vocal love child of Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson who materialized out of nowhere in the group round, into the Top 24 with bells on. Randy deemed Jacob's version of "God Bless the Child" nothing but the "single best performance ever on Idol," making him a shoo-in for greater glory.
James Durbin and his octave-defying voice made it, as did Casey Abrams and his bass fiddle, but this wasn't the year for 15-year-old Jacee Badeaux, who was a stand-up kid throughout and was encouraged to come back again in 2012.
Here is this season's Top 24:
• Naima Adedapo
• Lauren Alaina
• Kendra Chantelle
• Ashthon Jones
• Thia Megia
• Haley Reinhart
• Karen Rodriguez
• Pia Toscano
• Lauren Turner
• Tatynisa Wilson
• Rachel Zevita
• Julie Zorrilla
• Casey Abrams
• Jovany Barreto
• Jordan Dorsey
• James Durbin
• Clint Jun Gamboa
• Tim Halperin
• Stefano Langone
• Brett Loewenstern
• Jacob Lusk
• Scotty McCreery
• Paul McDonald
• Robbie Rosen
How many did you manage to guess ahead of time? All of them? Yeah, us too.
The top 12 guys perform on Tuesday for your votes.