The Beatles giveth, and the Beatles taketh away, on American Idol

[Actu­ally last week’s episode, but it was Spring Break, so sue me. Danny.]

If the first night of Bea­t­les (really the Lennon-McCartney Song­book) was a glo­ri­ous show­case of all things good on Amer­i­can Idol, then the sec­ond night of Bea­t­les (actual songs the Bea­t­les recorded) was just the oppo­site, a flop-heavy col­lec­tion of mediocre per­for­mances and dubi­ous tal­ent. Even the judges were off by a coun­try mile, as one of their few picks for best song of the night was dumped into the Bot­tom Three by the unwashed masses.

The con­tes­tants didn’t help them­selves much, with a series of strange deci­sions: Aus­tralia chose his song because it was a dead friend’s favorite (beau­ti­ful sen­ti­ment but stu­pid); Brooke let out a whoop! on stage, and then did an awk­ward hip­pie dance; Cook used a voice box (like a fancy kazoo?); Carly wore the most hor­rid thing ever (see below); Jason gig­gled through “Michelle”; Chikezie played the har­mon­ica; and Ramiele chose a song called “I Should Have Known Bet­ter.” Really, guys.

By far the best sin­gle moment of the entire week was the iPhone/AT&T/Coke pro­mo­tion in the mid­dle. Ryan sees a “ran­dom audi­ence mem­ber” with an iPhone and asks to see it. She gives it to him and he stands up there with it, extolling the virtues of Idol part­ner AT&T, while behind him on the megaplex-screen there are videos of the iPhone in action. Mean­while, Ryan is press­ing and swip­ing on his “audi­ence” phone, which is off. Com­pletely dead. Blank screen. And after this bit of forced promo-play, he turns to the judges and says, “Cheers, judges!” and the cam­era turns to them and they all have their bright-red Coca-Cola cups up in the air, with great big pro­mo­tional smiles plas­tered on their faces. It was fun­nier than it sounds. If only that were avail­able on iTunes.

Best sar­to­r­ial per­for­mance of the week: In lieu of good singing per­for­mance (since there was none) this week I’m hand­ing out the best cloth­ing award to… Syesha’s boobs. Not that the com­pe­ti­tion was chal­leng­ing here, but the dress she chose in which to sing “Yes­ter­day” was quite clearly design to point out that she has boobs. And she does. Quite. At the other end of the spec­trum were Brooke’s hideous flower-child-meets-flapper sunny dress, and Carly’s mater­nity rose-collar, red silk gunny sack ensem­ble. Oy.

Best song choice: Amanda actu­ally chose the song best suited to her, “Back in the USSR,” though it appar­ently did her lit­tle good. Aus­tralia sang “Day in the Life” which is one of my all time favorite Bea­t­les songs, and while the judges panned his choice, I loved it. But I have to give the award to Lit­tle David, who chose “The Long and Wind­ing Road” for his treacle-smeared ballad-happy fans. It was the per­fect song for him.

Worst way to pick a song: Kristi Lee Cook actu­ally admit­ted in her video clip that she chose her song because she liked the title. She had never heard it. She didn’t ask to hear it. She picked it, with­out hear­ing it! I think, just maybe, she’s not even try­ing any more.

This week’s bot­tom three were:

Carly, who wore the afore­men­tioned smock from the dis­count rack at Burling­ton Coat Fac­tory but did a pass­able job on “Black­bird,” so I have to think it was every­thing but her singing that brought her this low.

Kristi Lee Cook, always a brides­maid, but never booted off the show, she gave a bor­ing, wooden, unin­spired ren­di­tion of “You’ve got to hide your love away,” that caused the judges to yawn and elicited the deadly “this is the best you’ve ever looked” from Paula.

Amanda, who did exactly what she had done every week prior to this, singing her song like she was open­ing for Lynyrd Skynyrd in some arena in Arkansas. Simon warned her that she needed to branch out, and she pub­licly dissed that notion from cen­ter stage.

And it cost her. Amanda was the con­tes­tant with the fewest votes (Kristi Lee Cook escapes again!) and seemed per­fectly happy with that result. I don’t think she was all that excited about being an Idol. And she just missed the inden­tured servi­tude of the Idol tour, too. After her sing out, when the con­tes­tants storm the stage in a group hug, she looked decid­edly uncom­fort­able with all that closeness.