On the night where Castro’s funny, endearing quirkitude might have shined brightest, the dreadlocked one got the boot. From his amused expression during the group number to his quizzical questioning of Ryan - he wondered, “Are you going to tell us now? It’s too early!” when Ryan gave us an ellimination tease before one of the commercial breaks about halfway through the show - he’s never been so funny.

Major kudos to the producer that was in charge of his goodbye video package. They managed to capture Castro’s I’m-in-my-own-world-but-it’s-really-nice-here mannerisms without making him seem crazy, which was one way that could have gone.

While I was sad to see him go, and Idol will be a little less interesting, at the end of the day it was the right time for him to go.

This video has only been up on Youtube for 3.5 hours and it’s already got well over 20,000 hits, so it’s pretty safe to say there’s a bit of a buzz about Cookie’s performance of Mariah Carey’s “You’ll Always Be My Baby.” Personally, I thought it was a little weird (read more about why I think it was like eating a marshmellow omelette here), but it was definitely interesting. Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think.

I don’t know which was more surprising to me tonight - Michael Johns’ out-of-nowhere elimination, or the fact that tonight’s group number was a straight-up, hardcore, lift-your-hands and praise Him, honest-to-God WORSHIP song.

So there I was, minding my own business watching Idol’s results show, marvelling at how horrid a dancer Brooke White is (the Ford commercial reminded me), and thinking how I love me some Chris Brown (BNLT), when Ryan announced, “With ‘Shout To the Lord,’ it’s your top 8, ladies and gentlemen.” I thought, “Huh, that’s weird, I’m not familiar with any tune by that name, other than the somewhat old-school praise and worship number that my church used to sing. But it couldn’t be that. This must be some sort of obscure R&B tune I’m not familiar with…or maybe I heard Seacrest wrong and he actually said something about a Spout and a Sword.” But no, the final eight start to sing, and I hear this first verse:

My Jesus, my Savior, Lord there is none like You.
All of my days, I want to praise
The wonders of your mighty love.

Then the chorus:

Yeehaw, It’s Dolly Parton week on Idol. Dolly, who’s practically my next-door-neighbor, has an amazing catalogue that gives us one of the best all-around nights of the season. It’s interesting to compare how well the contestants handled Dolly’s tunes with the horrific Beatles train wrecks.

We start off this week with Brooke White and “Jolene.” It’s a nice start to the evening, as once again Brooke has picked a song that her sultritude (NAW) can shine on. Aside from one jerky, somewhat awkward number, of all the contestants Brooke has been the most reliable. Her stylist should get some kudos, ‘cause she’s managed to transform her from frumpy, Mary Poppins wannabe to frumpy hot rock star. Randy says it was alright. Paula rambles about something-something….consistent…emotional connection…something-something…you are Brooke White. Simon totally disagrees with Paula (apparently he speaks Paulanese), and thinks she was lacking emotion, and then says the violin player was weird.

David Cook does “Little Sparrow”, which is not one of the Boobied One’s biggest hits, but once again he rocks it.

After the Beatles Part Deux left me praying for a Merseyside mercy killing, it’s good that this week is over. What’s not good is that America threw the hot nurse out with the bathwater. While Ramiele flies under the crap radar once again (which is easier to do when you’re short….you have a smaller crapdar footprint), and Chikezie lives to sing (but hopefully not harmonicize) another day, Amanda “there-was-a-turd-in-my-Cheerios” Oscarmyer, Kristy Lee “wide-stance-McGee” Cook and Carly “Second Chance” Smithson found themselves on the chopping block.

 There was no way America was sending Smithson home. She couldn’t have really been that surprised to have made it. She had a bad performance, but her body of work till now would’ve been enough to put her through even if she had been actually bad. The reality was that she just wasn’t up to her usual par.