Idol Recap: Jasmine Murray, Jorge Nunez Sent Packing

Turns out America doesn’t give a crap about you no matter how uplifting your English as a Second Language backstory is or how many gorgeous sisters you have back in Mississippi. The two finalists sent home last night on American Idol‘s first finals results show were Jorge Núñez and Jasmine Murray who proved they just couldn’t satisfy America’s taste for the King of Pop. Pack your bags and say goodbye to the insane Hollywood mansion we got a glimpse of last night, kids. No more black light bowling or steam room for you guys. As sad as their departures may be, we still found five choice moments to discuss.

5. The Judges’ Save

After announcing that Jorge was eliminated from the competition, Ryan Seacrest told him “I’m going to have you sing while the judges chat,” presumably about whether or not Jorge deserved “The Judges’ Save,” which is the new twist to season 8. Seacrest explained that the judges would allow one “save” this season in case someone they thought was worthy needed a second chance after being voted off. There will be only one save, it must be unanimous, and the week after the save, two people will be eliminated to make up for it. We LOVE that Ryan even bothered to tell us that during Jorge’s performance the judges would “deliberate” in case they deemed him save-worthy, because while Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell appeared chatty, uh, Paula Abul and Kara DioGuardi not so much. Paula was on her feet the whole time. But of course we know Paula expresses herself through dance.

4. How Could You Be So Heartless (Simon)?

We love Kanye West, but the choice to bring someone whose single, “Heartless,” relies entirely on Autotune to a singing competition struck us as funny. “Heartless” is a great song, it’s just hard to reconcile what Simon said the other night (“It’s fine to be artistic, just not on this show”) with the choice to have an artist as original as Kanye on. Heck, Kanye even makes dirty old towels tucked in one’s back pocket seem cool. It’s just one of the many things we’ll never quite understand about Simon, it seems. Also something we’ll never understand about him, how someone so rich can have such bad hair.

3. I’ll Be There (And By “There” I Mean Back Home In Mississippi And Not In Hollywood)

Poor Jasmine Murray. For some reason she was never a crowd favorite, despite being so talented and so mature for her age. She and Allison Iraheta both seem wise beyond their years – even beyond OUR years (why hasn’t Seacrest been making stool references this week? Come O-oon, Ryan!), but it looks like Jasmine ended up not being someone America wanted to go shopping with. Not for lack of trying, even she added pink to her hair like the Idol handbook says to (SAT analogy: Adding Pink to Your Hair is to Idol as Having a Fauxhawk is to Top Chef) but in the end even that didn’t help. Murray made a tearful exit but take it easy, Jas, you’ve accomplished more than most people twice your age.

2. Idol Alums

Kelly Clarkson was on hand to sing her horribly titled (but still catchy) single “My Life Would Suck Without You.” We’re Kelly fans, but we found her voice to be a little shaky for the performance, a little Stevie Nicks, actually. Did anyone catch Kara half-heartedly clapping off the beat like she was so over Kelly? The one song we did love was the Carrie Underwood cover of “Home Sweet Home” that was played during the eliminated contestant montage. Congratulations, Motley Crüe, you’re topical for right this second!

1. Tender Moments
We are not entirely made of stone while we watch the show, by the way. We do have a soft spot in this three-sizes-too-small heart of ours and while we love to normally mock the group song, we have to say that we found the Jackson Five medley halfway decent. We also noticed that during the dance number, Jorge and Alexis Grace went out of their way to help Scott MacIntyre navigate the stage. It’s these times that make us pause the DVR and weep for the kindness humans are capable of showing one another, until it’s time to tune back in to watch Kelly Clarkson do something crazy in some godawful outfit. This show is like a yin-yang kind of thing for us.

Final Thoughts: Even though we thought Megan Corkrey would be ousted last night, she slipped by for another week. Let’s hope the birdcalls stay at a minimum.

What was with that Comcast commercial that was like a weird Moldy Peaches knockoff?

Glad to know we aren’t the only ones that fall on the anti-Adam side of the fence, commenters, thanks for backing us up on that.