Eulogizing Kristy Lee Cook

Somehow we were shocked last night when our stupid friend who finds these things out ahead of time let it slip that Kristy Lee Cook would be eliminated from American Idol. We're not sure why we were so shocked. We'd speculated about her elimination for weeks. For weeks, she made us scratch our head as she delivered mediocre-to-bad performance after mediocre-to-bad performance.

But then we kind of fell in love with her ability to knock through the competition like some brilliant alien robot run by Japanese tech geniuses. And then came Mariah Carey week, where she actually legitimately brought it. We even thought she might make the Top 5, because she's proven to have more actual talent than Jason Castro and more onstage personality than Syesha Mercado (who, granted, is a technically better singer).

It's so complicated on Idol, geez. But we all knew she was bound to fall eventually. There's no way she could possibly compete with the otherworldly mastery of the craft held by Carly Smithson, or the cuddly, cute predictability of darling David Archuleta. Or, let's face it, the weird captivating quality that David Cook seems to be developing.

Anyhow, Kristy Lee cried three crocodile tears and then sang herself off the show in our favorite sing-off performance since Melinda Doolittle was robbed of the title last year. She sat on the judges' desk in front of Simon and sang straight into his face as he blushed and tried embarrassingly to look away. And then she took to the stage and belted the crap out of it. We'll miss her on the show for Andrew Lloyd Webber week (random), and we hope she gets her damn horse back! Now we can pour our full voting time into Smithson.