American Idol, Season 11, Episode 10

After all the last-minute cramming, drama and medical emergencies, we finally had a chance to see what the groups came up with for the judges. As Ryan Seacrest reminded us basically every time we came back from commercial, group round is a grueling part of the competition that claims victims in many different ways.

Of course, this year we have the “fainters,” as I like to call them. I don’t think any previous season has had this many people bothered by sickness. Apparently our contestants are not taking very good care of themselves. For those who managed to stay conscious, there was the option to screw themselves over by forgetting their lyrics. It really bothers me when someone forgets the words. You are in a singing competition and a major part of that is knowing what words to sing. I feel no remorse whatsoever for anyone who forgot. It’s like someone in an eating contest forgetting how to swallow — unacceptable.

I am happy to say most of my favourites overcame their nerves to not only advance past the group round, but to get through the individual performances as well and move on to perform in Las Vegas. Of the singers who are still with us, some of my favourites are Eben Franckewitz, Reed Grimm (the second coming of Casey Abrams), David Leathers Jr., and of course Heejun Han. When Heejun confessed to pompous ass Richie Law that he had been “talking crap” about him the whole time I almost peed my pants laughing. Not to mention Heejun’s face when his room was told they advanced and he got to hug a hot blonde. I am on Team Heejun!

There were a lot of great individual performances featured on Wednesday, but the one that stood out most to me was Jen Hirsch. As she belted out “Georgia on My Mind” like many of her adversaries previously had, all I could say was “WOW.” The others were good, but Jen was great. I had goosebumps, or as J.Lo calls them “goose pimples” all over my body. It’s shaping up to be a terrific season.

It is, however, still very early in the competition and as we’ve dealt with in the past, any one of the favourites can be gone at any time, even if we don’t feel it is warranted (Pia Toscano anyone?). If the singers thought Group Week was nervewracking, I wonder how they will deal with competing against the best of the best on a huge stage in Las Vegas. It should be a blast.

American Idol airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CTV/Fox and Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on CTV Two/Fox.