American Idol eliminates Karen Rodriguez, and Lee DeWyze performs

American Idol Season 9 winner Lee DeWyze performed Thursday night. But America voted off Latina contestant, Karen Rodriguez.

Thursday night American Idol got one step closer to naming Season 10's Top 10, who will likely be revealed next Thursday night (unless the judges use their save next week.)

So far, the eliminations of the bottom three haven't been all that surprising, with the girls being on the receiving end both times. Aside from Pia Toscano, each girl has really struggled since the Top 12 were announced. Thankfully, Lauren Alaina did enough to stay in another week, as did Pia and Thia Megia. (Ha - Pia and Thia - they could form a band!)

That left Naimia Adedapo, Haley Reinhart, and Karen Rodriguez in the bottom three this week.

Because Amercan Idol loves to waste time on Thursday night, viewers were subjected to another group performance. This week, the contestants did a mash up of "Born this Way" by Lady Gaga (the lyrics of which, have recently been censored by the Malaysian government) and Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild." Kudos to Idol for actually choosing at least one song from this decade and managing to pull off a decent group performance, overall.

But then came the Ford music video that, like most of the Ford Music videos, was senseless. This one managed to be particularly confounding considering it was titled "Val Kilmer," but seemed to have nothing to do with the actor at all. If you're privy to a Val Kilmer explanation, please feel free to enlighten us with your comments!

A performance by last season's Lee DeWyze reminded us all to be grateful for the contestants we have this year because despite some struggles, this season's talent far surpasses that of Season 9. Then the Black Eyed Peas, coming off a largely panned half-time performance at the Super Bowl, took to the stage and dedicated "Just Can't Get Enough" to the people of Japan.

When they could waste no more time, Ryan Seacrest finally got down to the results and Karen Rodriguez became the latest fallen idol. Her encore performance of a bilingual, "Hero," wasn't enough to persuade all the judges to save her. Randy Jackson broke the news to Karen though, per usual, the answer was evident in Jennifer Lopez's expression before he even had a chance to speak. Randy also indicated that the decision to not save her was not unanimous, which was a surprise. A save at this point in the competition should never be used for the Karen Rodriguez's, but for those contestants who really could go all the way, like Casey Abrams!

This writer predicted yesterday that the bottom three would consist of Naima, Haley, and Thia, with Haley leaving. As the struggle to make sense of where things went wrong rages on, Meat Loaf's wise lyrics continue on a loop in the background, "Don't be sad . . . cause two outta three ain't bad."

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