I still have no idea why I watch this show. And I don’t just watch it. I tape it if I am not going to be home. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Anyway, America made the obvious decisions last night, voting off the tall, but bland Ayla Brown; the pretty, but bland Kinnik Sky; 8-month-old Will Makar; and (thank sweet Jesus) the incredibly irritating, perma-grinned Gedeon McKinney. My feelings were decidedly tapioca about the first three — they were fine, but you knew they would never make it that far — but I really could not stand Gedeon, what with his plastered-on smile that everyone else seemed to think was endearing. And I know that this might be a potshot, but what exactly is up with the way he talks? He enunciates so severely and has such strange cadences to his speech, that it’s like even when he’s pronouncing the word ‘cat,’ it’s as hard for him to spit out as ‘onomatopoeia.’

So now there are twelve, and we begin the slow-ass process of killing one dream a week until it’s down to the final two.

Some observations:

– Don’t get too comfortable, Melissa McGhee, if you don’t go this coming week, you’re going the next. It’ll be sad at the season finale when the top 12 is doing their medley of eighties hits and when you launch into “Let’s Hear It For The Boy,” everyone at home turns and says “Who the fuck is that?”

– I feel really bad for little Kevin Covais — like, seriously horrible. He’s the butt of a thousand jokes based on the fact that he’s the most awkward person on television this side of Melissa Rivers. And he takes it in stride — embraces it, even — but looking at him, to me, is like looking in the face of teenage hell. It’s stinging Stridex pads, trying not to be noticed in the hallways and staying after school for the NHS meeting. Lucky for me, he has a minimal chance of making it to the halfway point.

– Kelly Pickler - I like you and you will go far, but I have a question for you: Are you really that dumb? Seriously. I mean I was charmed too, at first, by your naivete. I really do love you to itty bitty pieces. I’d love to keep you in my pocket and feed you graham crackers. But whenever Simon says something to you, you’re like “What? What’s that? We don’t have that in North Carolina!” I mean, the joke is wearing thin and I’m almost worried that it’s some sort of gross George W. Bush-y I’m-just-a-regular-old-person-clearing-brush-at-the-ranch fakery. I swear to God, Kelly Pickler, if you start talking about the “internets,” we are going to have a problem.

– Elliot Yamin: I feel like the only person who is strangely attracted to you in spite of (or because of?) your resemblance to the X-Men’s Wolverine.

So is anyone else watching this show? Thoughts?