American Idol Top 6 Results : America Actually Got it Right!

I was a little scared hearing there were 34 million votes cast last night (a lot more than the 25 cast last week) and hearing the results might be "shocking". But the amazing truth was that Lazaro Arbos actually received the lowest number of votes and was not saved by the judges. That means we no longer have to hear him destroy songs on the show and we now have an all female top 5. The pairings of the Top 2, Middle 2, and Bottom 2 actually fit the "What Not To Sing" web ratings pretty well too.
Candice Glover and Kree Harrison have all the top 4 web ratings, and Lazaro definitely has the bottom 2 web ratings. The other three ladies: Amber Holcomb, Angie Miller and Janelle Arthur mix their ratings up a bit. So I will average the pairs of ratings for all six contestants and sort to rank them all:

1) Candice : 95, 85 = 90 average
2) Kree: 75, 65 = 70 average

3) Amber: 60, 50 = 55 average
4) Angie: 60, 35 = 47.5 average
5) Janelle: 50, 40 = 45 average

6) Lazaro: 15, 0 = 7.5 average

But if we look at Amber, Angie and Janelle, their average preliminary ratings are very close together. There is only a 7.5 point difference between Amber and Angie, and only 2.5 points between Angie and Janelle. Compare that to the 20 point difference between Candice and Kree, the 15 points between Kree and Amber or the whopping 37.5 point difference between Janelle and Lazaro. If we graph them out the differences are pretty apparent:

Here we have the contestants sorted using the average WNTS web rank for this week. Last week Candice was not in the Top 3, but was orange for being the "middle 2", but she is back green being Top 2 this week. Kree is now the only contestant who has always been in the top group, being in the Top 3 last week and the Top 2 this week. Despite being ranked #3 by web rating, Amber has now been in the Bottom 3 once, the middle 2 last week and the Bottom 2 this week. Her chances of ending up in the Top 3 finalists seem pretty low. This was Angie's first week not being in the top grouping as she now is in the middle 2. Janelle actually improved since she was Bottom 2 last week but was in the Middle 2 this week. All the ladies except for Kree have moved about within the groupings, so it is hard to predict what will happen with them from week to week.

But at least we know what happened to Lazaro! The only successful male Idol on the stage this week was the winner from Season 10 two years ago, and frankly he seems incredibly different from that young fellow from 2011. The Scotty McCreery two years ago was a somewhat awkward high school boy with a rich, country voice, plenty of charm, and a lot of potential. Tonight there was a well styled, bulked up, college student comfortably strolling across the Idol stage singing from his heart. If he was on the show against these five ladies this year, I think not only would the television ratings be higher, but not one of the girls would stand a chance of winning. Seeing Scotty fluidly performing the stage as a two year veteran at the ripe old age of 19, makes you realize the Idol producers picked a pack of poor substitute guys this year after Scotty and Phillip scored them two strong selling winners the past two years. It will be very interesting to see what happens to the winning lady this year.