Finalists:
- Allison Iraheta - "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" (Aerosmith) from Armageddon
- Anoop Desai - "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" (Bryan Adams) from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
- Adam Lambert - "Born to Be Wild" (Steppenwolf) from Easy Rider
- Matt Giraud - "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" (Bryan Adams) from Don Juan DeMarco
- Danny Gokey - "Endless Love" (Lionel Richie and Diana Ross) from Endless Love
- Kris Allen - "Falling Slowly" (Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová) from Once
- Lil Rounds - "The Rose" (Bette Midler) from The Rose

The Theme
Songs from the Cinema. Their mentor was Quentin Tarantino, who completely understands the need for a good song in a movie. Oddly, none of them picked a song he would have ever included. The quirkiest one we got was a damn Oscar winner. And that was the one Kara called "obscure."

Voted Off:
No one. Matt received the lowest votes but the judges saved him. For reasons uncertain.

Should've Gone Home:
Matt. He has been dead weight despite the judges' obliviousness, but more importantly: America voted. If it wasn't good enough for Alexis Grace, it shouldn't be for him. The whole save concept is no fun at all.

"Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?": D-

How Was Everyone Else?
Allison Iraheta wasted her pick on an overwrought power ballad that was deep in the shadow of her earlier performances. Adam Lambert kept things moving with an oddly fitting arrangement of "Born to Be Wild" that featured some beastly vocalizations but good presence on stage.

Lil Rounds' "The Rose" was not nearly as bad as the judges made it out to be, but it wasn't awesome. This was not helped by the fact that she chose another song that has a slow build (memories of "Independence Day") and time constraints made her cut a verse out. The judges do have a point when they keep saying Lil has yet to do the same type of performance two weeks in a row; she is wildly inconsistent.

Gokey hit us with the schmaltz again, but actually followed through with it. Still I don't know why the judges keep trumping him up; he is nothing special, at least technically, and the way they keep beating our brows with "It's a singing competition! But why are you wearing that? Why are you dancing like that?" Gokey's best attribute his his funky vests.

Meanwhile Anoop has yet to keep me awake during one of his passionately lame adult contemporary segments. Kris Allen's "Falling Slowly" was completely unremarkable for something that had won an Academy Award just a year ago.

"I Don't Want to Miss a Thing": D+
"Born to Be Wild": B-
"The Rose": B-
"Endless Love": C
"(Everything I Do) I Do It For You": D
"Falling Slowly: C