Sponsored by

It's the finale, the big shew, the last chance to shine, to make it your own, to step up, to take ownership, to... well, to suck, basically. Wow, what an anticlimax after all the buildup.

The judges are introduced, and the basic question is - did you see this coming? Jake says that they saw Theresa and thought they hadn't seen anyone better in two years. Then they went to Edmonton, and saw Kalan, who they thought was gonna kick her ass. He didn't say it quite like that, but the implication was pretty clear.

Theresa wins the coin toss and is first to sing Awake In A Dream. This would be the performance running through her head during her nightmares last night. She starts off shaky and flat, and stays that way for pretty much the first half of the song. About half-way through she finds the right key, but she runs into another major problem: the song sucks. There's just nothing to be done, cause it sucks harder than any Idol song in the history of the franchise has ever sucked. OK, maybe not that bad but Lord, it wasn't good. She tries to do some nice things with tone, she tries to sing a few strong notes, but it all just gets pulled down the drain by the immense sucking. On the good side, her dress was real nice.

The judges were ... trying to find a description here.... tone-deaf? Watching a replay of the hockey game? Passing the crack pipe whenever the camera wasn't on them? Jake, Farley and Sass all offer variations on making it her own, whatever. Zack as usual is the only one to step up and call the horrid first half. On the good side, nice plaid skirt behind Jake.

Kalan goes second with his new song. I'm looking forward to a little classic rock here, maybe some Who, maybe an old Led Zeppelin tune... what do we get? Some dreck called I Can Only Imagine. I've never heard this before, apparently it's popular with the Christian rock crowd. If they're trying to change their image to something remotely cool, it won't be with this song. Can't miss the title, it's only repeated about 400 times. What a boring, tiresome, tuneless dirge to someone's faith. And goodie - we get Special Olympic Idol singing it! In addition to making the Worst. Song. Choice. Ever. (yes, worse than There's A Kind of Hush), Kalan is not doing well. He's nervous, shakey, staring at the ceiling. On the good side... I guess he pulls a couple of half-decent glory notes out of it at the end. And props for declaring your faith but, dude... couldn't you have busted out an old gospel song and been half-ass entertaining about it?

Thankfully, the judges all bust him for it. I think these must be the worst reviews he's ever had. Not good.

Theresa comes back with her new song, Come Away With Me by Norah Jones. She's sped up the tempo a little and changed the phrasing. It's lovely, and I find myself smiling all the way through it. Well, except for the scatting, which came out of nowhere and really didn't fit. I normally like her scatting, but this was just chucked in to remind people that she's Little Miss Jazz. I've heard her sing this in a club setting, where she took a slower pace. At that time her voice was in much better shape and it was just mesmerising, so I'm not at all surprised to see her shake the dust off it tonight. Singing something so familiar probably saved her poor throat a few miles in rehearsal.

The judges all love it, and so they should - best performance of the night, albeit a weak night. Farley claims Norah Jones will be covering Theresa's songs. Can you say "hyperbole", kids? I knew you could. Zack says he knows which artist's CD he'll have in his player. That's a lot likelier to happen.

Kalan leaps on stage to sing Born To Be Wild again. Some more. One more time. Mrs. Dwarf says "I really liked that song the first time I heard it, and the second. But on the tenth listen..." I concur - this particular piece has been beaten into the dirt. We see him singing it in every highlight reel, every visit. Another bad song choice. Plus, the CTV website says he's singing this Thursday, so I was not prepared to hear it tonight. If I have to hear it again tomorrow night... well, let's just say the beer fridge is calling. The performance is OK, I guess, but it's pretty much a rehash of his U2 performance last week - a little too frenetic, a little too pushed. His pitch control is failing him again. It feels kind of desperate, like he knew he tanked and tanked bad with the first song and wanted to make up for it. Oversung, overdanced, overplayed. Still way better than either version of the Idol "song".

Like the U2 piece, I suspect this came off much better live. The judges give him a tonguebath which is totally undeserved based on what came through the TV screen.

For her last song, Theresa has chosen Cruisin'. I understand why she chose it, because it's the most uptempo thing she's done well, but like Born To Be Wild it's getting a bit played. Still, she has her nerves under control, sings beautifully without oversinging and generally has some fun with it. It's not phenomenal, it's just well-done and safe. Which should not really be what we're seeing on the finale. I note that where Kalan added a verse to his resing, she cut one out - what with the cold on top of the pre-nodal swelling thing, she must thinking of tomorrow night like the finish line at the Ironman.

"We love it!" "Thank you!" "We love you!" "Thank you!" "You really take a compliment well!" "Thank you!"

Pardon me, the Dwarf needs to mainline some insulin.

I guess at this point I should have just turned the TV off, but then I thought... my legion of fan is depending on me to report this accurately. You can do it! You can sit through one more rendition of Awake In A Dream! Well, it turns out that I could, but I want my medal, dammit! Keeping my hand off the remote took all the courage I had.

Kalan sang it better than Theresa, but really it didn't matter - a pile of shit artistically arranged is still a pile of shit. It's interesting to compare what they were trying to do with it, rather than what happened. Theresa was trying to take the framework of a really bad song and use it to play with tone and phrasing. Unfortunately she was done in by nerves, a wrecked throat and a really, really bad song. Kalan tried to use the framework of a really bad song as an excuse for a glory noting look! at! me! I'm! kickin'! ass! sort of performance. But the really, really bad song made him fumble the Frying Pan of Talent before he could really wind up and hit us over the head with it. I prefer Theresa's approach. It would be much more interesting to see a head to head comparison on a good song.

I score it: New song - Theresa completely kicks Kalan's ass; Old song - slight edge to Theresa but I'll concede a tie when personal preferences are accounted for; Idol song - Kalan kicks Theresa's ass, nobody cares. Kalan's going to win, of course, but it won't matter in the long run. Let's see where they both are 5 years from now.