Elimination night on ‘American Idol‘ means someone is dipped in acid with their bones displayed during next year’s auditions as a warning to those naive enough to want to endure the grueling process of being on this show.

Something like that, anyway. Let’s check in on Steven Tyler and the rest of the crew.

Last week, the judges used their sole save of the season on Jessica, which means all the finalists’ dreams of stardom are now in the hands of a bunch of teenaged girls with unlimited texting plans. Welcome to the music industry, circa 2012.

Jimmy Iovine’s honest critiques of Wednesday night’s performances included saying it was his fault as the show’s mentor that Jessica has struggled — he said he didn’t realize until this week that she’s been choosing songs that are too old for her, and that he intends to fix that.

While our my beloved Elise was in the bottom three, she was surprisingly sent back to the sofas early and told she was safe. Kinda thought she’d be the one taking the acid bath this week.

That left wee belter Holly in the bottom two along with Colton, who’s never been among the lowest vote-getters before. Holly’s clocked plenty of time there, and since young girls do most of the voting, it’s tough for a chick to win this thing — so we were damned sure she’d be out.

But even after watching this show for what seems like half our lives (and that’s just how long this season alone has lasted), our predictions aren’t always right. It was Colton who went splish-splash.

The judges didn’t look terribly happy about the turn of events either, but since there wasn’t anything they could do about it, they plied him with platitudes about the successful career he’ll have anyway. Which probably isn’t true, but saying “good luck with a life of obscurity!” wouldn’t make great TV. (Actually, wait, yeah it would.)

And with that, seven finally became six. See you next week.

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