American Idol: And Then There Was Ellen

This may have been Super Bowl week, but our real national pastime is hype. Between the big game, Ellen DeGeneres' arrival on American Idol, and tomorrow's start of the Winter Olympics, this may go down as the greatest week in the history of hype since… well, maybe last week or the week before that.

Because hey hey, my my, hype never sleeps.

For the third year in a row Idol managed to crash the Super Bowl party, as Carrie Underwood threw out the first pitch during her brave battle with the "Star-Spangled Banner. No, it won't make anyone forget Whitney Houston's anthem from 1991, but kudos to Carrie for making it to Super Bowl ahead of her ex, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.

Then there was Ellen. Despite contestant Jermaine Sellers' assessment that Hollywood Week was "fire, it was hell and brimstone," the flames of Satan didn't engulf the Earth. Nor did our fair planet return to an Eden-like state as Ellen began her run as an American Idol judge. While few angels did sing and a few hellhounds howled, everything was mostly business as usual as Idol got down to some serious culling. Ellen was fine—neither overly insightful nor overreaching in her advice and feedback to the contestants. She showed genuine concern and heart as nerves and anxiety ate away at country girl Vanessa Wolfe like flesh-eating bacteria. And perhaps flashing back to her relationship with Anne Heche, Ellen spoke truth to pouters everywhere when she told the soon-to-be late great Sibooski, "Sexy and scary—it's a fine line."

As for Ellen's relations with Simon, let's just say they don't look like BFFs-in-waiting. Simon revealed that perhaps the British class system is still alive and well when he went all Henry Higgins on contestant Didi Benami's Eliza Doolittle and treated the fact that she was a waitress as if it were a kind of affliction to overcome. "You're a waitress, right? I like the idea of someone like you, a waitress, coming on a show like this." Ellen's sideways glance was a classic, and familiar to anyone who's sat in a business meeting and watched an ambitious new staffer look across the table at the resident pontificating Alpha Male with an expression of, "Oh, I am going to so take you down."

On Wednesday night, Simon got back in the game. After a wayward rendition of "Carry On My Wayward Son" that should have been carried off the stage on a stretcher, contestant Moorea Masa referred to her group's struggles. Simon wasn't having any of it, and when Ellen tried to explain that the group had lost a member at the last minute, he cut her off with, "Yeah but you know what? That happens in life. It's not a hardship. It's rubbish."

So, Ellen is in and the season has finally started to assume a form. The My Cousin Vinny sisters from Jersey are gone, Big Mike is a dad, and a few contestants (like Andrew Garcia) are showing some staying power. Still others have imprinted themselves on the Idol consciousness in non-singing ways, including Maddie Penrose, whose changing eyewear displays managed to channel an unholy trinity of Lisa Loeb, Harry Potter, and Danny Gokey.

Group Round is over, and now the Idol contestants are left to rise or fall on their own talents. Mary Powers may have all the charm and humbleness of James Cameron accepting an award, but she spoke the truth when she declared, "I didn't come this far to put my confidence in someone else." And that's not just hype.