It’s all over for Haeley Vaughn. The nation bid farewell to its favorite self-described “black pop country kind of mainstream singer” as American Idol sent four contestants back their hometowns' open-mic showcases last night.

Alas, Tim Urban was not among them. I’m not saying that dude has nine lives, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he keeps a scratching post in his dressing room.

Never have so many short-lived careers been feted with such high-quality video retrospectives. Never has a contestant proven more compellingly why she was destined to return to her gig as a fourth-period hall guard than Haeley as she performed “The Climb” one final time. As climbs go, Haeley's was right up there with that pleasant little stroll on Everest that Jon Krakauer wrote about in Into Thin Air. It seemed to go on forever. Was that “The Climb” or "Never Can Say Goodbye"?

Haeley’s day of reckoning came as no shock. More surprising was Michelle Delamor’s early demise. Her version of Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open” only confirmed my wisdom in having never previously listened to a Creed song in my entire life. But the judges—shockingly—had praised the performance. Then Kara made the extraordinary move last night of declaring the song to be the disaster that America clearly knew it to be. One imagines that this was also the performance that Simon was referring to when he actually acknowledged making a mistake. Say it ain’t so, SiCo.

As for the guys, John Park made a classy exit, thanks to a version of “Gravity” that possibly would have saved him if he had performed as well the night before. A more restrained Jermaine Sellers also showed skills that may have kept him in the competition... but then launched another Palin-esque ramble about God and church singers and onesies. Was it just me, or did he say that he could see Russia from the top of his ego?