Idol | Kris Allen's Hollywood Week, Part 2: Making the top 36, February 11 and 12, 2009

It tells you everything that I have to rewatch these two episodes to do this post! I remember a lot about them, but not Kris in them. Idol was REALLY hiding him!

Hollywood Round 3

The Hollywood Round 3 episode is an interesting recap of the selection process day. During the day, the contestants are divided into four rooms - three of the rooms will make up the top 36 and one room will get cut. You'll see Kris at 3:23, followed by packages highlighting his roommates Adam Lambert and Matt Giraud. Around 6:25, there's Kris applauding Matt's excellent rendition of Georgia on My Mind.

This is followed by packages on Danny Gokey, Scott MacIntire, Jorge Nunez, Lil Rounds and some other final 36 contestants. There's some room shenanigans, Matt praying that all the favorites being in his room means a good thing, and Tatiana! She was a crazy one but I actually thought she did sing well enough to make top 36. Then they of course have a long package on Nick Mitchell (another joke contestant, but unlike Tatiana, painfully un-entertaining.) What we don't see: Kris Allen apparently just doing the best version ever of Everything by Michael Buble. (We'll get to see a snippet in a future episode and Kara tells us this.) Kris fans have begged for years to see full video of his round 3 performance, but no luck.

Watch the full Hollywood round 3 episode to play "Spot Kris"

We do get to see Kris sweat it out when Idol producers have some fun torturing contestants by moving diva Tatiana del Toro from group room to group room, causing the entire room to think they are getting cut. She ends up in room 4, Kris's room. A few more finalist highlight videos are shown, followed by the judges breaking the good news to rooms 1 and 2 and the bad news to room 3. As for Kris, in room 4 with Tatiana, we hear Ryan intone at 38:48, "their chances of continuing have just become slimmer."

Poor Kris

Paula, Kara and Randy start their fakeout by pretending that these contestants were on their way out, Tatiana starts to freak out, and as for Kris...

I mean, c'mon, poor Kris

Matt Breitzke raises his hand to interrupt the nonsense and clarify if it's a yes or no. Paula says it's yes. They are all elated... Jackie Midkiff, Cody Sheldon, T.K. Hash, all the Idol season 8 greats... you guessed it, they show Kris but they don't say his name, although he does do a happy dance.

Top 36! The Green Mile

Idol went a little differently this time around. They needed to trim the finalists down from 54 to 36, and had some of the close calls compete directly against each other in sing-offs. Kris did a sing-off. It was not shown. You'd have no idea from this episode that Kris was in any danger at all.

The first time I watched this, of course, I was just watching to see who was in and hadn't picked a favorite yet. And of course for the Tatiana nonsense (check out Nathaniel Marshall and Matt Breitze's reaction to Tatiana making it. :))

On repeat viewings, I noticed that Kris gets very little spotlight in this. He's paired in a segment with Jeanine Vailes, Anne Marie Boskovitz and Kai Kalama, that basically shows them all getting the good news and then coming out and hugging friends and family. Kris gets picked up and spun around by Papa Allen while Mama Allen beams. It's about 1 hour and 12 minutes into the episode. Later on you'll spot Kris at the end while Ryan Seacrest announces that "this is the top 36" and then of course, the fun dance that Idol used to make the contestants do.

So watch the full episode and let's see what we can see!

And for those of you who just want to cut to the chase, here's Kris making Top 36. (Notice you see the guy he did the sing-off against in the background when Kris hugs his dad. I think his name is Kenny. If you remember him, let me know his name in the comments.)



Next time: Group 2, aka the Best Idol Group Ever.

Past Kris Allen on Idol recaps:
Audition in Louisville
Hollywood Week, rounds one and two