'American Idol' Season 11, Episode 8 'Hollywood Week, Part 1' Recap

The auditions are finally over, and Hollywood Week begins. We're already being teased with visions of people being carried out on stretchers. Who's ready to see some people faint? Yeahhhhhhh!

We follow all the young, cute ones documentary-style, because nobody's interested in the 30-year-olds. Steven reads some kind of poem to the crowd, and they all pretend to be enthusiastic. "Another chapter begins right now," says Seacrest a little too dramatically.

SUDDEN DEATH TIME. Heejun and Johnny are being featured first. Johnny is of course very confident, probably knowing how much the judges and producers love him at this point. They're not supposed to get any comments, but Randy throws in some "mmm" and wild cheering as he sings.

Heejun, on the other hand, is his usual nervous and unconfident self. "All the guys are so pretty," he says. But luckily he still sings great, and Jennifer is still in love with him. Randy still doesn't understand the "no comments" thing, giving a very telling "okay, yo. Yo. Okay, yo," after Heejun finishes.

But both Heejun and Johnny go through, along with some other girl whom we apparently don't care about.

Elise and Baylie also impress enough for screen time, as does Hallie Day, whom we saw in Pittsburgh. Jen Hirsch, who apparently wasn't quite good enough for attention in Galveston, gets a good long look here, and now Steven is joining in on editorializing after the performances.

Lauren Gray gets so into it that she doesn't see Randy waving for her to stop. God forbid he say something at that point. Why so quiet, big mouth? Lauren and Jen make it through, and presumably so do Elise and Baylie.

And now, a montage of screw-ups! So we're still not above mocking these people on national television, even once they've already been sent through.

Phillip Phillips is another one of the sure things, and he's joined on stage by Reed Grimm. The two of them are pretty similar in style. Reed follows up his "Family Matters" audition with "I've Got a Golden Ticket" from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," which is one again filled with scatting and improvisation.

They're followed by Travis Orlando, who thinks he has a leg up based on his having been here last year. Sadly, he doesn't make it. Not too terribly surprising, considering the judges barely let him through the auditions.

That kicks off a crying montage, which also sees Wolf and Ramiro going home, along with Jenny Schick. Crying montage!

Even Adam is crying, but mostly because he has to be away from his baby daughter. So root for him, people, because then he'll be apart from her even more. What? He sings "Walking in Memphis" because JLo told him to. He's followed up by Jane Carrey, who you will remember is Jim Carrey's daughter. She sings pretty nervously, and ends up getting sent home. Aww. Adam makes it home, and his daughter seems pretty happy about it.

Begging montage! "Nobody should have to be up there on that stage and beg," says Randy. Subtext: "But please beg, because then we can put it in a montage."

David Leathers is up next, and he's still playing that ladies' man thing. The youngster is joined by Shannon Magrane, also young at 16. JLo sings along with her audition, because it's already not enough about the contestants. David sings some Celine Dion, and also does well. Dude can sing high.

Jessica Phillips also sings in this group, and her husband is with her, and sounding like his speech therapy is going pretty well. She maybe does a little too much with it, but she still goes through, along with David, Shannon and some other unnamed contestants. Shannon is alarmingly tall.

Erica Van Pelt, Creighton Fraker and Aaron Marcellus also impress, even though Jennifer makes a face when Aaron does his ridiculous run.

Lauren Mink doesn't do so well, but germaphobe Jeremy Rosado, who wasn't featured in the auditions, shows up and does quite nicely.

And then there's Symone, who comes out and does really nicely with "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," and then faints and falls off stage while Randy is trying to poke fun at her. It's a really horrific fall, and it's really a testament to how disgustingly exploitative this show is of its contestants that this was the tease for the whole episode: "after this commercial break, see a contestant fall and almost snap her neck!"

Heck, they even made it a cliffhanger to tomorrow's episode. Yuck.