OK, when David Cook said at the beginning that for him the competition was already over, he was apparently telegraphing his choices for the entire evening. He picked Collective Soul’s “The World I Know” as his final song and sang it essentially straight, meaning he’s seemingly auditioning material for his album instead of trying to actually win the show.David Archuleta’s reprise of “Imagine” was essentially checkmate. His version wasn’t as good as the first time he did the song, but it was definitely more “Idol”-ish and will likely guarantee him a victory. It will also mean that in the off-season “Idol” will have to figure out how to retool its rules and manipulations to generate a more salable winner next season.
This wasn’t really a duel to the death as “Idol” kept hyping it. It was more like a semi-spirited debate where Archie convinced Cook-ie that he didn’t really want to win and Cook agreed.