Last night I was glued to the television from 8 until 10 for American Idol’s finale, and then from 10 until midnight for this season’s last episode of Lost.

For the sake of spoilers, I’ll hide my Lost thoughts in the extended entry, but I’m not going to bother hiding the American Idol results because, honestly, if you didn’t see it yet and don’t want to know who won, you’d better stay offline, keep the radio and television off, and probably call in sick to work, because people are talikng about it everywwhere.

So. Some thoughts about American Idol:

1. They REALLY could have shaved off a half hour from the show if they hadn’t done the lame awards. Although it was cute to see Elliot’s mom win.

2. Dear Toni Braxton,
Getting all sexy during a song about how crappy life is in the ghetto? Yes, that’s VERY appropriate. Stop raiding Paula’s “medicine cabinet”.

Seriously, she kept trying to paw poor Taylor who just kept backing away like he was afraid she might try to rip his clothes off. She must have been high. Who gyrates seductively during a song with lines like “And his mama cries, ’cause if there’s one thing that she don’t need, it’s another hungry mouth to feed in the ghetto”. Nothing turns people on like total poverty. Skank.

3. Dear Mary J Blige,
Thanks so much for hogging almost every note of that song. I’m sure everyone who likes Elliot didn’t want to actually hear HIM sing. Doesn’t she get enough air time with her own career? I really liked Elliot and would have liked to have heard more.

And also, I totally admit to being disappointed when she walked out because for a minute I was honestly hoping BONO was there, as unlikely as it would have been. Alas.

4. Clay Aiken’s hair was the funniest thing ever, rivalled only by the reaction of the fan boy.

5. Prince made my entire night.

6. Dude. Meatloaf is looking a little, er, rough around the edges. And that song sucked. I admire Katharine’s effort, but it just didn’t work. Plus, I’m biased in that I think the best person to sing with Meatloaf is the girl who always sang with him. I don’t even know her name but I love her voice.

7. SOUL PATROL! I loved Taylor from his audition, and hoped he’d win since the very beginning, so needless to say, I was ecstatic that he won.

And now Lost, which left me feeling, er lost since it raised as many questions as it answered. Beware, here there be spoilers.

I really do like how they explained the plane crash, very nice job. As soon as Desmond started scanning the sheets for the date of the crash, I sat straight up and yelled, “Oh my God, that’s why the plane crashed! It was the system failure!” (I really need to find some people to actually watch the show with so I can stop shouting all by myself in the living room, like someone on the show is going to look out and agree with me.)

Also, one of my favorite parts was when John stood there, completely stricken, saying “I was wrong”. Yeah, you think? I was torn between feeling sorry for him and wanting to smack him in the back of his head.

Which is sort of how I feel about Michael. I am angry about the fact that he handed his friends over for who knows what reason and that he shot two innocent people. On the other hand, I’m a mother. If I was on some island, with no police or real help, and some strangers took my kids and blew up the raft I was on, you’re damn right I would do whatever it took to get them back. Honestly, I was a little surprised that they got away. I really expected the boat to blow up or something.

Also, I was really surprised to see that Henry is apparently pretty high up. He was very creepy in that overly calm way. And I wonder why they asked for Hurley and sent him back.

Was I the only one who originally thought Kate had shot either Jin, Sun, or Sayid? Before they showed the body, I thought they were shooting at their own people by accident.

A little more info about Libby, so that was good, but I still want to know how and why she was a patient in that institution with Hurley. I hope they don’t let that slide just because her character is dead.

I forget – did they ever explain last season when John got dragged down into that hole by the black smoke or did they just decide to never tell us what the hell that was all about?

It’s such an intense show that I really need to have all the episodes on DVD so I can watch them for two straight days.

I think Desmond’s got to be dead. I don’t know about Locke and Eko, though I hope they’re alive; especially Locke because we need him to help figure out what that other hatch was all about. I’ll miss Desmond. “See you in another life, Brothah.”

I hope they explain more next season, like why the notebooks went nowhere, what the hell happened with the noise and light, and why the hell Penny is involved in any of this – why would she even know to hire people looking for electromagnetic anomolies to find Desmond? WTF?

Four months until the new season. SIGH.