Okay, was it me -- or was Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber flirting with David Archuleta and David Cook? Obviously he has the same taste as the "Idol" producers, who could not make their preferences for the final more clear if they digitally put little frowny faces on Jason, Syesha, Carly, and Brooke. Or little skulls and crossbones -- all of those kids are dead meat. It's going to be the "Daves I Know" final, and may God have mercy on our souls if David Archuleta wins. His eye twinkles might melt your flatscreen.

This was a predictable week -- Syesha and Carly pushed it to no avail, Brooke and Jason were set up to fail, and David and David... well, they were pretty good. If singing was the only factor in play, Jason Castro would go home, undoubtedly. Brooke White was actually pretty good for the second half of her number and everybody else was a cut above. Syesha in particular was marvelous, giving easily the most expressive performance of the evening and a fine technical vocal as well, although she didn't pick as difficult a song as some. The fact that Mercado went first -- and the rather large Jason Castro fanbase -- could topple her anyway, which would be the worst injustice of the season so far. A Carly Smithson ejection would be a surprise too, but I for one wouldn't mind seeing her go. Her act has worn thin.

As for Jason and Brooke, I feel for them. This was supposed to be the "musician" season of "American Idol" as opposed to another diva season, and Andrew Lloyd Webber night was just asking for trouble. Jason Castro didn't seem to know anything about Webber at all (which is Castro's own fault, but still). It would be pretty wacky if both of them survived, but somehow I doubt it. The musical theme is going to end up costing the show one of its two most interesting characters, and from a drama perspective that's too bad. Clearly 19 Entertainment feels as if whatever drama is lost from the show, they'll make it up on the back end when both David Cook and David Archuleta become superstars. I don't know about Archuleta -- he tried a bit of a love song for the first time this week and he sounded utterly irrelevant -- but Cook is going to make somebody some dough.

Syesha Mercado Syesha has lasted a lot longer than I gave her a shot to, and that's partly been by choosing harder and harder songs each week and showing steady improvement on them. She did "One Rock & Roll Too Many" and started it as kind of a nightclub number, only blown up for the big stage, with a sexy reveal and some antic facial expressions. When the arrangement expanded to use the whole band proceedings got a lot less interesting; Syesha started out sounding smoky and beguiling but ended up just sounded like bland, overprojected musical theater. She whiffed on one big note near the end but that was the only thing keeping her from a perfect score technically. I thought she was great and ought to rally some undecided/former Kristy voters to her side, but those votes could go to Brooke or Jason as well. 9

Jason Castro Jason probably could have gotten out of Lloyd Webber week bruised but not broken if he'd picked something within his range that fewer people were familiar with, but fatally he picked "Memory," which was really just stupid. Everyone knows that melody and thus everyone knows that Jason sung it brutally, with his low register flapping like an untuned bass string and his high notes not even coming close. Folks, it was ugly. Despite the lumpy technical delivery the song wasn't entirely without its charms. Jason was affecting in his higher register (which while still imperfect sounded truer than his lows to mids) and his body language had an "I know I'm toast" feel that some might find a tad endearing. The judges rightly raked him over the coals. I didn't think it was Sanjaya-level horrible but it certainly was a disastrously bad vocal for the fifth-from-last "American Idol" of the season. 4

Brooke White Poor, overmatched Brooke blew the first line of her "You Must Love Me," leading to a mortifying few seconds where she had to announce she'd screwed up and ask the band to begin again. Or wait a second. Did Brooke really forget a line? Or... was she playing the deep strategy, trying to draw some attacks from the judges and thus sympathy from her voters? Perhaps Brooke thinks she isn't going to win over a lot of new fans at this point and thus she needs to try drastic measures to get her fans to vote even more often than they do already. That might be conspiracy theory, but stranger things have happened on this show. White was almost as bad as Jason for the first half of her tune but really, really picked it up when the song swelled up -- I've always thought that Brooke had more pure vocal talent than we were seeing, and for a little while we saw just that. Overall, though, it simply wasn't polished or professional on the level of the rest of the cast last night save Castro. 6

David Archuleta This night could have been designed for pitch-perfect, content-light David Archuleta, the only male in the cast really with the instrument to sing theater. Weirdly David picked a song written to be sung by a woman, and it really backfired on him. His "Think of Me" was nowhere near as good as we have come to expect from the 17-year-old. He normally misses only a handful of notes each outing but on Tuesday he was noticeably off a good number of times. He also didn't give as good of a performance interpretation as the others, pretty much just walking around and smiling. He's such a lock to move on that Fox should replace his performances from here on out with promos for "'Til Death." 7

Carly Smithson Carly chose "Superstar," and it was really nice to get one uptempo number mixed in with all the dreariness. That right there may have predisposed me to rate Carly a little higher than she merited. She was very strident, sometimes singing so hard that she lost tonality and was just shouting. The song choice called for it more than some of the other tracks Carly has howled through, but it still was a little much. Smithson's desperation is her least attractive quality. It will be interesting to see if she avoids the top three. Perhaps her choice of a religious-themed number (even if it is sung from the perspective of an angelic Judas) will give her a boost in the Bible Belt. 8

David Cook David like Jason Castro had a slight "this is not my scene" expression on his face for the entire night, but Cook was better equipped than Castro to coast through the night on a good but not great vocal. Cook didn't take too many chances on "Music of the Night." He found a way to get his hard rock singer ballad croon into the arrangement at points, but for the most part he sang it straight. This was not an entirely unpleasant experience, as David Cook -- unlike Jason Castro -- has a pretty good, not great, pure singing voice. If David had been fully engaged in the song, he probably could have really blown it away. But I can see the wisdom behind taking it easy this week and saving up my ammo for the battle to come. Rocker David versus Little David! Either way, Nigel Lythgoe wins! 7

The picks: It's got to be Jason Castro. I don't think his fans are going to want to vote for him after that -- I think they're going to feel sorry for him and think like Amanda Overmyer when she went it's just his time to go. Jason is a dreadlocked college student who loves reggae, and he's been sequestered under 24-hour "Idol" surveillance for months now. How long do you suppose it's been since Jason smoked a joint? Poor guy must be bouncing off the walls. Maybe he picked "Memory" to sabotage himself.

Six-sided die -- you probably have some of those in your house -- likes... wow, Jason Castro. That's the second time that's happened in a row, the die and I agreeing. It didn't bode well for Kristy Lee Cook. We'll see how it goes for JC.