‘American Idol’ wraps up auditions

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And so the journey ends. After three weeks of watching so many contenders parade by, it is hard to make much sense of the shape of the race. But as the final video tribute to the audition trail showed, the pre-season paints in macrocosm a canvas of American hopes and delusion as vast and varied as our republic itself. We have come far in these past three weeks, moved past the memories of last season and are now squarely pointed toward the great battle that now begins.

On this tour, ‘American Idol’ has truly clutched the entire nation to its chest — a nation of borderline cases and a nation of heroic determination to overcome tragedy in order to fulfill ‘Idol’ dreams. Of the 100,000 who trooped past, somewhere in the neighborhood of 99,980 were completely deluded in believing that their destinies lay in stardom, but somewhere in that line, we met our next champion and very soon, within the next two weeks, that face will emerge from the crowd and the halo of greatness will begin to form.

So let us pause for a moment to honor those who believed in themselves and believed in their dreams enough to risk mockery and humiliation to achieve them, and those who believed in their dreams enough that they saw mockery and humiliation were the paths to achieving them. On both sides, you have touched our lives and we stand humbled before your sacrifice.

And now, almost, after Hollywood week, our great work begins.

And most important, I think what is most beautiful about the ‘Idol’ experience is that an entire segment can be devoted to a pair of twins rapping a tribute to the Brittenum twins, and that the show can assume its audience knows fully well who the Brittenum twins are and realize that with its audience, any background refreshers would be entirely tedious and superfluous.

-- Richard Rushfield