AJ is a floor director for HLN's "Morning Express with Robin Meade". She has been obsessed with this season of Idol, and takes notes to share with the Morning Express writers and producers. The opinions below are AJ’s alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of "Morning Express with Robin Meade" or HLN. These are her impressions of last night:

Well, it finally happened. After weeks of perching in the stools of doom, Stefano was shuffled off the Idol coil. I think we all saw it coming, but the show-closing spinning bear hug from bestie James will easily rank in the show’s cutest/ saddest moments.

What was sadder was the opening set of the night. Tired of playing matchmaker, the Idol people clumped the contestants together in random groups, first with Lauren, Haley, Stefano and Jacob stumbling through Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister.” The way they sing ain’t fair, you know? Scotty, Casey and James fared slightly better with Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida”, especially Scotty. Who knew? Maybe he should change-up his game after all.

And then the Idol-lings talked about the unexpected trappings of their newfound fame, and they all sound pretty awesome. Scotty’s hometown named a cupcake after him, a Butterscotch Scotty, natch. Casey procured a delightfully bizarre painting depicting him and his dog on a cello, or was it an upright bass? Casey, who sets the standard for organic weirdness, seemed to be truly stymied by this piece of fan art. At this rate it’s only a matter of time before the human hair dolls and noodle portrait collages start pouring in.

As far as guest singers, David Cook of Season 7 fame and Katy Perry featuring Kanye West and his best fluffy pelt vest gave solidly okay performances. I’ve never been a sailor on the David Cook boat and I was too distracted by the lasers and blinking lights to notice anything special about Katy. Eh.

At the bottom of the show, we were presented with a familiar sight: Jacob, Haley and Stefano made encore appearances in the bottom three, before Ryan whispered “You’re safe” and Haley got to scamper back to the watermelon patch from whence she came. See? Ryan can be nice sometimes. And so, with the lights dimmed, America, Stefano was called out. Truthfully, it looked as if his last performance was one long, excellent sigh of relief. He has never sounded better. Was it his time, or would you rather have seen someone else out the door?