Why yes, I did watch the entire two-hour American Idol finale...

Not only that, but I've been haunting Youtube and Rickey.org, rewatching the best parts over and over again. Like when the guy in the picture sees Clay Aiken and completely loses his shit, which is seriously one of the best things ever. I'd link to a video if I could, but they keep disappearing soon after I find them. Never fear, because as fast as Youtube can remove the videos, crazed fans are putting them back up. If you were too cool to watch, go there now and get caught up. Some things to warch out for in the Clay/Clay fan sequence:

1) When Clay Aiken magically appears on stage, unbeknownst to fake Clay, who is still pouring his heart into an earnest impersonation. The poor guy can't figure why everyone is cheering, and starts to falter in the song, clearly terrified that his fly is open or something

2) The kid's reaction when he realizes his hero is right there. It's a beautiful thing. Seriously, when was the last time you saw such pure joy and excitement? New mothers seeing their babies for the first time aren't that excited...

3) The fact that he keeps right on singing - I think the plan was to usher him off the stage and just have Clay Aiken sing alone, but he wasn't going to let go of the glory that easy.

And the rest was almost as brilliant. Medieval coronations probably had less pomp and arcane ritual than the American Idol finale. I honestly think that it might have been even better than the World Idol show a couple years ago. And I don't say that lightly, since I thought that World Idol was the single greatest televised event in the history of overblown televised events! But this time American idol had Mary J. Blige in huge sunglasses, Prince being Prince, and David Hasselhoff weeping from the sheer joy of seeing the annoying chick lose...