It was supposed to be Syesha’s night. After all, it was the axed Floridian’s last chance to shine on “American Idol” after a meteoric rise to third place that no one expected.

But here we are, the top two “American Idol” finalists decided after four intense months, and yet the buzz following Wednesday night’s elimination show centered not around the impending David showdown, or on the ouster of Syesha Mercado, but an over-the-top performance by an “Idol” winner from four years ago.

Fantasia, the passionate, raspy-voiced single mother from North Carolina, to this day is arguably the edgiest “Idol” winner ever (Taylor Hicks and his premature head of gray hair don’t count). Tonight, however, she truly outdid herself, bursting onto the stage with a head of fire engine red hair and three backup dancers and delivering a high-energy performance of her song “Bore Me.”

The performance immediately sparked a lively debate on the Web over whether Fantasia was back to her magnetic self or had completely lost her mind.

“I loved it…it was FUN and CRAAAAZZZY! I was up dancing!” wrote one fan on the “Idol” forums, while another said: “What was all the screaming about? That’s talent? She’s lost it.”

Many viewers commented on Simon Cowell’s slack-jawed stare during Fantasia’s performance, saying he couldn’t have made his feelings any clearer.

On YouTube, where several versions of the performance were posted following the show, one viewer panned the performance, but admitted to being unable stop watching the video.

“For some strange reason beyond my own comprehension I can’t stop watching the vid!!! It’s like deep down inside I want to punish myself for all the mistakes I did in my life by watching this freakshow!”

Isn’t that what reality TV is all about?

For more on the elimination show, click here.

Not many “American Idol” viewers expected to see Syesha Mercado make it past this week. Let’s face it, a face-off between the two Davids, Archuleta and Cook, has been considered a foregone conclusion for weeks now.

But notwithstanding the near certainty of a David showdown, it was still a shock to see Paula Abdul administer Mercado’s death sentence on Tuesday night’s episode.

The perennial “good cop” judge, who at least tells the contestant that they “look beautiful”when she doesn’t have anything nice to say about a performance, told Mercado at the end of her third performance of the night that she was probably not going to make it to the show’s finale next week.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be good enough to get into the finals of “American Idol,” Abdul said of Mercado’s rendition of Gia Farrell’s “Hit Me Up” from the movie “Happy Feet.”

Abdul tried to atone for her comment afterwards, adding: “I love you, though.”

Mercado’s second performance of the night, a cabaret-inspired version of “Fever,” was also uniformly panned by the judges, with Simon Cowell saying she missed her chance to prove that she can be a contemporary recording artist and would probably regret choosing that song tomorrow.

Oh well, hopefully Syesha will be taking comfort in the fact that Paula loves her while she packs her bags tonight.

Truth be told, the night wasn’t stellar for the Davids, either. Cowell said Dan Fogelberg’s “Longer,” which the show’s producers chose for David Archuleta to sing, was “something you would choose for like a 90-year-old,” while the 17-year-old’s performance of Chris Brown’s “With You” was “a little bit like a chihuahua trying to be a tiger.”

David Cook, meanwhile, got lukewarm reviews from Randy Jackson on all three of his performances. Cowell and Abdul were kinder, with Cowell declaring at the end of the show that “David Cook wins the night.”

That may be true, but the season’s biggest battle is still to come. Davids, it’s time to step it up.

There’s no question that Syesha Mercado is one tough “American Idol” contestant.

Week after week, the 21-year-old beauty from Sarasota, Florida, has stepped up her game, delivering performances in recent episodes that many thought she wasn’t capable of. Now, despite having been among the lowest three vote-getters a whopping five times, Mercado is the only woman to have made it to the show’s Top 4.

For making it this, Mercado certainly deserves a lot of credit. On Tuesday night’s episode, judge Randy Jackson singled out the TV commercial actress after her performance of “Proud Mary” for “showing the heat late in the competition when you need it.”

Paula Abdul, meanwhile, told Mercado: “You started this competiton as a pretty girl with a big voice, and you turned into this beautiful woman with a magnetic voice and presence.”

Still, it was more than a little strange when, just before singing her second song of the evening, Mercado appeared to liken her run on “Idol” to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

In a pre-taped interview shown before her performance of “A Change is Gonna Come,” Mercado explained why she chose the song by legendary R&B singer Sam Cooke.

“It was released after his death in 1965 during the Civil Rights Movement, which was a very pivotal time in history. And now I’m singing it during a pivotal time in my life — Top 4, amazing experience… I’m just so thankful to still be here and this song just took on a totally different meaning for me.”

Later, Mercado broke down in tears after judge Randy Jackson said he hadn’t liked her performance, while Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell both praised her singing.

Choking back tears, she explained again that the song meant a lot to her, again referencing its links with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

“I just couldn’t stop crying, because I feel like I’ve changed a lot,” Mercado said.

Then, as she wiped the streams of tears off her face, Mercado suddenly snapped back to the harsh reality of live TV: “I probably look like crap right now,” she said.

It must have been conceived as some sort of cruel joke.

For seven seasons now, the judges of “American Idol” have repeatedly told contestants to steer clear of singing songs by Mariah Carey, ostensibly because the singing competition’s up-and-coming star wannabes could never hope to measure up to one of the great voices of pop music.

So, let’s just say it was a little strange to find Carey as the guest judge on Tuesday night’s show. Because you know what that means: the contestants were allowed to perform an old Mariah song, a new Mariah song, or any other Mariah song of their choosing.

As judge Simon Cowell predicted at the beginning of the show, the night indeed turned out to be lackluster one for the girls because of the unavoidable comparisons between them and the great Carey herself. That didn’t stop Cowell from delivering his usual barbs, however.

“It was a bit like ordering a hamburger and only getting the bun,” Cowell told Brooke White after her performance of “Hero.” “In other words the vital ingredient, the bit in the middle, was missing.”

Ouch.

The other girls — Syesha Mercado, Kristy Lee Cook, and Carly Smithson — emerged without being compared to fast food, but they didn’t get any overwhelming love from the judges.

The remaining three boys, however, put the judges in a festive mood. A leather pants-clad David Archuleta’s performance of “When You Believe” was declared the evening’s benchmark by Cowell, and David Cook’s rock take on “Always Be My Baby” received a standing ovation from judge Randy Jackson.

Later, Jackson likened Jason Castro’s take on “I Don’t Wanna Cry” to “a weird beach luau,” but Paula Abdul said it was a luau that she would “love to be at.” Cowell agreed with Abdul, saying that “the guys completely won the night.”

Boy, was he surprised.

“American Idol” delivered its first major shock of the season on Thursday with the ousting of Aussie hunk Michael Johns. The studio audience gasped when host Ryan Seacrest said Johns was being sent packing, and even Simon Cowell said he would miss Johns, who he called “a very very nice guy.” The remaining contestants, who should have been celebrating their own guarantee of another week on the show, appeared positively grief-stricken.

Carly Smithson, the Irish singer whose rendition of Queen’s “The Show Must Go On” bombed on Tuesday night, broke down in tears. Seems she thought it would be her to get the axe this week, not Johns, particularly after raising her hand when the camera focused on her, Johns and Syesha Mercado — the show’s bottom three vote-getters — and Seacrest said one of them would be going home.

But no one was as taken aback as Johns himself, who after struggling to regain his composure told Seacrest he was “definitely surprised” and had enjoyed singing Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” He had never even landed in the bottom three before. Mercado and Smithson both had.

Perhaps the biggest blow, though, was not the elimination itself, but the way it was done. After telling Johns that he received the lowest number of votes, Seacrest made the point that during the same week last year — the week of the show’s charity event, “Idol Gives Back” — the show opted not to send any of the contestants home. Then, he delivered the news that regardless of that fact, Johns would indeed be leaving the show and would have to summon the will to perform one last time.

Seacrest must be drinking the Cowell Kool-Aid lately, because that stunt was just plain mean.

At the same time, though, the brutal offing of the boy from Down Under served as a reminder to fans of just how ugly and ruthless the competition gets in its final weeks.

But isn’t that what we watch it for?