Without a sing-off or a judges/mentors’ vote or a double elimination, this elimination was the single most legit one of the year. It’s purely about who the audience wanted to see the least based on their votes.

And being that it was the last elimination before the season finale, the drama was turned way up.

So what happened?

Well, Fifth Harmony happened. Simon’s plea worked. Fifth Harmony was fairly clearly the worst of the acts on Wednesday’s show. But near the end of the show, Simon was begging the audience to give Fifth Harmony a chance.

Mario and Khloe pushed Fifth Harmony through to the finals. Britney was so surprised, she gave the greatest Britney face of the year.

But drama ensued and you had to wonder if Simon’s plea for Fifth Harmony would be to the detriment to his other group Emblem3. Because the next act to get through was Tate Stevens, leaving Carly Rose Sonenclar and Emblem3 as the two acts left. One would go home and one would move onto the finals.

(To me, Sonenclar and Emblem3 were the two who had to go to the finals for this show to have been worth anything. But oh well.)

Oh yeah, and Bruno Mars performed.

Who went home?

If Carly Rose gets eliminated, we riot!

And thankfully, we don’t have to riot. Since early in the season, I had three acts that I really thought had a chance to go far in this show. Beatrice Miller took a L way too early in the ball game, but Carly Rose and Emblem3 fought on. Sadly for Emblem3, they didn’t make the final three even though they should’ve been in the finals.

What was the voting order?

They’ve locked the voting order because they don’t want to give away the final before the final. I have to imagine it’s a two-act race between Carly Rose and Tate with Fifth Harmony as a distant third. But you know that Simon is going to go with the hard sell and we’ll really see what kind of pull he has with the fans.

What does it all mean?

I still think Carly Rose is the one to beat, but now that Emblem3 is gone, does Tate pick up some of their fans?