The producers felt that one.

For a while now, I've felt The Powers That Shouldn't Be wanted a country/rock finale. James vs. Scotty was the ideal, James vs. Lauren was an unlikely backup, and Haley breaking though to the top three wasn't going to happen if they had to put away the usual bus, hand her a cape, and toss her into a jet engine.

But then Wednesday happened. Randy strapped on the cape, went in for the toss -- and took a knee to the genitals. (Or as the Worster front page has it, was strangled by a chain.) It's kind of hard to put a negative spin on a standing ovation without looking like an idiot, and he didn't come within ten percent of managing it. In fact, all he did was get the Worsters behind Haley -- along with potentially triggering a good old-fashioned Simon Backlash, patent extremely established.

There's some extra influence here, of course. People are already questioning the sellout timing on the Star story, with some calling it a potential attempt by The Agenda to undercut James. Unlike Big Brother, some shows don't rank the success of their seasons by the number of people who might wind up in jail. For James, I'll call it a childhood incident narrated by the world's most dubious source and let him pass until a real witness emerges -- but you can see how the producers might have freaked. Sacrifice their ultimate F2 in order to save the long-term headlines? Possible -- which means Randy's backlash-trigger could have been vaguely deliberate.

But the long-term result is the same: James is derailed, Haley moves on, and we should give the Worsters a little credit for the result. (Gawds know the early-arriving newbies are handing them virtually all of the blame.) And now -- well, as said on the ECST last night, I feel Haley's best move is to go solid rocker for the next show, let Lauren and Scotty split the country votes, and surf the divide into F2. (She has a slim chance to beat Lauren from there. I don't think anyone can take out Scotty.) And to paraphrase their celebration thread, it would save us from Two Hours Of Jesus, which is the sort of saving you just can't get in church.

Next week is going to be interesting.

The Write Protests For James threads are just going to be annoying.