The following day the finalists are told that their mission this week will be about letting go; really feeling the music and getting out of their shells. They are all brought to a K-Mart where they are told they are going to have to break out into song and dance in the middle of the aisles and give all the shoppers there an impromptu performance. Some people are really nervous, but when the performance starts everyone loosens up and has a great time. By the end of the song they have all the shoppers at K-Mart grooving to the music with them.
For the elimination challenge the finalists will be split into trios and asked to perform and act out a song in front of the faculty. It is obvious that the strong contenders are Tierney and Stan, who I called on the first episode. I am fairly confident that both of them will make it to the final round. Others like Anthony and Briana are struggling. While Anthony is very charismatic and lovable, his vocal skills are not up to par with the others. Christie is hard to even watch without becoming irritated. She overacts and is overenthusiastic about everything. I also want to pluck that flower out of her hair every time I see it.
Tierney is declared the winner of the competition and she is given the dreadful task of telling the others whether they have made it through to the next round or whether they will be banished to the chorus. Why couldn't have Nick Lachey been given this task? He hardly does anything anyway, and how awful would it be to hear you are being rejected by the very winner of that round of the competition. Tierney announces that Christie (thank god!) and Briana have not made it through to the next round, but they will stick around and get to participate in the chorus. They might be losers, but that is still a pretty decent consolation prize.