Dermot raced through the acts that were safe - he had ten of those and calling out District3's name between Ella's and Lucy's was the first surprise. Union J, Christopher, Carolynne and Ryan were the four left standing. Being 'in no particular order', putting Union J on the safe side of the stage was predictable as they may well have had one of the biggest votes, despite a lacklustre performance last night.
That left us with Christopher, Carolynne and Rylan. We guessed that Christopher, having only just been brought back from obscurity with public wild card votes, was safe and it was, indeed, Carolynne and Rylan left standing as the two acts with the lowest votes.
That was quite a surprise. Both had put in reasonable performances last night. Both had been in tune and stronger than several of the others but this is all about who the people actually voting prefer and, certainly to me, Rylan had not garnered as much of an early following as I'd expected and Carolynne had just not impressed anyone with a song that her natural supporters may have recognised. She may have fared considerably differently with a safe standard as she was confident, looked really attractive and sang very well but just not in a way that appealed to enough people pressing the numbers on their mobiles on a Saturday night.
Their sing-off performances were both good. Rylan was in his element with an excellent choice of One Night Only which I wondered might be apt. He was in tune and it was a strong performance with a gorgeous background and everything just worked for him. Carolynne was faultless and produced a stunning performance which all her supporters must have wished she'd done the night before. As she finished to impressive applause from everyone, she was the obvious choice to stay if anyone was to be judged on those performances.
Betfair's odds showed Carolynne favourite to go at the beginning of the sing-off. As she sang those odds reversed and Rylan became the clear favourite to go instead.
Now the fun starts. You know that Gary would support her and Nicole would support Rylan so it was down to Tulisa and Louis. You can also be pretty sure that the judges had been tipped off beforehand as to the voting and would have chatted about what to do. My guess is the producers had told Louis to take it to deadlock and Gary to argue and do something like walk off in disgust.
So that is more or less exactly what happened. At the end of the day, Gary would have to accept that Carolynne's bottom place in the voting wasn't boding well for her in future weeks and Rylan does have that entertainment value too which, in the absence of a Jedward or Wagner this year, the show seems to insist on.
Louis played along brilliantly and got everyone annoyed, not least good old Dermot O'Leary desperately watching the clock and trying to get a decision out of him. In fact, Louis first said he was saving Carolynne and you really did have to feel sorry for her when he clarified that, well, completely reversed it if we're being accurate, and said that he wanted to leave it to the public vote - hence saving Rylan.
That gave us tonight's unexpected result of Carolynne falling at this first hurdle and Rylan living for another week. It may also have given SYCO better viewing figures for next week by the time the headline writers have had their day!
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