This time, the drama was on the stage for Shawn Mayer, the "Nashville Star" finalist from May City.

For the first time, she was in the bottom two on the NBC show. Fortunately, the show has gone back to eliminating one performer at a time. It didn't hurt that the act standing next to her -- Laura & Sophie -- sounded bad and acted worse in the episode a week earlier. (Did I mention that their elimination should involve a trap door and a shark tank?)

Shawn, on the other hand, gave the judges a performance that could buy her another week, or two, on the show. She got praises -- and this time a "but" wasn't tacked on to the end of the kind words.

First the elimination:

Billy Ray Cyrus only waited 11 second to tell us the name of the act whose "Nashville Star dream is coming to an end." (Last week the pregnant pause and scary music lasted 26 seconds.) Honestly, I thought he was going to say "Shawn Mayer."

Laura & Sophie were the first to perform in the bottom two acts and they got the "5" at the end of the 1-866 voting number. I didn't think the show would assign the numbers 1-2-3-4, then skip the 5 and give an active contestant the 6.

But it was Laura & Sophie who were sent home. (And, I never did figure out which one was Laura and which one was Sophie.) The judges weren't too thrilled, but I thought the Ohio duo left on a reasonably good note with "Picture to Burn." The song suited them. Jewel thought their harmonies were getting worse and worse, but I thought it was just a shade better in what turned out to be their last performance.

It was a life-saving decision by the viewing audience because I thought those two girls were going to kill each other. Or Jewel.

Now back to Shawn:

I handicap these kinds of shows almost immediately. When I compared Shawn's performance of "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart" in the season premiere to the other 11 performances, I thought a top-half finish was a perfectly reasonable outcome for her on the show. Gabe Garcia and Melissa Lawson have consistently struck me as the most studio-ready. I thought Tommy Stanley and Ashlee Hewitt would be right there in the middle pack with Shawn.

I thought she was very good. The judges liked her more than I expected them to Monday night. (They usually like her less than I expect them to, so it was a nice change.) I hope it inspired some votes. I think it's going to be close.

The other contenders:

Ashlee Hewitt sang "Cowboy Take Me Away" and she reminded me a lot of Jewel with the performance. I do think her understated style works, but probably doesn't help her win a reality show signing competition.

Gabe Garcia sang "Must Be Doin' Something Right." It really hard to find fault in his performances. He's very, very consistent. Jewel's right. He probably needs to draw the audience in a little more. He doesn't surprise you and that could make the voters a little complacent.

Coffey took on "It's Your Love." The judges saw how emotional he got and cut him tons of slack. I won't. He should have been gone right after Third Town. They aren't doing the show any favors by helping him stick around. Nice guy. Nice, nice guy, it seems. But the fifth-best singer out of 45,000 auditions? Singing "Umbrella" and "Proud Mary?" I don't get it.

Melissa Lawson sang "My Baby Loves Me." The judges were right. The performance was actually a little cheesy -- well they used "over-the-top" and "over-sang." She's so polished that she doesn't have a real clunker, though.

Shawn should still be OK Monday night and that's huge for her. It's original song week and Jewel hinted a few episodes ago that she wanted to see Shawn make it to that theme. People have got to come to their senses about Coffey though.