Grantland Idol experts Jay Caspian Kang and Mark Lisanti don’t usually like to write about the results shows, but every so often, events demand commentary. Celebration? Call it what you will. This is one of those times.

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Ding, dong, the witch is dead! Colton Dixon was sent home on Idol last night, restoring the hopes of all thirtysomething bloggers who, for whatever reason, see America’s most bloated karaoke contest as a referendum on our childhood hopes and dreams. Are the tweens finally “getting it?” Lisanti, how did you react to Colton’s ouster?

Lisanti: With eyeliner-streaked sadness, with manic-panicked resignation, with the depressed heat of a thousand bummed-out emo suns. JKJK. It’s wrong to be happy about someone’s failure, I recognize that, and it’s not like Phillip2 got ants-marched out of my life, but still: weirdly satisfying. The biggest crime on American Idol is to be boring, and he’d long ago settled in behind that piano, bleating out predictably reworked and oversung versions of songs I never wanted to hear in the first place. The second biggest crime on American Idol is spending more time on your hair than on your performance (hi, Sanjaya!), and, you know, stellar show-hawk, bro. The third biggest crime on American Idol is everything that Phillip Phillips does while touching a guitar. Why does it always come back to that guy? GET OUT OF MY MIND, PHILLIP DAVID MATTHEWS PHILLIPS-PHILLIPS! OK, I’m done.

I dunno, maybe he went to the Jesus stuff too early. Probably that.

Kang: Huzzah! We no longer have to stare uncomfortably at his octagonal head with its tawny fringe. We no longer have to think, “Well, that was competent, I guess, but my soul died somewhere in the second verse.” We no longer have to consider the ramifications of a Colton Dixon victory on our continued desire to reside in these here United States of America.

Godspeed, Colton. May you play sold-out malls in Peoria, Illinois, and ravage the cast of iCarly. May you show up at the Idol finale in three years, singing a heartfelt song about your sister. May you rhyme “heart” with “start” and “pain” with “rain.”

Here’s your good-bye from Grantland.