For cinema week, a dramatic ending

In an “American Idol” first, an eliminated contestant has been given a second chance to compete.

On Wednesday night, the show’s judges vetoed the viewers’ decision to drop Matt Giraud and pulled him, the week’s lowest vote-getter, back into the competition.

Giraud, a 23-year-old piano player from Kalamazoo, Mich., looked nervous when he started up his sing-for-your-life redo of Bryan Adams’ “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” from the film “Don Juan DeMarco.”

But then he got comfortable, jumping off the stage midsong and doing a set of soulful riffs up close for the panel of judges that resembled his overreaching performance the night before. (Interestingly, just moments before being told he was in the bottom three, Giraud said that if he could have done anything differently Tuesday, he would have sung the Adams song “straight, the way it’s supposed to be sung.”)

When he was finished singing, the audience chanted “Save, save, save.”

Simon Cowell told Giraud his Tuesday performance was better. “Can I be honest with you? I don’t think you really have any chance of winning this competition,” he said.

Then he ended the suspense: “Matt, it’s good news.”

Cowell, however, was quick to put a damper on the celebratory outburst from Giraud’s fellow contestants: “I wouldn’t be so quick to congratulate him. Two people are going home [next week] now. Second piece of bad news? Next week is disco week.”

After more than 36 million votes were cast, Giraud, Anoop Desai and Lil Rounds were the week’s bottom three. Desai was sent back to safety first, but all three contestants have been in the bottom before.

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denise.martin@latimes.com