Now this was a surprise indeed. I bet no one expected David Cook to win the show, after the ever flowing compliments David Archuleta received from the judges Tuesday. It seems the show, which has been quite boring lately, managed to be surprising in the end. But that was not necessarily due to the contestants, but to the voters.

The viewers didn’t let themselves impressed by Simon’s ridiculous comments that aggressively predicted Archie would win the competition.

"You came out here tonight to win," Simon told Archie after his three performances. "And what we have witnessed is a knockout."

Oh, pretty much a knockout it was on Wednesday! You only predicted it for the wrong contestant, Simon!

However, just before the winner of the competition was announced, Simon considered it appropriate to apologize for his silly enthusiasm on Tuesday, admitting there was a sliiiight possibility that he offended Cook with his confident predictions. He actually referred to his own remarks as “verging on disrespectful.” Wow! It took him a whole Idol season to realize this, eh?

The 56 percent of the 97.5 million cast votes which went to David Cook proved America preferred a rocking idol to a ballad-boy. One possible reason for that could be that the audience was older this year. According to Nielsen Media Research, the teenage viewers were replaced this year by people in their thirties or forties. The median age of an “American Idol” viewer was about 42 this year, the research site reported. The number of votes was a record. Last year, there were about 74 million votes cast.

Another reason for last night’s result could be that Cook was never desperate to win, and was always at ease, emphasizing that winning was not of utmost importance for him. He said that Archuleta had more talent at 17 "than I know what to do with at 25." Such modesty must have attracted some admiration as well!

Although his voice is maybe not as reverberating as Archie’s, Cook proved he had personality and tried to be spontaneous. I’m not saying he managed to be too spontaneous, but at least he tried.

Oh well, and why not admit he’s pretty good looking as well? Even for someone who’s not into scruffy rockers. Maybe that caused some of the 13-year-olds that worshipped Archuleta to get on the rocker’s side…

However, Cook did not allow his victory go to his head, saying that he did not see this as a guarantee he would be successful in the future.

"I actually walked into this with no expectations and I'm walking out of it with no expectations. This show is a springboard," he said, "but it's still a crapshoot."