Each contestant performed twice, paying tribute to Prince and also singing a song from his or her birth year. And in the end, after two hours of live coast-to-coast voting, Catie Turner and Jurnee were sent home.
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On Monday, they described their experiences and what's next for them as they prepare to embark on the American Idol Live tour this summer.
Jurnee started out the night strong, electrifying the crowd by kicking off the show with the Prince classic "Kiss." It was a highlight of her season.
"Oh my gosh, it was so fun," she said. "I just got so lucky. Everybody wanted to do 'Kiss'...I was blessed to get to do that with the amazing Sheila E. behind me, at the beginning of the last episode I ever got to do, at the beginning of the ending of a great chapter. So it was a legendary thing for me too. It was awesome."
Her second performance, a rendition of Brian McKnight's "Back at One," came with special meaning since it's her parents' wedding song. It didn't go quite as well, though, with Katy Perry questioning the arrangement and criticizing it for a lack of "the feels."
"I really just wanted to sing it out how I heard it," she said. "I grew up singing it a certain way...and fell in love with it in my own way. I knew that if I wanted to perform it, knowing that it could be the last performance I would have, because every performance could, I wanted to do it the way I grew up doing it...I'm proud of it, regardless of what anyone said."
Even though Jurnee's journey is over, she learned a lot about herself as her image and style evolved while her confidence grew.
"I was confident in myself, but it was only until someone made me not confident in myself, so it wasn't really too confident at all," she said. "And throughout the competition, I got to the point where I'm confident enough to stand in a room and not compare myself to anybody and be able to walk into any room and feel like I should be in that room."
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Turner was a fan favorite for her quirky personality, known for choosing songs audiences might not expect her to sing. She was also frequently starstruck by the guest mentors, including Nick Jonas, who coached her on Britney Spears' "Oops!...I Did it Again."
The 18-year-old high school student was a favorite to score a spot in the Top 5, until disaster struck on her rendition of The Bangles' "Manic Monday" (which was written by Prince). A few bars into the song, she simply lost the lyrics and stopped singing.
"A mess, that's what happened," she said. "It was just a mess, and I take full responsibility for it being a mess."
She recovered nicely, resuming the song a few lines later and powering through. But the damage was done.
"It's just one of those things where my head and my heart were disconnected, and I was living too much in my head rather than in my heart," she said. "And while overthinking, it just kind of sabotaged me and sent me home, but it's whatever. Now I'm having a real Manic Monday."
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But it was her reaction to the mistake that may generate headlines, as she was seen during the results insisiting she would not take a spot in the Top 5 if America had voted her through.
"I told all the producers that if I made it over Jurnee, I was giving her my spot," she said. "I don't deserve, as someone who forgot her lyrics and this is a competition, and I see that, I wouldn't feel right taking that spot away from two people who remembered their words and delivered great performances."
It ended up not mattering, though, as Michael J. Woodard claimed the final spot in the next round.
So what are Jurnee and Catie's biggest takeaways, and what's next for the two of them? Watch the full interview in the video player above to find out.