The final winner was ultimately the final ‘American Idol’ surprise

“American Idol” had promised us a night of surprises. But the biggest surprise of the show’s final finale wasn’t the fact that Season 1 co-host Brian Dunkleman returned to make his peace with Ryan Seacrest, or that Carrie Underwood showed up to duet with Keith Urban, or that Simon Cowell strolled out to make Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson cringe, or that a cute little girl from New Orelans’ Ninth Ward turned up to sing “What a Wonderful World” alongside Harry Connick Jr.​

It wasn’t that every “Idol” winner in its 15-year history and a slew of contestants who hadn’t won returned to the show’s stage to perform. (It would probably take me less time to list the contestants who didn’t show up than the ones who did.) It wasn’t even that Larry “Pants on the Ground” Platt or William “She Bangs” Hung (and um, was that Sanjaya?) came back to do their strange things.

No, the biggest shocker of the “American Idol” Season 15 finale turned out to be the winner: Trent Harmon, the 25-year-old Mississippi farm boy and waiter at his family restaurant, the earnest fellow who trained himself not to make silly faces when he sang and wrote every word the judges ever told him down in a tattered leather-bound journal, the guy who suffered through Hollywood Week sweating and struggling with mono and still managed to make it all the way to the finale, crossed the finish line to snatch the crown away from the distinctive head of La’Porsha Renae on Thursday night.