Susan Boyle.
Associated Press

Susan Boyle was up so high and then down so low that she can easily pop right back up. Sound complicated? It is.

Remember when Susan Boyle and her famous performance seemed like a nice but doomed story, to the point where the first post about it in this space was called "Something To Watch Now, Before Someone Ruins It For All Of Us"?

And remember how she got so popular so quickly that it required a backlash tracker to keep track?

Well, I am now prepared to admit that the backlash tracker was missing one optional element: the triumphant comeback. Once the entire cycle has been completed, there are times when it can start all over again, because the running of the original cycle through to its logical conclusion has allowed underdog status to be reclaimed.

Once Boyle didn't win Britain's Got Talent, suffered a few public-relations setbacks, and seemed to be taking her instant fame rather hard, she became ripe for another round, and indeed, her album was #1 on Amazon.com and getting massive attention almost three months before it was released.

Tonight on the season finale of NBC's America's Got Talent (which seriously could be subtitled "But Not As Much As Most Other Countries, Based On This Format"), Boyle will perform for a live American audience for the first time. It would be awfully nice to see this go well for her, but it would be even nicer to see her looking happy again.