GLEE PROJECT RUNDOWN: The Top 8 Tackle Duets

This week on THE GLEE PROJECT, the contestants were paired up for duets for their homework assignment: Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now". 

Samuel and Lindsay are paired, leading Samuel to declare that it's going to be "a real challenge" to pretend that he's in love with the overly confident Lindsay. Damian and Hannah, Marissa and Cameron, and Alex and an uncomfortable Mattheus complete the pairings.

Darren Criss returns to mentor the cast, watching their duet performances and choosing Marissa as the challenge winner. She then chooses Samuel to do the main challenge with, despite having an unspoken understanding with Cameron that she would keep him as her partner.

Darren pairs Matheus with Damian, Cameron with Lindsay, and Alex with Hannah for the main challenge; each of the pairs will get an individual music video.

Damian and Matheus struggle during a super cheesy rendition of "The Lady Is a Tramp," featuring a cameo from homework winner Marissa. Hannah and Alex take on "Nowadays" from CHICAGO, with Alex in drag asserting that he now "wants to play the female roles." He has the vocal range to match his ambition, as he tells Matheus in no uncertain terms during a shooting break.

Marissa and Samuel are given "Don't You Want Me," complete with a smooch assigned by the video's director, Erik White.

Finally, Cameron and Lindsay are given a holiday spin with "Baby It's Cold Outside." Taking a page from Marissa's book, Lindsay kisses Cameron at the end of the video; he promptly calls his mother after the video wraps, telling her what happened and that he feels like he cheated on his girlfriend.

In a new spin in theme with this week, six contestants in their duet pairings are up for elimination: Hannah and Alex, Damian and Matheus, and Lindsay and Cameron don't meet the mark and must perform in front of the judges to determine who will go home.

Hannah and Alex bring Amy Winehouse's "Valerie" to the table and earn high praise from Ryan Murphy, who's just as impressed with the fact that Alex performed in drag for their music video as he is with their infectious performance.

Damian and Matheus don't fare quite so well, gesturing akwardly at one another over a lackluster cover of "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" while wearing brightly colored galoshes. After the performance, Damian and Matheus tell Ryan that Alex was bragging about his vocal range - both of them attribute Matheus's lack of confidence to that fact.

Lindsay and Cameron are assigned "River Deep, Mountain High" and give a strong performance, but before they get much of a critique Ryan tells them that he heard that Cameron "got a smacker he wasn't expecting, and you cried, and you called your mother." Cameron initially looks embarrassed - that description of the events isn't exactly inaccurate - but Ryan tells him that he's looking for a religious character to put on the show and that it could very well be him.

Still, after all three performances, it's Cameron, Alex, and Matheus who land in the bottom three. When they're assembled in front of the judges, Alex apologizes to Matheus but it doesn't seem to mend their friendship as Matheus starts crying in the rec room before the results are posted.

"Don't blame this on me," he tells Alex, but he doesn't budge, saying that Matheus is "definitely putting him in danger of going home" with his comments.

The opposite of Alex's prediction turns out to be true: Matheus gets the boot, leaving a relieved Alex and Cameron heading back to join the other contestants. Next week, things for the cast get even messier as they practice getting hit by GLEE's signature slushies.

From Ryan Murphy, the creator and Emmy® award-winning executive producer of "Glee," and executive producer of "Glee" Dante di Loreto, "The Glee Project" is a 10-episode competition series seeking to find the next star of "Glee" and will award one winner with the ultimate prize of a seven-episode role in season three of the hit FOX show. The series began with 12 extraordinarily talented individuals that were picked from thousands of entries, and an exhaustive nationwide and online talent search.

The series uncovers a unique group of artists from both professional and amateur backgrounds, proving every underdog has a fighting chance at stardom. Each week one contender is sent home through intensive rounds of singing, dancing and acting based on assignments. During the final ‘Last Chance Round,' the bottom three must perform for Ryan Murphy, casting director Robert Ulrich, and choreographer Zach Woodlee as they carefully assess which of them has what it takes to be one of the next new faces of the award-winning show.