Did you see the Larry King Live interview with all the top 10 finalists? I got the strong impression that Cookie and Johns became friends while on the show. They were roommates. Also, everyone said Johns was the "class clown/cut-up" of the group.
Carly came off pretty good in that interview, while miss-lets-start-over did not.
Good interview with David Cook on EW - there are others but I just watched the Cook videos.
http://www.ew.com/ew/video/idolatry