Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bo Bice is the New Clay Aiken, Part III
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on 01.30.2006
Then comes fucking R.J. Ryan introduces him as "truly extraordinary," because he "loves himself more than Simon." The thing about cockiness and overconfidence is that you only notice it when the seams are showing, like this kid here. Ronnie "R.J." Norman (21, Tyler TX) does a good impression of That Guy, but there's a weakness behind it -- you can always tell because the eyes go searching while he's talking, because he's going to tailor the performance to you. And as well, see, he's not that good at it. ["My initial reaction was that he has an older brother who is That Guy, so…you know, everything that goes along with that. …How boring are these audition rounds that I have sibling-order theories about these people?" -- Sars] He is, though, terribly annoying and terribly inauthentic about everything, which bums me out. He gives this long speech about how "People call me R.J., my friends call me R.J., everybody calls me R.J. because everybody's my friend," with this smug, fake smirk at this, and like, actual guys like this don't sell it like this. They don't have to. He is a fucked-up amount of gorgeous, and it has done him no favors, is what I'm saying. "People think I'm cocky, but I'm confident," he says, and it's just like the "I'm conceited" girl -- he has no idea what he's talking about. People think he's smarmy, I'm guessing, but there's no way to spin that.
He admits to having sex with old lonely women for cash, and creeps out Boring Allison from Chapel Hill with like sixteen flirts-gone-wrong in a row, but later on we'll see how she was able to get over it. He flashes this egregious smile when he enters, and the judges are quite taken, because they like nothing better than that which is on the surface. He should have something dreadful happen to him, really painful and traumatic but not life-threatening (my notes say, "I wish his plane would blow a back door seal"), and maybe that would give him some kind of reality. I mean, don't touch the face, but anything else would be fine. And so but the pisser here is that he has a beautiful, beautiful voice. He sings "Ain't No Sunshine" and it's like he produces actual sunshine. At 21 this person has already had more sex than most people will have in their lives, and I bet he's good at it, but I sure hope he is, because it's like all he's good for. He gets through easily, and Allison jumps his bones outside because she's like his only friend. He tries to talk some more too-cool into the camera, but we're onto him and not even the ham-handed editing of this show can sell this Giant Ego talk. "Okay, Randy said I was flat at the end...I know he knows what he's doing, but I've got a good ear too." Inside, Paula screams as Randy jokes that the kid was horrible.