Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Take Seattle To The Zoo
By Jacob Clifton | Season 6 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.16.2007
Coming into the room, she's so very confident and beautiful and mind-blowingly gigantic. They stare. Anna Kearns (20, Wichita Falls TX), who was in the Air Force originally but whose weak heart got noticed a week before graduation, which sucks so bad! Kearns, I love you! I hope she wins. She sings "Respect" very awesomely while dancing in a very tall and amazing way, Simon whispering that she's the tallest girl he ever did see. Afterwards, he notes the total loudness of her singing, and Randy agrees -- she smiles: "I got excited" -- and Simon says she's interesting, if old-fashioned and over the top. Randy and Paula, stupidly, start growling at Simon and don't stop. Anna and Simon stare at them as the growling continues. Simon, pissed now, asks if they're done, and they're like, "What, dude?" and keep growling, so he opts out of the entire audition and pretends to take a nap. Which I get where he's coming from, but it's obvious that this means he doesn't have to give an opinion, because she's obviously a yes from the other two, so everybody wins and she's going to Hollywood. She is very happy -- and Ryan almost giggles -- while inside Simon notes that they're sending a giraffe to Hollywood. Paula laughs about how awesome Hollywood is going to be, with her towering over everybody like a movie about a giant girl that sings Motown and will smash you. Outside, Anna dances around and cracks jokes with Ryan. I want her to put him on her shoulder and go down to the corner for Slurpees. Not because that interests me personally, but I think it would delight Ryan Seacrest, who really needs some cheering up this week.
Losers losers losers crying at the camera about how talented they are, and then this year's Lisa Tucker: Jordin Sparks (16, Glendale AZ), all professional smiles and Dakota Fanning manners. They're blown away by her absolutely magnetic, mesmerizing presence, and everybody talks crazy for awhile until she offers to sing her song for them, which is "Because You Loved Me," a song Simon loves. Of course he does. She's so beautiful, with tons of hair and a lovely speaking and singing voice, confident enough to get tricksy without being irritating. The whole time she's singing, Randy and Simon whisper about how she's the best they've seen in Seattle, and Paula just loves her. "You're beautiful. I loved you. Love your voice." Randy says he was blown away by her voice, and they bring up that her dad is Phillippi Sparks, who played "corner" opposite Jason Sehorn in the NFL. I don't know what those words mean, and Simon makes a very funny and elegant joke about "Right, right, yeah. Of course. Phillippi Sparks, my hero. Love that guy." The other two crack on him, and Jordin stares at them, and a little bit of her age adorably peeks out when Randy jokes that Simon "knows a lot about cricket," and Jordin's grin drops to the floor like she thinks he just said something really insulting without knowing it. It's really cute and touching, how she gets concerned right away, instead of just playing along with the five layers of meta-joke that just happened. So sweet. Simon gives his opinion last, which is that he likes sugar in his coffee, but also moderation in everything, and that she was too sugary sweet. The others bitch and moan, but they are on the same page: "I like you. This is constructive advice," he says, and she somehow figures out a way to say, "I know that, duh. Shut your cronies up because they're yelling for no reason." Randy calls her a natural and perfect, Paula loved it; Simon tempers all this ass-kissing with a bunch of "it was great but not perfect" over-praise stuff, jokes that it's a No from Paula but a Yes from him, and then outside she jumps about adorably. Ryan voices over that her voice stood out by a mile, and that again, only seven people made it through. Who were they? Don't know.