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
The door opens, and love music plays her into the room under a hazy filter. Simon looks scared. As she takes her position, there are unnecessary booming footsteps -- she's 17, and her weight is the least of her problems. She sings "Ain't No Mountain," but with a new melody that is neither internally consistent nor bearing any likeness to the renditions you might be familiar with. Paula can't look at her, just shifts her gaze around the room uncomfortably. Randy's horrified and giggling in that way he has. Her pants are at her belly-button, which is...they're so big. So pink. She trails off, and Paula notes that her audition card says she sounds "exactly like Avril Lavigne." This is so wrong, and so confusing for the judges, that they actually get angry with her. Simon: "What? I'm going to be really nice and suggest to you an entirely new career path, that doesn't involve singing or performing. Because I like you." She disagrees and stands her ground admirably. "Honestly? Absolutely frightful. The whole thing." Paula asks her whether she thought she did well, and looks at her incredibly lucidly, like, she is actually interested, fascinated, by this concept. There's a bit of sympathy there, as well, but mostly she's like, "You really did, didn't you." Paula admits that they've been wrong before, but Randy tries to get her to understand that this time, they are not wrong. She's not having it. She gets totally pissed and yells at them all the way out. There's no discussion of her, because what do you say? She sucked, she doesn't get it, she's seventeen.
She comes into the hallway and tries to slam the door, but it's pneumatic, so no dice, and again, it's like this perfect symbol of how powerless and futile and humiliating this whole thing is. I'm glad they caught so many of these moments this year, because it does lend a certain level to the experience. Inside, Simon's comparing her pants to a sack of potatoes and acts out trying to shove just one more potato in the sack. It's not funny, but it's true. Paula -- and this is subtle, they don't highlight it as usual -- gets up at his first word and stalks off with a bit of disgust. She's so at odds with this entire process -- why can't she just give in and accept that we're talking about a visual medium? There's a reason the Promise Of A New Day video was stretched to a bizarre 2:1 aspect ratio the entire time, and I realize that this gave her an eating disorder, but just because she got better doesn't mean we did.