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
Boring people getting rejected, Bravery Hair again, one of the Cute Western Shirt Guys gets cut and Ryan is horrified, some girl says "Fuck it" and doesn't care anymore; this very cute, very vapid guy forgets where he is or why he is here, stares blankly and scratches his nipple and smiles into the camera for a long, long time. His friend Ricky Hayes (21, Bedford TX) is a music major at A&M and talks about how performing is what he's "meant to do" and what he dreams about and talks about it to the point of annoying everyone around him. He gets scared when Randy jumps on the music major thing and tells him he has put all colleges on shout. But...it's A&M. That's not very fair. He sings "I Can't Make You Love Me," one of music's perfect songs, and he does really well. Paula is pleased, Randy is rapt and nodding, Simon chews a pen. They say it's a good mix of flavor and training, "beyond refreshing" (that's Paula), and that he has a "wonderful tone." Randy's like, "Helloooo Austin, finally." Simon says he has the "nicest-sounding voice so far, not the biggest voice but the nicest-sounding," and says that there's something "distinct about it as well." He loved it, loved it, Randy says he's "done the university system proud," and Paula and Simon give identical "absolutely one hundred percent yes" votes and Simon says, "Well done, kiddo." I like it when they do well. Why can't we see more of that? Why are we not worthy of seeing the people we're going to have to be looking at for a hundred years?
There's a very pretty girl with a big lantern jaw and shifty eyes who is a "fit model" -- "I make sure that all the garments fit properly...it's really fun." Wow. She makes these creepy eyes at the camera but is pretty funny: "I would like to adjust my necklace, if you don't mind." She's every engineering student I've ever met that's a girl, I don't know what she's doing trying on clothes for a living. She Randy talk about how they could be models together, and Simon calls it the "Before and After," and she laughs but then pouts: "That's mean!" Meet Ashley Jackson (20, Dallas, completely, forever and always Dallas) -- and she hits me in a weird place because my first reaction was really, really negative, but on review I think she's okay. If I met her at a party I would think she was very funny and very dorky and had too much drama, but I would like her casually. She also gets prettier the more you look at her, at the same time that it's less and less interesting. She sings, and if you subtract the nervous lack of control and the twitchy fake sexuality of it, there's a nice tone underneath, a little of the smoke in there, and I guess that's why they like her. It's trainable, but not in the fake Haggai way. When she's done, Paula notes that she can apparently "sing with her mouth closed," and admits that the audition is "not going great right now." She sings some patriotic song with her mouth closed, and this whole thing is the punchline to a joke so filthy I can't even remember it, but I do know now without a doubt that she was in a sorority, and I'm guessing it was Delta Gamma. Simon basically tells her she's too hot to be eliminated just for her iffy voice, Randy says she "deserves another shot," and she dances around yelling "Yay!" in this very fake way. It's fake because I have realized that she is not an idiot, but just does a convincing impression of one, which is also very Dallas girl of her, and something I always enjoy, because when you see the smartness glinting out through the blonde act, it's like you're in on a secret meeting. Outside, Ryan deadpans the best line of the season: "Ashley sang with her mouth closed, and Randy's jaw almost hit the table. Imagine that." So I see Ryan knows that same joke. Imagine that. God, I love Ryan Seacrest.