Episode Report Card Joe R: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bo Bice is the New Clay Aiken, Part II
By Joe R | Season 5 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.23.2006
This all leads us to Katharine McPhee (21, Sherman Oaks CA) whose vocal coach is her mother. Mother McPhee is a turtleneck and blazer mom, for whatever that's worth. We get a fast and furious series of clips where Mother is giving instructions, and on the last one Katharine gives this "ladies and gentlemen, my mother" look that is probably warranted from her end, but I'm just seeing a vocal coach doing what a vocal coach does. Mother tells Ryan that her daughter is a "twenty" on a scale from one to ten, and when Ryan demands that she stop thinking like a mother and start thinking like a vocal coach, she bargains down to a ten out of ten. Ryan, as his soul will attest, is no stranger to a bargain. Katharine tells the judges about her mother/voice coach/mother situation, and Simon speaks from what sounds like experience when he's like, "Living vicariously, eh?" It's 50/50 whether Simon is actually expressing concern for Katharine or sizing up a potential influence-peddling rival. She sings "God Bless the Child," and she is trilling all over the place at first. I hate that shit, because it makes me miss the actual words of the song. Which is not a problem if you're, say, Aguilera and you're singing about everybody being beautiful and all. But on "God Bless the Child" I would like to actually listen to the words. Midway through, Katharine either self-corrects or "drops her nerves," or maybe she just front-loaded this arrangement with melisma and that part is over now. Either way, the rest of the song sounds remarkably better. She's a very good singer if she can keep her voice under control. Randy says she's the best voice he's heard yet this season, which is, of course, misleading, since I believe San Francisco was the first audition city. Paula compliments her, and at this point Katharine knows she's in and is barely holding it together. Simon calls her "very current," but he pronounces it like "car-ent" so he has to explain it. She's very "what is happening today," which...what is happening today? Because I thought "My Humps" was happening today. And that was not "My Humps." It's possible Simon just really likes her and is talking out of his ass, but I will not rule out the possibility that Simon is exactly correct and I am just hopelessly out of touch. She gets a ringing endorsement and is off to Hollywood. She's delightful, I could like her.Ryan leads us into yet another parade of chuckers, including polka-dot clad, puffy-faced Eric, who leaves the judges speechless. Ryan introduces "local poet" Shalicia Carlisle (25, Concord CA). She says she "recently discovered a talent I did not know I had," which she says is the singing, but you can already see where this is going. She's got a big Jasmine flower in her hair. Not an actual jasmine bloom, but...you know. She sings about captivity and love, wretchedly, with her eyes closed and moving all around, "feeling" the lyrics and such. She drops onto her knees, but not in a Rhonetta way. Then she turns on a dime, stands up, and starts speaking a poem about "cries from the ghetto." Reading poetry in the middle of a singing audition is in and of itself kind of aggressive -- "you got your little song but now you will listen to me" -- but also the tone of this particular poem is very "get off your fat ass and help the world!" So you can see how she's lost the judges, even apart from the brutal singing. Simon tells her the "choreography was hideous" and Shalicia thanks him. So they ask her to sing something "a bit more cheerful," and Shalicia busts out with some Pussycat Dolls. At which point I start to think this is social commentary and Shalicia might just be smarter than the rest of us. Then she breaks out some Mary J. Blige torch ballad and I am just as quickly disabused of that notion. Lady's just a nut. She tells the judges that she quit her job for this, so after she gets summarily rejected, Simon offers to get her job back for her.
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