Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT James Franco in the Mouth Area
By Jacob Clifton | Season 10 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.19.2011
Then lots of people singing that song, and like you know how I feel about those hillbillies, but that song is pretty much still my jam, so that part is fun. Everybody is cute when they're singing that song. Here are fifty of them. One of the unlucky hotties from earlier, that burping guy that was kidding, boats full of Jersey people, a fat funny kid. Ryan, dancing with a young lady who probably doesn't realize how good she has it. Oh, and you know Small Wonder sister-wife girl is all over that song.
The fantastically bewildering man-singing of Ima Abasumoh (23, Bronx) follows the death screams of awful Jaclyn Blythe (24, Monroe CT), and much the better for it. I mean, it doesn't sound "good," but she sure is cool looking. Frat guy gets hell from Steven about his perfectly normal shorts, because Steven Tyler is a dickhole. They're mean about some shoes. It's pretty dumb, because they're not friends but they're all pretending to be friends. Which would be irritating, but they're all also singularly uninteresting people, so it's boring-times-three.
Then Steven screams and howls for yet more attention as we meet Brielle von Hugel (16, Staten Island), whose father had a bit of throat cancer that still makes her cry. That seems to be mostly what's going on with her: Cancer in remission, and feeling weird about cancer. They talk to the dad and he's got a weird voice, of course, but he's out in the holding tank so they also get a shot of the girls sitting in the row behind him, feeling totally weird about the whole thing. That was awesome.
Brielle sings pretty great -- have we seen more than a couple of people that are not sixteen-year-old girls with straight dark hair? -- in that belty way Randy likes, and they let her go long after J. Lo gets bored, so for a second you can see the anger behind her eyes before she crushes it. Steven does some kind of neck-rolling finger-snap Cameron Diaz impression and then sings to her father for awhile so he can have more of the endless attention he craves. It really is just unstoppable with this prick. He's like the uncle that won't stop sticking things in your ear at dinner and you're just like "SERIOUSLY BITCH I AM THIRTY."
Ryan! I checked out, did you really just say "Last contestant"? Is that of the day or of the episode? Honestly, we've been here all day, I could believe it's the end of the episode probably. I'm comin', Buddy! Who's on the docket? Travis Orlando (16, Bronx) is a twin; obviously brilliant, tough childhood, absolute class act. Really put together. Kind of intimidating, actually. Ryan just about kisses him on the cheek before the audition, so excited and worried is he. I feel ya, girl. So yeah, Travis sings, and it's great, and he's a heartthrob, and welcome to his face which you will be seeing until May I bet. Listen, anybody that can sell me on Jason Mraz has clearly been drinking magic potions. So then they can't peel the twin brother off of him, and they are so totally sweet that it reels Ryan in like gravity, crying, and then he's all up in there too. I can't even... That's a wrap. That is too many things at once. That is, if you know me at all, most of the things.
But yeah, do you remember Auditions ever... Not-sucking that much? Maybe Hollywood won't take as long as it usually does to come. I mean, if Steven Tyler's pointless squealing obsolescence is the only ongoing issue to be expected, then Auditions might not be so bad after all. Or maybe somebody will punch him in the gob and his face will split down the middle and just like in Total Recall it will turn out to just be a monkey suit with Simon inside and we are being nationally punk'd and he will apologize to us by name and put Ryan up on his shoulder and say to us, "Everything is going to be okay now." Because if Steven Tyler has Simon Cowell inside him, operating him from within like a nasty infected homunculus, I am going to feel just awful about some of the things I have said.
But not as bad as I feel about the James Franco part.