Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bo Bice Is The New Clay Aiken, Part I
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.16.2006
Erik Mena (23, Monterey Park CA) seems nice. He talks in a charming way, and his body is very huggy, what we called a "sweater guy" in college, and he seems to mean well. Sadly, though, he looks like a toucher. Like a person who will touch you when you're not ready for it, like on the subway or at a grocery store, or like you shouldn't let him babysit. That may or may not be his fault, and I hope it's not true, but them's the breaks. He is also a horrible singer, singing "The Way You Look Tonight" with a weird accent and some strange tea ceremony movements and a general inward-turning lack of presence. He trails off and he and Simon stare at each other for a million years while Western movie face-off music plays, and he refuses to leave or think, and finally asks, "Should I go?" and Simon nods and winks not unkindly.
There are a bunch of weird cowboys that talk strangely, like Idaho Mormons, like a religious sect that only trades and mates in its own small area. They are there in support of Garet Johnson (18, Veteran WY), who is...immensely uncomfortable at all times. Talking to Ryan, talking to anybody, you keep thinking he's going to cover his face and get it together, but he never does. We learn that he sings to a turkey. A particular one. To be honest, I only understand about 30% of what he says. He's like one of those feral children who had to invent being human from scratch. He is adorable, and I like him, but he's got a ton of disadvantages coming in. He's wearing Wranglers and boots and a hat and the whole thing, and he spends like five minutes trying to come up with the name of the song he's going to sing. He knows it's by Elton John, but that's like all he knows. He has a squeaky little voice and is incredibly squirmy and squirrelly. He's painfully nervous and just keeps mentioning that he only sings to a turkey. Finally they're like, "Just sing it." And a freaky different voice comes out of him -- and gets the echo -- a deep, powerful voice that's clearly wonderful, if momentarily fucked by nerves. Simon levels with him that there's "a good voice in there somewhere," and they string him along for a while about how he is too poor for voice lessons, forcing him to admit to his poverty over and over, and Randy brings up a really good idea that would never occur to me, which is: church. Garet admits that this is the first time he's ever tried singing in front of a non-turkey human being. Paula tells him how proud she is of him; they bug him some more about how poor he is, and ask if he's ever been on a plane. He geeks out majorly and admits that he has not. Randy gives him a yes because he's incredibly likeable, and they let him through, causing him to freak out and shriek and act weird and stumble around. I've never seen someone like this before. He's like a clone. He's completely new.
Nineteen people made it through on day one in Denver, including: a screaming black girl, a man with shark teeth, a pretty girl with lots of hair, a very tired blonde, a super-tall guy in a black hat, a crying girl and a screaming one, a guy who's in the Dog Pound, Jada Pinkett Smith, Horatio Sanz, a boring white girl, a girl in a fedora, and a cute blonde.
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