Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Take Seattle To The Zoo
By Jacob Clifton | Season 6 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.16.2007
Kenneth and his buddy Fake Dirk do a massively toolish dap/handshake/spaz-out as Kenneth gives him dumb advice about being yourself, and then Jonathan Jayne (20, Renton WA) goes lumbering in with his remedial self and giving Paula quite a start. He tells them he has an amazing personality and that he is interesting and different. I'm sure all of those are true, but I don't really understand what it has to do with the show, or why we're watching it now. He sings "God Bless America" in a very effed-up vibrato that sounds like he's singing in a gyroscope on a freight train, and then the weird haunted high notes, and finally he stops. Outside, Kenneth is like, "This sounds so awesome. He's doing great." Inside, it's not funny and it goes on forever, whatever. Simon's over it: "Beautiful." For once, I appreciate Paula's brand of bull, as she praises his spirit and great personality but notes that he's not really right for the competition itself. I like this new phrase she's acquired, and it's clear that it's making life easier for her as well. She says she appreciated his audition very much, and Simon is also very sweet with him, even telling him quietly to go out the right-hand door so he won't be embarrassed. Paula tells him finally to always believe in himself, and then Ryan makes nice with the boys, telling Jonathan specifically that he's sorry he didn't get his shot, and that he enjoyed meeting him. The total niceness of the host and judges almost redeems the bullshittiness of this happening in the first place, but we wouldn't all have to be sharing this common bonding moment of shame if the producers weren't dickholes in the first place.
Speaking of which, meet Eric Chapman (28-ish, Renton WA), who creates a conundrum that I'm used to seeing only on The Apprentice, namely, his delusion and personal ickiness are both at such high levels that you end up not knowing who to be angry at. He shouldn't be on TV for the same reason that I hate the Playboy mansion, which is that it's not cool to watch people playing out their mental illness for the cameras, but he himself is so aggressively off-putting, and in such an ill-defined way, that it's... you know in a horror movie there's the one guy who's just a dick and keeps yelling at all the survivors and being a jerk to everybody and trying to make plans but they're wrong and he's just nasty? And you think, "It is going to be bad ass when they get him." That's what this is like, only between here and there, he's going to sing a song. And he looks (kinda) and acts (almost) exactly like Taylor Hicks. Only where Taylor could be a very good-looking guy if he would cut it the fuck out, Eric is just weird-looking for good. He's got the Seth Cohen mushy mouth issue, which works like one in five times anyway, and his eyes are creepy and his hair is gray and whatever, he's of diminished capacity, and now he's on TV.