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
Inside, Paula asks Erik what makes him different, and Simon and Randy giggle. Erik laughs too: "That's not nice!" He's kind of charming, and at least he knows he's got some baggage going on. His voice is out of this world weird, very high and friendly and strange. And he's not started singing yet. He's going to sing Simon's favorite song in the world, "If You're Not The One," the least of an unimpressive catalog by the very attractive car-flipper Daniel Bedingfield. This should be vile. Outside, the mom's talking about how she doesn't want to hear him singing because it makes her cry when he sings, and Ryan gets choice paralysis about what to say about that. Erik begins to sing, and it's so much weirder and scarier than you even thought. Just quavery and unmoored by your silly categories and all over the place and...you know Anne on Arrested Development? The girlfriend? Erik sounds like how she sang in the office party episode at her parents' creepy Christmas party. He's so, so young and there are so, so many things he urgently needs to know. Ryan should explain some things to him, stat. Simon gets bored quickly by the giant farce of this, and Erik blames the terrible performance on his nerves. Paula: "At least you knew that." What else are you supposed to say? Not what Simon says, for sure: "You sing like an auntie...your auntie? That used to sing after lunch rather badly?" Randy and Paula give Erik firm no votes, and Simon dicks around: "Rather harsh. I would have said yes." Paula attacks once again. Who knew that all this time, the chronic pain was all that was keeping her from being a mugger?
Ryan sics the grandmother on Simon, who gets a little scared, because like most grandmothers on this show, she is obviously slightly bats. She demands to know why he is so rude, and Simon is actually confused. "All I said was, he sounded like an auntie." She does not deny this, but asks why that would be a problem. "What are you looking for?" Not him. "He's unique." Simon explains to her that she's giving Erik "false hope," but does admit that that is "what grandmas do," then takes his leave. "He's short," says the grandma. "And he's aging," mentions Ryan.
Welcome to the Barrettsmith sisters, Brooke (23) and Leah (19), of Spring Grove IL. They look like two very different kinds of sorority girl. We visit their tiny town for a good long while, and get to see: some cars, a stoplight, and a "corn maze" commemorating the time the Bears won. They scream and run around and a banjo goes crazy as they talk about how they will support each other no matter what happens. In the audition room, Simon asks for a verse and chorus from each. Brooke goes first, singing the "It's In His Kiss" song from Mermaids, and her voice is very beautiful, but in that tricksy tic way of Scott Savol where you're not sure if it's real. Luckily, she seems able to back it up so far. Simon's almost immediately like, "Okay great, next?" Leah sings a song I don't know, about wandering through wind and rain and finding the sun eventually, on which she goes nuts, and it is beautiful. They sound similarly, but have different styles and personalities. That's how low this show sets my bar. Paula pulls some lame shit about how she'll say yes to both or neither of them, Simon says no to both for no reason, but extends Randy's yes to Leah to both of them on Randy's behalf -- one of them goes "Drama!" at this point -- and Paula decides to say yes to both because she loves her sister or something. Something stupid and utterly unrelated, to be sure. Paula tells them to work on their vocals, and Leah helps Brooke figure out that they are going to Hollywood, and they both scream and jump around and are cute.
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