Episode Report Card Joe R: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Act Your Age, Not Your...On Second Thought, Don't Act Your Age
By Joe R | Season 6 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.15.2007
Out in the hallway, the real story begins. Seacrest is waiting outside the doors with the family, asking if a golden ticket is in store, as an all-too-perfectly timed Jason busts through the doors, cursing and screaming about how "goddamn rude" the judges were and how Simon cut him off. You can't take his anger at all seriously, because he's sixteen and at any second he'll probably start crying and...here he goes. Through the whining and sobbing, you can make out, "I tried to fight back..." which is kind of Jason in a nutshell, because his audition for a talent show was just another high-school-drama "battle" he was all ready to fight. He gets really infantile and gets it entirely wrong when he says, "They said Minneapolis had no talent because of me." No, kid. They said you have no talent because you're from Minneapolis. So while he cries, his she-beast of a mother, who led him by the hand to the slaughter and allowed him to make a fool of himself on national TV, tells him that he's only sixteen. "Sixteen and I wanted to start out famous!" he brat-sobs. Mom feeds him some bullshit about "Of course you'll be famous," and Seacrest interjects, softly, that "maybe they have a point, that maybe singing's not what you should be doing." You guys? Ryan Seacrest just became a better parent than this kid's mom. I'm trying to get Al Gore on the phone to see what this might mean for our planet's future, but until I do, hold tight and hope for the best.
Then, in a particularly genius and probably-fake-but-who-cares transition, the camera pans left, away from Jason's Ringling Bros. circus of unchecked teenage emotion, and onto the deer-in-the-smoky-eyed-headlights mug of Brenna Kyner, who's up next. She holds the pose long enough for Seacrest's VO to let us know that she's next -- seriously, she knows the show so well that she can hear the post-production -- and then she darts into the audition room. She's of course Simon's worst enemy, with all her full-figured gothiness. She over-sells the "super-fan" gimmick, as she's been doing all day, going so far as to declare herself "BFF" with the show itself. She says her favorite contestant of all time was Ace Young (Randy: "Who's that?"), who she describes as: long hair, falsetto, wants to be my Father Figure. See, I'd have gone with: needy, empty, and...well, yeah, Father Figure. That shit ain't leaving my brain any time soon, I guess. Brenna says she even met Ace once, and he drew her a tattoo -- a simple outline of a heart on her left wrist (no scars! I checked!). Brenna's chosen to sing "Under Pressure," probably a top five "Love It But Overplayed" classic. She starts off with the "Why, why, whyyyyy?" part, because that's when she gets to start screeching, and screeching's what's gonna get her mug on TV. And now that she's been on TV for at least seven minutes or so, I kind of feel like her Idol journey is already complete, so what's left to talk about? She plays up this indignant act for a bit -- "I don't understand. Why didn't you tell me ten years ago that I wasn't good. I have a degree in vocal performance!" -- but it is just an act. Jewel continues to understand exactly what's going on at all times and points out that at least Brenna got to be on her favorite TV show. Outside, Brenna and Ryan are jokey-jokey about how they obviously just cut their Idol, so "pack it up, guys!" Congratulations, Brenna: you win!