Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Programmed To Receive
By Jacob Clifton | Season 6 | Episode 5 | Aired on 01.30.2007
Simon answers the song's eponymous question ("Should I Stay Or Should I Go") with a strong Column B, and compares her style to "Cher, after she's been to the dentist." He pronounces her very odd and expresses a dubious feeling about her true "rocker" status. Everything gets stupid and horrible, as Marianna starts begging and whining and being just cringingly stupid and annoying. And I'll tell you, it's hard to watch, because there are so many questions, like, A) How often does this work/has this worked in the past? B) Just how much of a ho-bag are you in reality? And most especially, C) This is how you solve problems? Not by becoming a better singer, but just by begging? This is Strategy One? What a lazy, grotesque, sickening, pathetic way to get through life. The correct answer to "No" is never "Please." Have some fucking self-respect.
She begs and begs for one billion years and wigs out and embarrasses herself some more, and they are trying to get rid of her, and like she's already not annoying enough, she brings in her slutty mom, aka the Root of the Issue, who responds by...begging the judges to give her daughter another chance. Like IMMEDIATELY, that's her response. I hate their whole stupid goddamn family. Then: a montage of people begging. I never wanted so badly to be able to kick people inside my TV in my whole life. A girl bounces her boobs around and begs, a totally hot guy begs, a girl starts to have a meltdown, a cute girl gets on her hands and knees, a "true artist" is "stunned" by their decision, a girl screams with a blower in her hair, begging begging begging, Olivia Newton-John crosses her eyes, which I guess is the only other expression she can do now, the bouncing boob girl offers to do some cartwheels, a girl goes fully nuts right in front of them, Ryan begs in VO for them to have some self-respect, but that's asking...just so much. Too much, apparently. I could have done without seeing that whole sequence. Please promise me you'll never act like that. You're losing so much more than you could possibly gain.
Alaina Alexander (24) explains that being adorable, talented, funny, and well-spoken, with a crazy hot boyfriend and a great body, can be incredibly hard, and that lately the burden of being gorgeous in LA has been of such terrible weight that she's actually considered college. OMG! Why not just slit your own throat and be done with it! Nothing says "giving up on the future" like higher education. Luckily, to make a long story short, she sings awesome and Simon loves her very, very much, and they make her cry, and the judges chase away those collegiate nightmares for at least a couple months. I don't mean to be rude, she's probably my favorite girl we've seen so far this year, top three with Chris and Blake, but...honey, it's not that hard. The secret of life is that it's not that hard.