Episode Report Card Joe R: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bo Bice is the New Clay Aiken, Part II
By Joe R | Season 5 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.23.2006
Self-confessed "shower singer" Cachet Robinson (25, Fayetteville NC) is sweet, but kind of balks when Paula asks her to affirm that she has an amazing voice. She sings "I'm Every Woman" and it's not horrific, but it's also all over the map, and not at all happening. She gets playful at the end with a "shoo-be-doo" part, but she's embarrassed and you can tell. She's cute and I like her, and she weathers Simon's too-obvious "sound-proof shower curtain" jab and exits with some class.We montage for a bit as Ryan VOs about how the "girls of Greensboro" weren't having much luck. This Cheryl Hines looking woman nasals "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which causes Simon to lose himself for a minute. It might interest you to know that when Simon loses it, he does so in a very "jazz hands / tent revival" kind of way. Like he's found Jesus and Jesus is actually Bob Fosse. ["!" -- Jacob]
Our respite from the awful-singing "girls" comes in the form of Kelly Kellie Pickler (19, Albemarle NC) who is blonde and cute and comes with her own video package. We travel to Albemarle, where Kellie works at one of those drive-up places where the waitresses in roller skates serve burgers and shakes on plastic orange trays. Honestly, I think the producers of the show may have stopped breathing for a minute once they found this out. So, Kellie's mother left when she was two and her drug-addict father has been in and out of jail her whole life. She lives with her grandfather amidst a lot of wood paneling. The one nice thing about Kellie's human interest story getting shoved down our throats like this is that her grandpa could possibly be a pioneer in the field of AI Crazy Grand-fathers. This is exciting, to me.
Inside the audition room, Kellie is friendly and twangy and winning. There is goofy banter about her last name ("Pickler, 'Pick Pickler,' pick me!"), and Paula immediately falls madly in love with her. She sings "Since U Been Gone" by some girl (Björk? The Black Crowes? ["Don't start." -- Jacob]), and is kind of shouty with it, though not in an A-Fed way. It's not the most pleasing rendition of that song I've ever heard, but it's enough to show that Kellie has a strong voice. Then she and Paula have a shared spazz moment, and Paula asks her for twenty seconds of another song, which turns out to be "Broken Wing" by Martina McBride, at which point all the Carrie Underwood comparisons come home to roost. Starting with the fact that Kellie hasn't the first clue what to do with her body when she sings. She's all protruding arms and head-shaking, without any rhyme or reason. Simon thinks her "loud is the new good" tendencies are unnecessary, but he likes her. Paula adores her and wants to consume her youthful essence, Skeleton Key-style. Kellie is giddy, and starts babbling about talking to Grandpa in the coliseum and Simon tells her to shut up but she doesn't for awhile, until he's finally like "go," and she starts to go. But Paula stops her, because she's gotta be all Robert's Rules of Order about getting the official three "yes" votes from the judges. Even if she casts Randy's "yes" vote for him. So Kellie exits the room and just breaks down, in this very honest way, just curls up and cries the second she's through the door. On the other side, the judges enthuse about her, with Simon in particular going on about "that is a nice girl," and, again, it's commerce, but that doesn't mean it's not true.Shawn de Salazar (17, Davie FL) looks like that mustachioed one from the Backstreet Boys. He's "on a mission to bring back standards," which I honest to God thought meant, like, production quality standards. That if he got his way, the era of chucker auditions would be gone for good. Sadly, no, Shawn is just another crooner in a dinner jacket. He has a mother and a little brother in tow, and he's also helpfully provided a three-panel poster board detailing what he calls his "life story" but is in actuality just physical evidence of his desperation. The little brother is very motivational-speaker ("I know he has the talent to make it to Hollywood"), and I think Ryan is as awed/appalled by the kid as I am.
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