Okay, Top Ten. I can name six. No, seven. So backstage everybody seems kind of prayers-y, and Andrew has his arm around Didi, and then Ryan makes the judges that actually matter make out. Jackson and Kara follow suit, mugging as usual for the camera. Of all the processes and products that I'd like to pull back the curtain on, this show ranks right above the human brain and right below sausage. Let's not do that again.
Out in the audience, everybody looks like David Cook or Jay Brannan. Fair amount of gravediggers out there tonight too. Ryan asks the whole audience to scream the name of the person they love most. I scream "Ryan!" Simon screams "Simon!" Somebody tragic screams "Clay Aiken!" Then they bring out the kids. I think maybe Aaron Kelly was the tragic person. Ryan climbs all over all of the Top Ten that aren't Didi, and then we learn about Usher. He sold records and won awards and sang a song where the only lyrics were "Yeah!" and then the one where he double-teamed a girl with R. Kelly, which...
Usher promises that he is going to be a really hardcore mentor and be tough on them, but then assures us he's just kidding. Then he tells the kids that he wants to make them cry, just kidding. Andrew says something really interesting, just kidding. Usher's being really meaningful and sincere about all this, just kidding. Katie's ebullient sense of humor is the emotional lynchpin of the group, just kidding. Then they take a photograph with him and Lee doesn't look like Brendan Fraser clapping at the Golden Globes, just kidding. Ryan and Usher hug and are totally comfortable with each other and their friendship, just kidding.
Ryan puts on sunglasses indoors so they can both look like assholes, and Usher says everything he already said twice, one more time. Eventually Ryan takes off the sunglasses, but not old Usher. Ryan asks if Usher taught Aaron Kelly the Usher Moves, and I don't really care about the answer so much as I sincerely hope that Aaron thinks he learned them.
You'll be thrilled to learn that Usher has an album coming out today. It is called Raymond Vs. Raymond, and it's totally interesting but I don't know if I can do the concept justice. I'll let Usher explain: "Raymond Vs. Raymond is my dichotomy you know one side and the other side of me you know for the most part the last two three years of my life went through a lot of different experiences pulled from some of my personal and also wanted to tell a few stories I think would definitely captivate an audience."Ellen says, correctly, that it was the perfect song choice but that all it took was one derailment for her to get so nervous that she ruined it. Also, that the screaming was gilding the lily -- which she explains is not some kind of Georgia O'Keefe Lesbian Kama Sutra move, but an old-timey saying -- and that in no way should this song have presented the challenge that it did, so even her one weak defense is worthless. Kara reminds us all one more time that this is unstoppable Siobhan, because Kara still thinks that what they say matters and that "judge" is the correct word for what they do, so like many viewers she just wants Simon to be nice, because he's magic and makes people dial or not dial their phones, and that by explaining a rationale for why a person would pity-vote for Siobhan, she is going to make us do it. Which is close, but not real. I mean, I would love if all the Siobhan-lovers saved her tonight, but I also don't want to encourage such terrible singing.
Backstage -- oh, this I like, it's like Project Runway -- all the kids are like, "Damn, Siobhan." She tells them to drop it, and then Big Mike puts his giant arms around her at the tiny card-table with the snacks. It's so shitty back there! I love it. You might think I would hate this little jump into vérité, with the rustling of live mics and all, but this is like the only time they ever drop the masks and I want to see it.
"Tough start for the show," Ryan says, like it's his baby and she just slapped it. Which it is, and she did. up, Casey. Meeting Usher. They're kind of the same guy, so I think this will be easy. Casey plugs in his guitar and looks at himself in the reflection of Usher's omnipresent shades, and then plays electric while Pianist Michael plays the annoying "Hold On, I'm A-Comin'" by Sam & Dave (or, as Usher calls them, "Sammy Daze"), which is such a Paula Abdul song-that-isn't Bo Bice "Love Of Money" type jam that I doubt I'll be able to consciously perceive it when it's playing and probably just go buy insurance, or a car at a local dealership, or condoms, or whatever else this song has been in a million stupid commercials for. Usher watches Casey pretend to sing by screaming and groaning and being the usual Taylor Hicks that he is with a frozen grin stuck to his face, and calls Casey a tool. I mean, he says that Casey has a tool. That his tool, Usher explains, is his guitar. Then they laugh awkwardly and do some kind of attempt at a handshake that just comes off kinda racist.
...Got a little teary, I will admit. Ellen agrees, calling it "beautiful," and Kara says she'd never heard the song until he chose it and she went and found the original, and says that he found and mastered the emotion of the song, that it was tasteful and lovely and one of the best of the night. All true! Simon says he's now to be considered seriously as an artist -- word! -- despite being gloomy, because he was the difference between being original and being sing-along. He says he "believed" the performance and that it was terrific. At Ryan's request, Usher helpfully says... Just kidding, words come out but they don't mean anything.
Big Mike giggles and babbles and is adorable, and back live Ryan's like, "He squeezes me too hard!" Then it's Didi Time, so she sings "What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted" at him, and starts crying all over the place, and Usher is extremely uncomfortable about all this, and she chokes out some words, and he figures out that she has an emotional thing with the song, but that this needs to be involved in the performance but not ruining it.
Two things here. First, Usher says to the crying girl: "When you cried, I actually believed it!" That makes her blood run cold. But the second thing is: Why so serious, Didi? Yet again, we get part of the story but not the story that makes sense, because she's so erratically private. Is this about her dead friend? Some boyfriend trouble we'll never know about? How can this song get to her so hard? It's fascinating. Perhaps she will lose her mind this week onstage after all. That would be sort of amazing.
She's like, "I hope I don't lose my mind onstage," and then looks very lovely (her makeup/hair/base colors are precisely Miss Piggy's, and it's really distracting, but I don't know if that makes her weird or me) as she neither loses her mind nor sings the song pretty. This whole connection/disconnection thing with the emotion of the song, Kara is going to climb all over that like a jungle gym and give it little theoretical kisses.
At the very end, some strangely forceful things happen that are basically amazing, and you can see her smiling about how she didn't lose her shit. Jackson points out that the whole thing was basically flat and sort of yelling the whole time, and that even the Moment at the end was a little sharp. True. Ellen boos herself and calls it too dramatic. Kara goes, "It's overdone, girl," and then for the thirteenth week in a row brings up how Didi sang the song Kara wrote, once. Simon agrees that this was totally confusing because she's this singer-songwriter girl who did some kind of old-fashioned anticlimactic weirdness: They both think she has completely lost her way. Yeah.
Ryan holds Didi's hand tenderly and asks her to tell why she's so obsessed with the song and acting so crazy. She explains that the song makes her cry, so that's why the song makes her cry. Classic Didi. Ryan comes back and goes, "Why did you cry?" And Didi, cornered, goes, "...What?" So Ryan tells her to explain, and she yells at him for asking questions, and then explains that the song makes her cry, so that's why the song makes her cry. Ryan tells her to tell us why the song makes her cry, so she starts crying. Last defense! The Judgery tells him to cut it out, but he holds onto her hand like a vise, and Didi tries yet another tactic, saying that he wants her to say him, because they are so very much in love. Simon's not having that shit and threatens to kill her where she stands.
But then Ryan -- sometimes he gets these ideas in his head about how great something is going to be and cannot hear you telling him not to do the thing -- is not going to be denied: He grips her fingers so hard their knuckles turn white, and then tells the story his own goddamn self... Except he doesn't! He's like, "She sang that song for someone... And we'll leave it at that." The fuck, Seacrest?
You just Didi'd Didi. That's exactly what Didi would do, and tried to do. You didn't even get to say about the dead friend, which is clearly what it's been about this whole stupid time. Something -- her fingernails, Debbie the Stagehand, the better angels of your nature -- dissuaded your ADD ass live on TV from saying it. So what was the point of acting like you were going to, like... You know what, never mind. He didn't actually do it, and she's clearly almost as grateful as she is appalled. And meanwhile, shut up because Ryan Seacrest is totally holding your hand so think about how lucky you really are. Or maybe I'm reading too much into things, and the "someone" is actually Charlie Manson, or Satan or something. Jackie Tohn.
Didi gets all the hugs afterward, and Tim says he's not worried about being called "Teflon Tim" because it makes him laugh, because he's pretty awesome. Except at singing. He's going to be singing the best song of all, "Sweet Love" by Anita Baker, but Usher doesn't believe him or that he's been in love, and Usher makes Tim sing the song to him like they are gay lovers who have gay sex with each other. That doesn't go great. So then Usher tells Tim to sing to an invisible curvaceous lady, while Usher hides behind a pillar and watches. I don't know what to say right now beyond that except that in a sec we are going to be that invisible curvy lady, and I'm pretty sure there will be unblinking Mormon eyes staring at us while that happens. Then they do.
Jackson calls her "like a young Xtina in a weird kinda way." Your guess is as good as mine. Ellen calls attention to her Snooki hair, which is just hateful, and points out that this song is elderly and fits too well with her big weird old-man voice. Kara, on the other hand, says that weird old-man pop R&B is where she belongs, but that also she needs to be young and current. So again: No idea. Simon says Randy comparing her to Xtina was stupid, which it was, and Kara jumps to his defense and then explains that she is jumping to his defense. He says Katie came off cold this week -- unlike other weeks? -- but that it was altogether very... Like that show Star Search, "from years ago."
I can't even tell if that's a burn, but then he tells Katie to think about whether she should be taking advice from him or from Kara. That's a total burn. Then Kara and Randy attempt to make sense of Simon's comments, confusing themselves and each other so much I can't even figure out what the hell they're talking about, and I'm afraid it's going to throw me permanently, so the band plays the show theme song twice in a row to shut everybody up, which I didn't even know they could do that. Awesome.
Backstage, Mike picks her up and swings her around and everybody else hugs her and Katie catches a fly with her chopsticks and then grinds the shit out of it with her thumb against the table and draws quarterback lines on her cheeks with the blood, and then giggles and gives herself a little hug.
Lee and his productriffic hairdo talk about "creating a moment" by "performing a genuine performance." He says more shit, but that's about the tenor and quality of the whole. He'll be singing "Treat Her Like A Lady," which is an awesome song that he's redoing with like an acoustic soul thing. This is going to be good, I think. Usher loves his voice, which makes him tear up, and they do some kind of emotional processing which is not interesting, and then he tries that shit with us which ditto, and the unending pit of need opens up and swallows Usher whole in an attempt to believe in himself and create a moment or something.
I'm sorry, but I don't want my love of Lee's voice to be co-opted into some kind of group effort to help him with his self-esteem problems, and increasingly I feel like that's the story we're being told. Like at his triumph Ryan will turn eerie thumbs up to the camera and be like, "He finally believes in himself!" and then Johnny Depp will do a fucking dance.
Having said that, it's easily one of the top three -- the other two being Big Mike, and I'm assuming Crystal unless she fucks up and Aaron Kelly does something truly unexpected -- performances of the night. His guitar and the whole arrangement of the song are amazing, his voice sounds if possible even better than ever, and it's just awesome. There's a little country and a little rock and some soul and his whole Whiskey Tango thing he's working with, and it's just magnificent. That was fantastic. The judges slobber all over him like I just did, and Simon tells him this might be the moment his entire life changed, and we're done. Perhaps this will fill the hole in him, but I doubt it.
Ryan says Crystal's surprise for this week is her stilettos, which seems like a joke but then the camera zooms to her and she sticks out her tongue and points at them proudly, so God knows what the plan is here. Backstage, Lee babbles and looks fetching and earnest. Back in the day, Crystal told Usher she was going to change it up and put down her guitar for Kara as promised. She won't tell him what she's singing, so I'm not sure what the point of the mentoring is going to be. He says more Usher talk and then asks her to play the piano... Which was her plan all along: To sing "MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO GEORGIA" and play the piano! At the same time!
How amazing is that? This is going to be so crazy good. Yeah, I don't see how Aaron Kelly can follow this, but I hope it's just great. First, though, I'm going to be quiet and watch Crystal. This is exactly the song for her: Not boring, but old enough and big enough for her to feel like she's accomplishing something. It starts out really quiet and subtle, just her and the piano and the backup ladies keeping it quiet, so when she stands up on her heels and the song kicks in and it's just her with the mic, going fucking nuts as you can imagine, it still doesn't seem like this same show. There's much emotion in the voice, and she tells some lucky lady in the audience that she loves her, and Jane Lynch is out there cheering, and it's totally moving and gorgeous and she looks really sexy and... She really can do anything. I know I always say that you're not cooler than this show if you're on this show but I think she might have invented a whole new way to not be on this show while being on this show. Adam did it the other way around by actually enjoying being on the show.
Simon's not so sure about all this, and lists a bunch of things about this performance that end on him cautioning her against letting this process fuck with her. She casts it as a risk and a challenge, not a reformulation -- "I wouldn't ever do anything that wasn't comfortable for me," she assures him -- and he's satisfied just barely. Man, I'm enthusiastic. Ryan asks if she'd wear one of Kara's shiny off-the-shoulder cougar dresses, and Crystal says you never know. up: Aaron Kelly, singing -- predictably enough -- Bill Withers. Don't get me wrong, he's the man. But he lives at the corner of Expected Street and Overdone Avenue, which is where one can typically find the organ grinder on the other end of the little leash around Aaron Kelly's neck, plying his wares.
Ryan nearly barfs from the cigarette smell of Simon's hand over his mouth, which is like five bicurious Belle & Sebastian songs at once. On the subject of Aaron Kelly, Usher totally goes, "There's a very specific line in the song that I wanted Aaron to make sure that he hit: I know I know. You wanna make that more personal." He then performs for Aaron how you make that one word "personal" -- and I mean, just look at what he did with that word "Yeah" -- and Aaron Kelly says that he totally gets it, and then sings it the same pretty way he sings everything, and then I think he blows Usher's mind a tiny little bit. He does have a nice voice, doesn't he?
Well, not in the first few lines -- oh we're doing "Ain't No Sunshine," I assumed you assumed that -- but hopefully he'll get his brain around the key eventually and stop bleating? Maybe? He sings "I know I know I know I know I know" and I guess it's such a meaningful experience that he... Nope, flat again. Then sharp! Then flat some more. That sucks, he has the most comforting, fuzzy voice when he's not doing this shit. Where did it go? Can we call our votes in for when he was singing at Usher? Because that was beautiful.
Well, the chimes go chiming and the lights come back on and he shoots his puppy smile all over the place and Randy goes all over the place about the Power Zone and the Power Note Spot (WHAT?) and says that Aaron has lost his amazing amount of soul that he usually has. Ellen says she wishes she'd had his confidence at eleven, heh. She has nothing to say. Kara wonders why he didn't do anything special with it, but also "liked" it without having anything to say. Simon calls Lee the main course and Aaron the cupcake. Yeah, Aaron is the cupcake, that is true. Simon says he's safe, due basically to that fact, and I hope that he is so he can come back and sing pretty for us.
So, in the last two hours: Siobhan essentially took a mean-spirited shit on Chaka Khan, Casey is really just Taylor Hicks with a ponytail, Big Mike finally reminded us of the point he's trying to make, Didi killed a man in Vegas or something while Jimmy Ruffin played a sad tune, Tim likes wearing a shirt so much he should just marry wearing a shirt, Andrew is the Michael Scott of American Idol and it's time we all admitted it, Katie Stevens refuses to be anything other than the grumpy old man she's been trying to be lately, Lee clinched himself for a few weeks to come with a bastard of a great performance, Crystal's drag performance was as arresting and beautiful as her usual thing, and Aaron Kelly is the cupcake.
Winners: Crystal, Lee and Mike. Safe: Tim, Casey and Aaron. Endangered: Siobhan, Didi, Andrew and Katie. Done: Honestly, any of those three that aren't Katie. Although I think maybe Ryan's highjinks with Didi and Andrew would help them, so I guess let's say Siobhan. Man, that is terrible. But she basically sent us an engraved invitation so I'm not sure why it makes me feel so bad. I will miss her, if she goes. OR, to take the theorizing/conspiracies even further, maybe this is the week of POV and they will keep Siobhan in. Seems weird to do it at Top Ten, but... Well, I would very much appreciate it if they did. Agree?
Tomorrow, Usher sings a song about his dichotomy you know one side and the other side of him went through a lot of experiences pulled from some of his personal and also stories he thinks would definitely captivate an audience. So... Watch out for that.
Is Simon deliberately sabotaging Idol?