Ryan looks weirdly busted. Maybe he's as exhausted as we all are. He introduces the finalists as "a high school student," "an actress," and "a bartender," and does a funny little voice for each. Although maybe his David Archuleta voice is not actually a special funny voice but his regular Ryan voice. I dunno. It feels like I haven't seen this show in six years. After the credits he's looking slightly weller but still a bit bloated. He looks like a coyote doppelgänger, like, you go to bed with Ryan and you wake up with a methed-out clone, that's how he looks: ten years older, asking to borrow your phone and smoking your cigarettes and touching your stuff and refusing to leave. Go home, Trick Ryan! Bring back Real Ryan!
Ryan tells Randy that he's wearing "the sky," and yes, he looks like he's wearing the night sky only slightly smaller. Paula is sparkly in black and silver, and Simon looks the same. There's an insolent ginger child behind Randy that is working my last nerve. Ryan tells us about how the Top Three is always awesome because of how they each sing three songs chosen weird ways, like there's a producer pick and a pick from each of the judges and then they each get to REBECCA! I saw Rebecca! Rewind it! Joe, it's Rebecca! She's just as pretty on real life TV as she is on fake TV. I wish she were my sister. (...Or my girlfriend. Sister! Girlfriend! Sister! Girlfriend!)
Also there's Marilu Henner, but I think I'm kind of done with her. She and Whoopi Goldberg are parallel lines heading toward an inescapable infinity right now and they're both reaching that weirdness of the truly tired and rich and I can't do it. But Rebecca is there! And the sullen ginger child, and I think the guy who plays Lloyd on Entourage, which means that he's the guy who was playing the person doing my friend L's job while she was doing it in real life, so whenever I think of him I am warmly reminded of my friend L, and how she's nothing like Lloyd. XOXO.
...I am kind of like Lloyd though, if I'm being honest. So anyway now I'm going to pause it and tell you my predictions. For the producer choices, I have no idea but I enjoy testing myself on how much I can see into the mind of White Old Straight Rich Guy world, so I'm going to say that David A. will be singing "Colors Of The Wind," because it's twee and has a sweeping chorus; Syesha will be singing "And I Am Telling You," because it's old straight rich white guys and they can only hold three thoughts in their head at one time and one of those is always going to be their prostate, one is always going to be boobies, and the other one is obviously money, so there's not a whole lot of room left to consider how all black chicks are not the same black chick; and David Cook will be singing ... oh God ... what's that song about the ... "Only Wanna Be With You," by Hootie. Or "Every Time," by Lincoln Hawk, because that's precisely how cool David Cook is.
For the judgery, I say that Paula will make David Cook sing "Born To Be Wild," because she is a gaywad; Simon will make Syesha sing "Unchained Melody," because his favorite things in the world besides Ryan Seacrest are that song and black chicks; and Randy will make David Archuleta sing "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon." To. His. Nuts.
And finally, their personal choices will be: Syesha Mercado, "Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing," because she still doesn't know why she is here; David Archuleta, "Candle In The Wind," because Elton John never wrote a song about Martin Luther King, Jr., ice cream treats, or Gandhi; and David Cook, "Closer." And this will cause a riot and the Kodak Theater will be destroyed in a panty-throwing free-for-all by slavering Cookie Monsters, and Simon will carry Ryan out of the burning building in his arms.
David Archuleta's Mayor is even more of a cartoon than David himself is, with crazy There Will Be Mustache and a bright paneled shirt. He reveals that Paula was Archuleta's judge, and chose "And So It Goes" by Billy Joel. She also signs the letter "Forever Your Girl," see, and then talks at length about how she's cooler than Madonna. She says she chose the song for its beauty and difficulty, and because she wants to "exploit" the beautiful timbre of his voice. There is not a part of David Archuleta that hasn't already been exploited to hell and back, but you're free to keep looking. Some mistakes were built to last.
Billy Joel's one of those where I don't know the song until the second bar of the song. Or sometimes not. WTF is this? "In every heart there is a room, a sanctuary..." I think this is actually a Doctor Who recap and not a song. It sure is slow enough to seem like it takes forever. He does all of his wheezy lovely singing and it refuses to kick in, and then refuses to kick in some more. Is this is a Disney artifact? Did Billy Joel write the single for Lion King VIII: Simba Dies Peacefully In His Sleep After A Long & Happy Life, Surrounded By His Loved Ones? Because that's what I am thinking of. No wait, it's the strings throwing me off. You can hear the Billy Joelness of it in the piano. I do not care for this song but it is very romantic, and David Archuleta is very David Archuleta. He's darling. It's fine. He licks his lips aggressively at the end, so... take that, haters?
Randy says it was a "dope" choice, and almost wishes that DA was playing the piano. That would have made it better, agreed. DA is additionally "in the zone" and "in it to win it," "baby." Paula calls him a "storyteller," and loved it. Simon thought it was "very good" but lacking in surprise, also predictable, and whatever. Simon doesn't care any more about DA than anybody I've met in my lifetime. I know they're out there, but we don't run in the same circles. Not to say that David Archuleta fans run around in circles. Well, although Paula is one.
Simon explains that he chose this song because it will make all panties all over the globe explode, and also because he is better than Randy, who served Syesha breakfast for breakfast, while Simon's serving up breakfast for dinner. Also, Simon says that Roberta wrote the song about him, and Ryan gets jealous, and oh, how we laugh.
So... Yep. Don't give in! Distract yourself with his melon-shaped head and his sparse facial hair and his weird smug smirking and knee-bopping. Think about how he always tosses the microphone stand around and struts like James Dean and Freddy Mercury and Mick Jagger had a big stupid pretentious baby! Do not give in to the awesomeness. Do not do it. He is a bastard. He is a terrible boyfriend, you can tell! Do not listen! Do not look! It is almost over! It is not perfect! There is reverb on the last note that is stupid! Think about that!
Randy has loved DC forever and bashes Simon for picking an old sexy song instead of a big rock song, because Randy is the new Paula. Paula points out that while Randy and Simon were being stupid about it, we forgot how great DC is, and she loves the song. Simon correctly calls it one of his best performances to date, and Randy begs for yet fucking more attention, and Simon tells him it was a risk and original, and round one goes to Cook. Ryan says Debbie the Stage Manager -- and Cook's mom -- cried a little bit. And David wishes her a happy Mother's Day, three days after the fact. Because he is a jerk!
: contestant choices. Always the best part, either because it's really good, or because it's really stupid. Which will David Archuleta be? I wonder. He's singing "With You" by Chris Brown. Who I know from The O.C., and that's it. Ryan sends him to the stage and confuses him a little bit because he's gotta address the camera and say what's about to happen right before it's happening. I would always prefer to stay with Ryan, but today that is nearly a spiritual necessity because what's happening on the main stage is some bullshit. "Hey little momma" is a phrase I don't want coming out of DA's little self. Also apparently he agrees, because he fucks up at least one word every single line of the song. He stares creepily into the camera and ... he's not really singing, it's like ... talking and whining at the same time. Tibetan Throat-Whining. And hopping and bouncing a lot, as is his wont.
This is ridiculous! Why won't it end? I did not pay zero dollars to have David Effing Archuleta call me his "boo." He can't even ride the tall rides and he's calling me his boo? His boo is, like, the Cabbage Patch Kid he sleeps with. He calls each silver dollar pancake his boo before he eats it in front of cartoons on Saturday morning. "C'mere, boo. I gotta tell you something. You are delicious, little momma." You know who I miss? A-Fed. He was sort of my boo. He's probably about 30-years-old by now. I picture him raising chickens, on a farm. He drinks late at night on the porch and listens to coyotes. He is nobody's boo. His only boo is the sea, and a ship to sail her by. When he pretended to not be a tiny weak little child, you believed he was not, at least for the duration of the song. This crap is like Tom Cruise in the Outsiders trying to front.