Ryan introduces the judges, managing to keep his disgust for them just under the surface, for now. Paula looks petrified, like Ryan might snap at her at any second. Simon smiles patronizingly, as hard as that is to believe. No judge talk this week, which I am thankful for, because all that ever does is set the fake tone for the night ("Simon never agrees!" "Song choice is or is not important!"), and this night is fake enough. The pre-song video clips do have a fake theme, and that is "little-known facts." Or, as Ryan puts it, "little well-known facts." I'll cut him some slack since he's still glowing the glow of the righteous crusader for the ethical treatment of children. Once again, it's a theme that can be stretched thin enough to accommodate pretty much whatever side to a contestant the show wants us to see. It's one-stop shopping for how we're supposed to think.What you may not know about Paris? She's afraid of the dark and sleeps with a night light. No, no. She's a tomboy! In her interview, she back to looking like Tootie/Vanessa, and she talks about growing up with her brothers and male cousins, and she loves wrestling and football. And now between Paris and Ayla, I'm envisioning all the remaining women playing touch football in the parking lot, and Ayla is permanent quarterback, Paris is the scrappy, quick one who no one can catch, Melissa gets way too into it, and Katharine drops a ball and starts giggling uncontrollably. Paris, if you recall, was tagged as a girl singing great-grandma songs, and was asked to put some youth back into her act. The song she has chosen is "Conga" by the Miami Sound Machine. And it's totally lively and gives Paris plenty of opportunity to bounce around, but does it really count as "youthful" if the song was popular before you were born? Paris is having a lot of fun, which helps a bunch. When she sings "let the music move your feet," she looks down and she does a little foot-shimmy. Brandy -- like "The Boy Is Mine" Brandy -- is in the audience, for no discernable reason other than what else does she have to do? It's a total cliché, but Paris is really making this song her own. I know. But she's taking a song that is energetic but maybe not the most vocally challenging, and she's changing it up enough so that it will be vocally challenging. She's basically setting the pins up for herself and knocking them down, which is self-reliance I can get behind. She even tries out some salsa moves, or at least salsa by way of J-Lo. And she's back to pointing directly at the camera, all "you know what to do!" Very enjoyable.
Randy thought the song choice was perfect for her, but he notes how it "got away" from her at the end. Paula says Melissa is coming out of her shell (I'm assuming she means the truck-stop hooker thing) and that she's a "powerhouse." Simon straight-up disagrees with everything that's been said. The crowd has to wait to be told to boo. Fake. Simon says that last note booked Melissa's ticket home. Which is both true and false, and also potentially really false. It's true, because Melissa is totally pegged to go home. It's false, because she would have been going home anyway, blown note or no. But it's maybe possibly really false, because now all of a sudden Melissa is in danger, and maybe that comment right there put whatever fans she has into motion. Smooth move, Simon. It's so juvenile anyway, from him. He says he thinks she "shouted" the last part, which is valid, but then he keeps on smugly repeating that she's going home, she's going home, she's going home. Finally, Seacrest jumps in and allows Melissa to repeat over and over again how she wanted to "leave it on the stage" this week. If by "it" she means excess mousse dripping off her hair, then yes. She totally did.Ryan and Katharine are chatting on the couch in the RC Cola lounge. He asks her about preparation, and she says she tried to choose a song she'd have fun with. Then Ryan takes a minute to throw a bone to the entire internet and asks Kat what's up with all the crazy rumors about how she's quitting the show. She has no idea, and she is emphatic that she is not, in fact, quitting. He also asks about another rumor that I had not heard previously, that Katharine is pregnant. Is this because of the empire waist top? Did Jacob actually start this rumor himself? Perhaps I should be more careful about what I imply Justin Guarini does in his free time. Katharine is sort of wide-eyed and laughing and saying it's all ridiculously false. Ryan, because he's Ryan, wants to make sure nothing untoward has been going on between her and Kevin Covais. Wow, that mental image is just a pile of wrong, isn't it? It even sobers Kat up, to the point where she's like, "Um, no." Then the editing and Ryan are out of sync forever, as they cut to Kevin, who makes a face, but Ryan is still talking to Katharine, so they cut back, but then Ryan realizes Kevin is doing something funny, so he cranes his neck to see, and everything is a step too slow. The bonus of all this is we get to see Ryan and Kat giggling again, which you know I enjoy.
As Ryan approaches, Kat tries to get her fidgeting under control, which is a nice callback to how goofy they both were two weeks ago. Ryan: "Nice. Very firm. Uh, firm handshake." After all the Very Inappropriate Cinema stuff we got last week, any double entendre from Ryan is a landmine. Ryan, naturally, fixates on Simon, and makes a joke about Simon giving a shout out to the Dawg Pound himself. Ryan's fake British accent ("We goat a hawt one tonoyt!") leaves a great deal to be desired. You know, I used to think Simon was just being reflexively queer-baiting to Ryan, but now it really does seem like Ryan spends an awful lot of time envisioning Simon in various scenarios. Like somewhere in his mental Rolodex there is an image of Simon dressed as a little Dutch girl, and I honestly don't need to go down that road at all. Katharine explains how she just wanted to "have fun" with her performance, as she didn't "have fun" last week and it hurt her. She keeps saying the word "fun," until even she calls herself out for it, and she manages to be un-self-conscious by acting very self-conscious, which is some serious personality gymnastics, right there. And Ryan's like, "Don't worry about repeating yourself, we're used to Randy," which is the funniest thing he'll say for another twenty-five minutes. Randy's like, "Nice one, Mr. Brightside," and Kat tells Randy, "I got you, dawg." Ryan: "It's 'dawg, dawg, dawg.'" Hee. I realize this could be read as highly annoying playground behavior on the part of all three of them, but I appreciate when they act like they enjoy each other for the caricatures they are.
Ayla can handle the huge pressure of this show, says Ryan, "Even if she was a bit confused as a kid." Ryan! We're not supposed to talk about that, remember? Ayla delivers her story like she's in her high school's production of Annie. Maybe she's never actually told an anecdote before, and this wide-eyed thing is how she's seen other people do it. Back when Ayla was a kid, she was convinced that her dad was Elvis Presley. That's funny, because speaking of Annie, one day when I was a very little kid, I came in late to a discussion my sister and my cousins were having about the plot of that movie, only another cousin of mine is actually named Annie, so I spent the rest of that day being extra special nice to her, because she'd had a hard life, what with how awful this Miss Hannigan person sounded like. Wow, that's such a David Radford phone cord story. Anyway, Ayla doesn't specify whether her dad outright lied to her or whether she heard him singing Elvis songs and then heard Elvis on the radio and connected the dots herself. Anyway, armed with this misinformation, she completely embarrassed herself in front of her ten-year-old friends, and she was probably the laughing stock of fifth grade until she hit her growth spurt and started squashing fools underneath her giant shoes.I guess this song Ayla's singing is called "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield, she of the walking cartoon TV and the gaping maw of Cheryl Hines teeth. Ayla's hair is a post-apocalyptic mess, with the little bouffant poof all asymmetrical and a whole bunch of ancillary hair things happening behind that. Tendrils of things moving every which way. She looks so perfect when her hair is just parted and straight, all this frou-frou stuff is not necessary. Also, she's wearing the clam diggers high up, to the point where they're more like board shorts, which only make her look like even more of a giant. We've already established that Paula covets your shin bones, Ayla, so why leave yourself vulnerable like that? The song is all about opening up your window and experiencing natural phenomena as it makes contact with your person, and today is the first day of your post-rehab life, or something. Ayla hasn't sung a non-ballad yet, and now we're starting to see why. Moving is not so much for our girl. I normally don't think of the "basketball player trying to sing" stuff when she performs, but I definitely am here. You can almost see her mental process as she goes through a series of movements like she's on the court. Box out! Get back on defense! Post up! The squatting is particularly off-putting. The singing itself is rough at the beginning, because it's low and not particularly melodic, but eventually Ayla catches up with it and it's not so bad. Easily her worst performance yet, however, and I shudder to think what the judges -- who have at times seemed disappointed at not being able to slam her -- will make of it.
Oh, Will. His super-duper secret is that he's recently started studying Japanese. In a segment that embarrasses Will, us, and indeed all of Japan (because who wants their native tongue used for such lame purposes?), Will reminds us that Simon said his fan base was eleven-year-old girls. So Will says, in Japanese, "Eleven-year-old girls of the world, UNITE!" Jesus. So lame. Even lamer, Will has chosen "How Sweet It Is" as his song. Yes, in perhaps the most precarious week of his Idol experience yet, Will has once again chosen a song that makes him look like every freshman-year talent-show participant in America. Dude should have a bow tie on. Remember how last year Anthony would come out every week and sing a song that made you want to shed actual tears of embarrassment for him? That's totally Will. At least Anthony had the excuse of being hopelessly sincere and cheesy. Will is an actual cool kid. The other problem with this song, besides it being utterly lame and boring, is that there isn't a whole lot of real singing to it. So all that's left is this weird low-energy lounge lizard vibe where he lets the backup singers take it for a few bars while he steps out for a smoke or whatever, and then he'll break in with some talk-singing. It's awful, and if I wasn't already predisposed to liking Will, I'd probably admit it's the worst performance of the night. Which I guess I just did anyway. Sorry, kid. It's still crazy adorable as Will and Randy banter, but Randy calls the performance not good and "bad karaoke." Can't say as I disagree. Paula does, though, because who needs a critical ear when you can act like a teenager and proclaim your Will fandom? Hell, I'm a fan too, Paula, but show a little self-respect, will you? That was brutal. Paula is growing some sort of flower out of her cleavage. I just noticed that. It's like the DVD cover of Magnolia is lying on her chest. I think Georgia O'Keefe may have just risen from the dead. Simon starts off by insulting Paula, always a good rhetorical tactic, and moves on to call the performance "completely, utterly average." Will crinkles up his nose at this. Wow, I'm going to miss him. "At least," says Simon as he gestures to Paula, "you've got the middle-aged vote." Oh snap, girl! Grandpa just called you middle-aged! Ryan tries for a little last-minute damage control, because he clearly likes Will, too. He asks Paula why Will should make it into the top twelve. Yeah, you couldn't really ask Randy or Simon, but when your fate rests in the hands of Paula making a cohesive argument in your favor? Vaya con dios, babe. She manages to get out that Will has a "very distinct voice," before she's distracted by Simon and/or something shiny to her left. Will smiles the smile of the well and truly fucked.
When we return, it's the guys who are couch-bound. Ryan asks about the pre-show chatter. Ace, who is just completely vacant, says something about being proud you've gotten this far. There's no way he's scared, so he's either pretending he is, or he honestly does not have a genuine thought in his head. Kevin is "of course" nervous, and Gedeon is so freaked he can barely smile. The untouchables for the guys are situated on the lower left: Chris, Ace, and Taylor. Will is in the front row with those three, which gets my hopes up for a moment. The top row goes Kevin, Gedeon, Bucky, and Elliott. Kevin is liked by Randy and Paula. Specifically, Ryan says, "Randy likes that you can sing." Effusive! Kevin's safe. Gedeon lets out a grin when Ryan reminds him Simon said he was "growing on him." He's also safe. Ryan and Bucky do some dumb twin joke thing, and Bucky blinks a jillion times and is safe. So last in this row is Elliott, who is boring, but who is not going home, at all. Ryan confirms this. It's my boy Will, who can do the math in his head at this point. He's wearing this cool black shirt with, like, flowers embroidered on it or something. Looks way better than it had any right to.
Will's bummed, but he remembers to thank the judges and the show and America. He says he's only seventeen, so he's got a lot ahead of him. Ryan wants to know what he's learned from Idol, which he calls a "class in life." God, I really hope it isn't. Though from the looks of it, he's at least learned to wear his shirts untucked, lest he tempt tiny TV hosts. Will sort of looks back at the rest of the guys and starts to say how he's learned a lot from them, but he can't think of specifics ("Ace taught me how to practice my various looks in a mirror."), so he falls back on how he thinks he's improved since auditions. Ryan turns to Paula: "You've championed this man." Like it's an accusation. Like she should have done better. Paula praises Will for being a "gentleman." Randy once again returns to the theme of "nailing it every single time." You'd think the actual elimination might have hammered that lesson home. Simon gives Will props for his maturity and his attitude, and thinks he'll go far. And I want to hug Simon a little for that, because I agree. Will is going to kick ass at life, I think. So long as he stays far away from "How Sweet It Is." The performance is still bad, even a day later. Though now that it doesn't have the dark cloud of "Holy God, what are you doing to yourself?" over it, it's a bit easier to take. Kellie and Kat are doing the "stop!" motions up on the balcony. They certainly do have fun together, don't they? Ryan calls the rest of the guys to the stage after Will's done singing. Will goes right for Ace, and lays his head down on his shoulder as they hug it out. That one gesture -- Will's gesture, no less -- speaks more highly of Ace than anything I've seen on this show yet. Not to mention how it's also Will finally laying this dream down for good. Aw. Bye, Will! Discover what good music is when you go to college! ["Hee! Word." -- Jacob]