Ryan asks Simon why he doesn't just pick the songs themselves, since Simon "always" bitches about song choice -- which isn't true, that's usually Paula or Randy since they have usually no thoughts in their heads -- and Simon says maybe he will, and they can have Simon Cowell Week on American Idol. But please: just like when you asked your parents why there's Mother's Day and Father's Day but no Children's Day and they said everyday is Children's Day, that is why there will never be Simon Cowell Week on this show. Although four hours of this crap is sort of like the same thing.
It's not just me, is it? The girls are really hard to tell apart this year? So Von Smith still looks like a child from a Molly Ringwald movie, Taylor is wearing the delightful sack dress/shiny pants combo that can't help but make you sick to look at, Alex is here to help you with your geometry proofs, Arianna has not one breast but two, Ju'Not is smarmy and looks like the uncle on a sitcom, Kristen is one Five Hour Energy drink away from beating her family members up on Springer if that show's even still on, Nathaniel is a little piece of hell right here on earth, Felicia has some hips and a shiny shirt to show them off. This is where I will crack, I can feel it: right here at around the 90-minute mark, right before Scott, who holds hands with dudes like some kind of homo, Kendall who has an herbal garden centerpiece attached to herself, Jorge's face still pissing me off, and Lil Rounds who will be singing last because that's how it was written over two hundred years ago in the Book of Duh.
Von's like, "Can you believe my indulgent nonsense? I should stop screaming at America. I realize that. But will I? Let's see." He talks about showing a "real," a "better" Von, and to that end begins Marvin Gaye's "You're All I Need To Get By" in a much lower register. As in, a scary phone porno "Who needs the bar scene/I like to talk to gay singles in my area" lower register. I like. What I can't believe is that Von Smith is nervous, with which gene I didn't think he was born, and it's throwing off his pitch. And it occurs to me that I don't know jackshit about Von Smith except that I want to put my mouth on his cartoon mouth, and all the rest is just like this personal mythology I made up so I wouldn't have to feel creepster about that. But he was on YouTube, right? He was one of the ones that was on YouTube, which means instant talent. His mouth is as large as Paula Abdul's head, which is also cool. Or was he one of those kids Rosie O'Donnell is always trying to abduct?
Randy is "telling you what" because that was the best thing in the entire universe or whatever, it's Season Eight, he remembers Von Smith from some murky time called "before." Kara calls him "comfortable" and praises him for taking Simon's note: it's not about "how high you can go" or "what you can do" but in fact about "doing it when it has meaning" which he has done. Kara, it's not about "how high you can get" or "what drugs you can do," it's about "talking with words that make sense in a line when you say them to people." Get her the eff away from Paula. Then comes Paula, who makes a bit more sense but not like a huge amount more sense. Simon -- much to Paula's total lack of surprise -- compares Von to Clay Aiken, and wonders, as we all do from Paula to Von to you and me to Simon himself, whether he's being a dick or nice about it. I don't know how you can say that shit to a person and still try to be their friend.
Von shrugs and nervously grins and tears up because my Lord and tries to get across to us that this is literally a statement without a response. Kara calls him a "spicier" Clay, and Simon says he looks "appalling," just like Clay. Simon, come on first of all. Also, he looks totally adorable, with red tennis shoes and a grey suit and a low-v necked hipster red-on-red striped shirt. Ryan does his best to make clear that Von Smith is crazy hot while Clay Aiken is rapidly approaching Jodie Foster as a limit, which puts Von at his ease; off-camera Paula's like, "God no, you don't look like Clay." Man, if people at my old job talked that much shit about me I'd drop a grand on a Green Beret, if you know what I mean. One occasionally needs to feel pretty.
Taylor forgot the words in Hollywood, but somehow wasn't eliminated, and then we never ever saw her again or before that part, but her family made Ryan cry so I'm in. Oh wait, she's singing "If I Ain't Got You" by Alicia Keys and feels it's "totally" her, so now I'm "totally" out. Leather tights + fat girl dress + weird fucking enunciations that don't sound like English + singing a song with more range than you ever could have had = a truly monstrous fail. Do we really even have to watch this shit? It's hard to be more obnoxious than Alicia Keys, but at least that freak can sing in a way that doesn't drive you bats. Fast forward.
While Taylor weeps, Kara reminds her that she has talent but no personality, and we'll never be seeing her again. Basically, Kara -- who is fucking intense tonight, bro -- wants to know (through song) what it's like to go shopping with Taylor. I submit to you that this is exactly what she did: show us her soul. And it's not her fault that her soul is bland and off-the-rack, so how dare you.
I know exactly, now, what it's like to shop with Taylor Vaifanua: trying on like a scarf at Banana Republic, then over to the sales rack for some pinstripes, then to Express for a flower-print t-shirt, and finally some jeans from Charlotte Russe. Not an afternoon you're going to send postcards to people about, and you'll probably hear more Alicia Keys than you ever wanted to, but not terrible. Paula and Simon sort of agree. Simon pretends to be confused about the shopping metaphor, and asks her what kind of cereal she likes for breakfast. Randy spends this entire goddamn conversation repeating everything Simon says directly into Kara's face. He tells her she's forgettable, and I had to wonder: Why are we talking to her now?
Randy tries to sum up what they were all saying, and then does so, which wasn't really necessary at all, but is sort of Randy's fucking entire job: repeating things other people say as though he has a personal stake in anything. Ryan gets onstage with doomed Taylor and yells at Simon for defaming his personal god, Shopping. There is nothing grosser than a couple who has nothing left to say to each other and doesn't feel like they need to try anymore, so they go to the nasty nitpicky constant-hum-of-bitching place. It's like when somebody says what is manifestly his or her own opinion and the inevitable douchebag goes, "That's just your opinion." If there's not an interesting thing about what you're saying, don't fucking say it. Say something smarter. Engage more.
Look at Alex Wagner-Trugman, for example. Not only is he adorable, but he's so intent on being adorable that he went onto the internet to find new ways of being adorable, and learned that he was something of a dork, so he is now adorably going to the gym, which Ryan finds adorable. Then Ryan wants to go to the gym with Alex and they can do short low-weight reps together to build tone without bulk. Alex remembers, which I did not, the whole thing about how he was adorably smart up in Simon's face at his audition. I am so glad they reminded us of that, because that was tight.
Less so: he's singing "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues." Great song, right, like everybody loves that song, put it on a mixtape with "Africa" by Toto and you can have sex with literally anybody in this world if you feel like it, but think hard about this. Because that means in a second Alex Wagner-Trugman is going to mention rolling like thunder under the covers, and I am never going to stop barfing.
Arianna is called "cute" 67 times at auditions and gets her voice praised in Hollywood and says she's wants to be judged for more than, and I quote, "looking like a button." So I guess she's sort of dumb, then. She sings "Winner Takes It All," by ABBA, and after the first off-key Britney inspired pronunciation, I'm checking out. We will never see this chick again, with her chipmunk cheeks and her many crummy quavering/shouting undecided voices. You know how Jewel is like, sometimes she's Pee-Wee Herman and sometimes she's a yodeler man and sometimes a pretty girl with giant boobs and a snaggletooth? Arianna has like ten more voice personalities than even that. And they all suck, but they're so dang cute they get away with it.
Simon says it was like a funeral, which I think is underestimating how shitty it was; she says she tried to make it contemporary, I guess by using fifty different singing styles somehow, and Randy... Who cares. You know what? I'm not recapping Randy anymore. He is fired from these recaps. Kara I think did a rail before this episode because Jeez girl. She calls her "gloomy" and Paula says she was less than "gloomy" and that she took weird liberties. Then they all say "Abba" and "Kara" a billion different ways, because they are burning out early this week. Ryan and Arianna talk about how she's cute, and how in Hollywood she was appreciative of being talked about for things other than her looks. Paula explains to Ryan that Arianna is in the Top 36 for a reason, and that whatever happens is on Arianna, and then we've got the majorly annoying dipshitty Ju'Not singing the preternaturally annoying dipshitty Plain White T's song "Hey There Delilah." God damn it.
I do not know how I am going to get through this, seriously. How is this even a song? Even at this retarded boring dirgelike Phil Collins dramatic-lighting pace it's still just like a ... bad idea Mariah Carey had. It's the most fucking hackneyed melody imaginable and the stupidest fakest lyrics in the universe. This is music for stupid people such as Ju'Not who think they know what music is like but have no idea in reality. This song is like if music had a stroke and ended up in a home and you go visit and hold your breath the whole time and remember what music used to be like. You're like, "Music, see? Here's you and me at the Grand Canyon when I was in fifth grade. We rode a burro" and music is like, "That damn parrot took my pills. Your mother is Barbara Eden. What time is St. Elsewhere on?"
If Randy existed I would say he opened up with something even stupider than Ju'Not and his performance, but since he doesn't I won't. Kara said his "spin" was "smooth" and "fluid" and can "bust it out" time, in her supercrazy intense voice of this week. Paula immediately is like, "Where's that son of yours that you're always pimping like an ass?" Gone; instead he's going to whine about how he just got a cortisone shot in that self-same ass. Paula mentions Taylor Vaifanua getting criticized for singing the same song as in Hollywood -- which happened about six seconds ago -- and Simon's like, "Who? What?" Heh. Ju'Not whines to Ryan that he felt it would be "disrespectful" to the morons that wrote that shitty song if he deviated from their ball-sweat melody in any way, so the judges are big meanies for pointing out -- in the midst of heaps of unearned praise -- that he managed to take a boring, inarticulate stack of clichés and make them into something even more boring and stupid.
Ryan cutely says the word "tush," and I'm undone. Just... just undone, like Alex Wagner-Trugman did. That song has fucked up my brain. And coming up? A double shot of suck, as Kristen and Nathaniel bring their totally boring, stupid, trumped-up drama back in a head-to-head battle to see who it's possible to hate more. Why am I always the victim in this fucked-up world? "Delilah," then both these dicks? With Jorge still to come? I mean, how is that in any way fair?
I know that it is too early in the episode for me to get irretrievably pissed, even if that's what the show is attempting to perpetrate. Von Smith. Alex Wagner-Trugman. Kara's Adderall kicking in. Scott MacIntyre and Lil Rounds shooting electricity out their fingertips or something awesome. "Electric Feel." Lil Rounds sings a song with lesbian undertones. Something falls on Kristen. Nathaniel finally wins his personal battle against gayface.
Nathaniel will never win his personal battle against gayface. So they fake-giggle and act stupid and try to rub their collective 189 IQ points together to make a fire and play off the whole "rivalry" Ryan's trying to set up, so Ryan's like, "Fuck it, roll tape." Then Kristen fakely covers her face about how she had a "boo-boo" and accidentally wore that idiotic purple hair to her audition. Like that just happens. You go in just trying to look like the dime-a-dozen whore that you are, and get to chatting about the married men you're seeing or the time you kissed a chick, and then before you know it: starkly defined stripes of magenta in at least three different parts of your scalp. I hate this girl so much. What is the fucking point of lying about it? Your purple hair told us what we needed to know about you: you're stupid trash without a personality. The hair didn't lie. Then we have a long-ass memory about their made-up fake-ass bullshitty Hollywood drama, where she acted like twice the Prozac case anybody else did, including Nathaniel who is like this close to shitting himself at all times, and she tells us you haven't "done it all in the music business until you've been to Hollywood Week on American Idol," which means nothing except that stupid Kristen is stupid, which we already know.
"Give Me One Reason" is what Kristen will be singing. Why? Because she's a "singer" -- that's why she's here, in case you were wondering. Then she sings her song in a lower register with much nose-wrinkling and zero tone. Her voice is technically good, but it sounds like a voiceover artist that does cartoons, or a vocal training video. It is lacking in... qualities of any kind. She's sounded way better than this before. This is the most toothlessly boring thing that's ever happened. This is like Darius Rucker teaching you to throw pots on a potter's wheel.
Kara likes the hair, calls her a "great singer," and asks her to try a Pink or Kelly Clarkson song. It's the speed talking that would put Pink and Kelly in the same continent. Paula spits out some kind of staccato statement that is so pointless you forget what she's saying by the time she says it. Simon is like, "I still don't know who you are," because she sucks, and he calls her puzzling and fake and completely out of her depth, and then that guy agrees with Simon or whatever. Ryan tries to get her to say something interesting and she fails and talks about how she dresses like a mentally ill person and needs a professional to dress her. Which is fine, but awkward because it is true, but mostly she's gone. Bring on Nathaniel!
"I definitely have the reputation of the drama queen," he says proudly, and then there's a clip cavalcade of his bullshit, crying, overuse of the word "dream," and the rest of it. He marvels at how America has been lucky enough to meet "lots of different Nates," which is A) halfway down the road to him using the word mystique, which I've bet myself a beer he will and B) a fucking lie because he's exactly the same all the time. You are a pupa, dude. You haven't even arrived at one Nate, much less a whole bunch of them. And stop implicating me in your movie, please. I didn't sign on for the Many Nates Experience. I want off the ride. Nate signs posters in case anybody ever cares, and explains to us that we deserve to see a "good-natured, humble Nate." You know what really shows humility? Talking about yourself in the third person.
"I Would Do Anything For Love" is the song that he will be singing, which is sort of awesome just because of the mysteries of the song, which always trip me out, plus Nate dances like your mom and is wearing workout gear, plus Nate singing this song is a lie in song form, because obviously there is not a thing that Nate wouldn't do for love, or at least attention, because look at his face: Desperation Personified.
Simon totally says the same thing, which is awesome, because he means buttfucking old men and doesn't even try to pretend otherwise; he says that Nate is at least memorable in that he is the worst fucking thing, but still sort of fun to watch. He tells that other guy a funny story about how his mom used to get all fucked up on drugs and dance around with him to Meatloaf and eventually went to jail and left Nate to become this thing that he has become. ["It's a good thing Randy got fired already from this recap because he moronically confused Elton John and Olivia Newton-John." -- Angel] Kara's like, "If you want to be taken seriously..." And whatever happens after that, neither Nate nor I am hearing, because Nate's too stupid and I'm too full of burning hate.
Kara says she wants to go to karaoke with him and drums her hands on the table and stamps her feet and sniffs and snarfs and writes some checks and mails them to some people and thinks about designing a tattoo and asks Paula if she remembers that Nu Shooz song "I Can't Wait" because it is like so stuck in her head but without waiting for an answer she decides to crimp her hair live on television because she is high on cocaine in her nose. Ryan gives the mic to Nate's giant grandmother and she's adorable, and then Paula remembers how awesome he was in Hollywood when he played the guitar and sang "Disturbia," and the whole panel is like, "Dude, that was awesome, I totally forgot that." And dude, that was awesome and I did totally forget that.
Then she twists the knife by saying this was the "Boy George version" of a Meatloaf song. Which means something so gay I would have to use calculus to explain it to you, but let's just call it "Nathaniel" instead because that's close enough. Ryan giggles like, "You are so gay it is awesome," and tries to make Nate sit in Simon's lap, but then the other judges want him to sit in their laps, and then Simon and Ryan make out for about ten minutes as Ryan tries to put Nate's headband on Simon's head, and they hold hands for awhile and Simon just barely remembers not to smile quite so widely when shit's getting gay, and I mean: it is something else, this show.
I feel revitalized! Energy is coursing through my veins just at the point I thought I was going to flip out. Maybe it's like the first day after your cold goes away and your life is so magically wonderful just by virtue of being normal, and that's what it's like knowing there is no Ju'Not or Kristen to come. Or maybe it's just the fact that Nate, while he himself sucks, does generally cause wonderful things to happen around him. Like Joanna Pacitti getting drummed out for mystery reasons, so that some other girl can come on this show and sing... DAMN IT. Are you kidding me? "No One" by Alicia Keys. Of course. It's my fault for even being happy for one fucking second.
Kendall Beard will be singing Martina McBride! What is GOING ON? If Jorge or Lil Rounds sings Queen, we will know that this episode is actually intended to break my spirit. And whatever, it sucks, Kendall seems nice and sweet and all that, but she's pointy and has about five years left before her first plastic surgery and is singing some shitty Martina McBride song with about six dreamcatchers or some shit jacked up on her hip and a bubble hem on her yellow dress like it's nineteen-never-o'clock, and whatever. She's cute, I wouldn't get along with her, she fucked up at least one note in every line of the song, and Paula loves her outfit. "My Mom put it together!" she yells, calling Paula an old bitch without even meaning to, and then they chat about nothing having to do with the competition. Simon praises her for being the country cutie, although of course he hated the performance itself, and there are songs she could have picked that would showcase her voice better. In summation:
Simon: "I am too good for country music, but there are plenty of retards out there."
Randy: "I love country music."
Jorge is . He looks like the Wolfman. I have a very clear memory of when my mom was getting her Masters' (In Child Development! Ta-daa!) and we lived with my grandparents and I would wake up in the middle of the night and watch TV with my grandfather: Vegas showgirls, often on the Spanish channels; pretty much anything with boobs actually; any mystery-solving that did not feature an old lady as the protagonist; anything with Tom Selleck; and scary black and white movies. And one of them was, I believe, The Wolfman, or a film about the Wolfman with some other title, and there was a little hairy boy who would transform every full moon into a creature not quite human and not quite wolf but somewhere in-between, and that's what Jorge looks like.
"Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me." Wow. Okay, there's paranoid, and then there's right. You've been reading these recaps long enough to know that I'm not being paranoid, right? Fucking Jorge Nuñez with his gay werewolf-looking self, is going to go ahead and sing the all-time Kryptonite song on a night with not one but two Alicia Keys songs? No. Just no. I call bullshit. Dear American Idol: Bullshit. Does it sound good? Brother it sounds great, but that has nothing to do with it. I want to punch the entire continent of Puerto Rico in the face right now.
Paula tells him to get a dialect coach and Simon points out that having a Puerto Rican accent is inextricably linked to being from Puerto Rico, so let it ride, and then calls Paula a total racist, which is awesome. Kara tells him he was born to sing. Born to sing, and to transform into a creature of the night when the moon hangs heavy and full in the starry firmament of the sky. Then Jorge cries, and Paula and Kara patronize him some more because they are some coked-up assholes. Then Jorge babbles in Spanish, and the whole audience laughs and claps, so he does it some more. God, I hope that shit goes on all season. I can't imagine anything less awful than that.
"Be Without You," by Mary J. is Lil Rounds's choice because of her kids, without whom she cannot be. Mary J. is like your favorite aunt who only comes around a couple times a year, and eventually makes you tired. This is the best song by her, I think, even though it doesn't have so many of the crazy made-up words that are my favorite thing about Mary J. Blige. Then the crowd becomes an entity and that entity is crunk in love with Lil Rounds, and the Kodak has become her personal dancery. Simon calls it "brilliant" and the best by a mile, even though her voice is too much like Blige's, and says she'll be moving forward as "undoubtedly" one of the best singers, and then that other guy repeats him word-for-word. Paula makes some dumb joke about how we're going to be seeing her for many more "lil rounds," and Lil works the shit out of the camera -- and Ryan -- and then it's finally, finally over.
Things do not look great for Von Smith, in retrospect. I guess I actually did pull some kind of Inventing The Abbotts thing on him. And "Delilah" could never hurt anybody's chances with this show because it's dumb the same way we all are. So it's going to be Lil and Scott, which we knew going in, but I don't know who the N will be. Maybe Nate but probably Ju'Not, both of which are horrible concepts to think about.
In a more wonderful world it would be Von/Lil/Felicia, which is like three unlikelihoods in a row, plus Lil. But in a perfect world Von Smith would gay-marry yours truly on a beautiful hilltop to the music of Journey, and we could adopt Nathaniel and start from scratch, and meanwhile on this show they would just hand the fucking thing to Alex Wagner-Trugman, who deserves more and better than any one nation could ever possibly deliver.