Everybody know this one was two hours? Not me! The hope being, of course, that it all amounts to slightly less than an hour's worth of actual shit to care about. And by "hope" I mean "duh." The most amazing thing about the Chair this year is that, instead of the face-offs being brutal in a completely emotional fashion, they will also involve actual Motherfucking Singoffs, in the You Got Served standard. That is the best news I have maybe ever heard. Way to go, show.
0700 hours on the last day of all Hollywood. Tatiana informs us that if she loses today, she loses everything. Hopefully her obnoxiously good voice will crumble somehow. Also, the Chair happens at this amazing mansion that is reminiscent of both Wickedly Perfect and Joe Schmo, the two reality shows I most fervently wish we were watching.
Anoop! Anoop! Anoop Is On Fire! We don't need no folklore, let the BBQ burn! He's wearing his best Amber Tamblyn scarf as he enters the opulent wonderland that is Marilyn Mansion looking supremely confident. The limit does not exist! Kara tells him he's always amazing, and we see him sing "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted," and remembers how he had a fiddly time in Hollywood -- but ultimately (per Randy) Anoop in the house. So that's one.
Von Smith continues to be darling; Ryan wonders what his deal is. His deal is, this is his whole life. That's sort of sad. Ryan muses on his adorable fate: "There's nothing else he can do. The seeds have been sown." He sits down all nervous and Paula is like, "Are you nervous? Is it nerve-wracking?" He explains that Simon's comment on his unholy Hollywood screamfest -- that it was "indulgent nonsense" typical of a child -- may well be true, but the fact is that Von himself knows he cannot be trusted.
After the nonsense, Von decided to change it up and called his family, but they told him to freak out on the people so bad again. So he basically did (on "Sir Duke," that Stevie song about how you can feel it all over, and also all over). Simon tells him that his decision to do this was a big deal for his fate; he's all the way through. Outside in the Manse, his mom wigs out. She is adorable too. He hugs and kisses her and tries not to cry, and you know how Ryan is 99% mommies, so he kind of tries not to lose it too, and it's just delightful.
Ryan tells us how hard it was for the judges to even do this, so now they're doing the Motherfucking Singoffs along the way: cue lots of big strong men freaking out. Then comes Creepy Cody, whom Kara originally thought was a horror show, and then loved his voice. Simon tells him to sing one more time, for all the dominos. He thinks for a second, flutters his eyelashes... And Alex Wagner-Trugman is summoned to the judges room. Cody sings "Love Remains The Same," and it's doomed from the start. Good eye contact, bad eyes to make contact with; it stays nervous and crummy, and Simon sends him out.
When they run into each other in the foyer, Cody starts crying and tells Alex they're having a Motherfucking Singoff, and they get super weird. Alex swallows and his big old nerdy Adam's apple goes all over the place; Cody has been reduced to a puddle of eyeliner and old copies of Fangoria magazine. Inside, his hair becomes twice as fluffy and strange, and then he turns out a fairly fab performance of "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me," a song I've always hated. Maybe it's his adorable purple-and-black sweater, but I don't hate it right now. They send him out to stare at Cody on a voluptuous couch, and Ryan runs to his rescue, patting him down and watching them both wig out. Cody makes Ryan a little nervous, too, so all three of them come to an agreement that this is about Alex right now. They both sit down, and Randy strings them along for a good long damn while before letting the obvious cat out of the bag: Cody's out, Alex is in. That's two. Thirty-fucking-four to go.
Alex walks Cody out awkwardly, and Cody's broken heart is pretty much the saddest thing in the world. Ryan's like, "That's fucking horrible, right?" Alex is more concerned with Cody staying upright. Outside, Silver Lake runs to Cody and acts like she's shitting out her entire digestive system, Alex and Cody have a little hug, and Lambert is sad that his Mini-Me is done.
Adam heads inside, looking fly from far away. We remember his screechy and emotional "Believe" from last night, and remember -- as the forums made abundantly clear -- that we're seeing what would happen if Clay and Constantine had a little bit of a baby. Simon's like, "We love you? But Jesus, dude." He wonders if Adam could win the show, or sell records. (No, and Yes.) Simon admits that his part in the unanimous decision is surprising, and then gets flirty letting Adam know that he's in. "Now's the time to get dramatic," Kara says, but he hugs her anyway. He is totally professional and charming leaving them, and get lots of applause from the crowd: Jamar, Kai, and Alex getting snubbed. That's three.
Ryan, being as magical as a unicorn, takes a look inside everybody's head and tells us what they're thinking. Kai Kalama: "Did I perform the best I could?" (One assumes; concentrate on your stupid hair instead now.) Tatiana: "Did I make myself stand out?" (No fucking comment.) Taylor auditioned in SLC and became an early judge favorite, but faltered on the words in Hollywood with her Gokey group, then rocked out with that song about the waitress whose phone has problems. Today? She apologizes for forgetting the words, and then congratulates herself on being here at all. Randy: "You want the truth, right? ...Who's gonna make it to Season Eight?" He is so fucking worthless. Yes. That's what she wants. And she does, and that's four.
Whenever we watch Less Than Zero, we always end up getting drunk and spend the last eighty minutes screaming "Don't go to the Spriiiiiings," but Julian always ends up going to the Springs. This weekend on our vacation, we never made it to Mexico but we did end up in South Padre, and on the last day three awesome things happened. Number one, we bought this fucking awesome rainbow unicorn kite and flew that bitch on the beach. Number two, we went to a truly bizarre place. You have to go there immediately.
Nominally a souvenir shop, there's a secret square mile of "museum" in the back that has been slowly going crazy for years. Miles and miles of weirdly lit dioramas celebrating everything from Bruce Lee fighting ninjas to hot pirate ladies and blacklight octopuses to Catwoman taking a nap while the Thing and the Hulk smash into the place. I saw Jesus, I saw a scary face through the hull of a pirate ship -- blinking at you -- I saw Ray Charles and hula girls, I saw a man with wires coming out of his head and a giant Cronenburg roach photocopying its own ass while they tried to create the formula for infinite pizza, I saw an alien with painted toenails balancing on a beachball while another one smoked out of a hookah across the aisle from the moon landing with strange monsters coming out of the moon's surface and disembodied monkey hands, I went through a time machine, saw a wormhole and a Stargate to the heroes of 9/11, was chased by Uruk-Hai fighting Army guys both regular and undead, I saw Marilyn Monroe and a gangster playing poker with James Dean and then a Tyrannosaurus come out of the wall and attack a zebra with the click of a handheld remote, a whole world of alligators under a real working waterfall, and I saw baby Triceratopses shitting near a volcano. I am not making this up! It is all too real! For ten dollars you can see these things!
Then we went to a rodeo in Los Fresnos, to ride carnival rides. I ate part of a funnel cake, so I finally know what those are, and then Frito pie -- with nacho cheese jacked up on top of it for some ungodly reason -- to prove some bizarre macho point, and then rode a Ferris wheel, which I still don't get the appeal, and then my favorite ride of all time, the Zero Gravity, where it shoves you against the wall and keeps you there. I had to remember not to close my eyes and look blissed out, because there were townies watching, but all I want to do, ever, is curl up and get centrifugated in those things. Maybe it's a hugging-machine thing and I have some kind of surprise neurology or secret zentai B&D porno thing: I don't know why -- and I will never know, if I have my way -- but it's totally awesome. You can keep your high-flying spinners and your dead-drop stunners and your bumper car paranoia: Just slam me up against the wall and keep me there.
And as we were getting off the thing, BFF Will started calling it the Less Than Zero Gravity, and how I loved it so much who knows what I would do to get another ride. Then the funnel cake took a turn for the airward in the windy big-sky Texas nothingness, covering our friend Melissa in powdered sugar, and that's how Julian from Less Than Zero got his new nickname, "Funnel Cake," as in, once the Less Than Zero Gravity gets its hooks in you, you will do anything for another taste of that zero-gee nectar. And he would show up with those chapped lips and the dentally estranged carnies would be like, "Well well, Funnel Cake. You got our tickets?" And he wouldn't, but he'd negotiate them down to some horrible stuff that he would do, and the other ones would watch. This is how carnies get their kicks.
Wow, but so the point is that whenever I see Danny Gokey, all I can think about is Julian's chapped lips on his last trip to Palm Springs to see James Spader, because how different is that from Iron Man's alcoholism, really. Don't go to the Springs, Funnel Cake! He runs out to hug Jamar until they are both elderly, and Jamar cries because he deserves it so much, and then they hug and take a hugging break and hug some more. Jamar wanders the garden crying, and finally goes to see the judges -- short commercial break we're ignoring -- Ryan's like, "This is Danny, and this is the contestant we're talking about now, whose name is 'Danny's Friend'" -- and we remember "Hey There Delilah" for way too long, and Kara's like, "Risky, no?" Then she stares at him with a creepy smile forever and ever, and finally cuts him. Paula asks if he'll come back, but it's like: everybody involved, including us, knew it was going down this way.
"Into Dust" starts playing, and Jamar sees Holly mugging down with Luke and learns Jimmy Cooper is moving out of the house, then chases a bunch of drugs with tequila and wanders out into the TJ and collapses, and eventually Ryan picks him up and carries him to safety in the rain, but does Julie Cooper care? No, she just thinks Ryan's a bad influence and puts Jamar into rehab.
Only trade "Ryan" for "Danny Gokey" and "bad" for "pointless" and "rehab" for "obscurity" and "Julie Cooper" for "ME."
Can you tell my attention is wandering? I bet you anything we're 3/4 of the way through... Yep, to the minute. Weird-cute Ricky Braddy, dueling pianist Matt Giraud, Ju'Not, Jorge, and major hottie Brent Keith get through. Twenty-three of 36. So close! And there's still Normund and Tatiana and Nate to deal with. Stephen Fowler remembers how he forgot the lyrics in Hollywood -- as though his movie-star looks and wonderful voice are just not enough to get him through this crap -- although Paula notes that bashing the keys and stomping away like a child was actually the issue there. Simon tells him he's through -- twenty-four! -- and Simon tries to make him leave the whole time Paula's still babbling at him, so it's awesome.
Look, I get it. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why dealing with this particular kid makes me feel like the entire universe is scraping against a chalkboard. But 1990 was a very long time ago, and I kind of thought we'd all agreed to forget about it. Because otherwise, what was the point of doing enough drugs in the years since to recreate the symptoms of retrograde amnesia? What's the point of spending an awful lot of energy and time pretending that Nate never existed, when he's right here in front of you, in all his horrifying awkward glory? I've never understood why high school reunions don't carry the same suicide stigma as Thanksgiving and Christmas, because it seems like the same thing: bringing out the Nate Marshall in us all.
He makes me feel like Betty Buckley in Carrie when she's like, "I understand that Carrie is hurting and that by some fluke of parenting she honestly didn't know what a period was. And yes, I bitched out the girls that were throwing tampons at her, and I'm trying to be a mentor to this girl. And yet, all I wanted to do was punch her lights out." In fifteen years, when Nate Marshall sees the generation of boys like us coming down the pipeline, maybe he'll have more charity in him than I do. I hope he does.
Anyway. He tells them his outfit is less "attention-starved drama psycho" and more "the new David Bowie," purses his lips, and then sings some song about "I'm already there" for the Motherfucking Singoff at the top of his lungs, and Jackie listens to him screeching in the room. Simon's headache begs him to go away, and they discuss. Simon says honestly it's the worth clothing ever; outside, Nate apologizes in advance to Jackie for taking away his dream. Jackie raises the stakes by giving a little dramatic speech, and then they both talk about this like it's a story they're telling somebody else.
On the way into the room Nate attempts to wrap himself around Jackie, accepts taking his arm like a sorority sister, and then drops even that shit immediately. In the Chair, Nate shivers and wriggles insanely, and they put him through. Shellshocked, Jackie follows him down and wordlessly points out the absurd happening that just happened, and everybody freaks out quietly. Then, in quick succession, more wins: a girl named Jeanine Vailes, Kai, Anne Marie, and that guy Kris. That's thirty-two, by my count. I must have fucked up at some point. Oh well. Thirty-six is a fairly large number to attempt to care about, especially when it's time for Motherfucking Singoff: Bear Porn and Roughneck Edition. Cue the pulse to begin!
On the other hand, we just heard that Joanna's out, disqualified for mysterious-right-this-second reasons and replaced with one Felicia Barton. So if that makes your day, congratulations. I can't manage to care, but we'll see.