I'm just not buying Ryan's excitement anymore. Right around this time every year, we both seem to get very tired. I know in like two weeks he's going to be all, "This...is American Idol," and I'll be like, "But is it, really?"
The Idols run out on stage to sing "9 To 5." Ramiele cannot muster up any amount of care -- just like the last several Tuesdays, everybody does dumb dances, Michael can't remember the words, Cook can't stop mugging for anything, Jason's empty creepy grin is all over his face, Syesha's voice is still awesome and boring, Archuleta sounds crappy and looks weird, Carly is totally gross rolling around on the judges' table, Michael makes fucking horrible faces, Paula is wearing some hideous rusty-orange bondage country shirt where the skin sticks out, and Chikezie is in the audience is how sad it is. This really is American Idol.
Last night, Jason Castro was a travellin' tranny, David Cook was annoyingly awesome, KLC dressed up in a pretty dress, Ramiele wanted the fuck out of here, Brooke bounced and jerked and spazzed out on the usually excellent song "Jolene," Syesha was boring enough and jerky enough to actually sing "I Will Always Love You," Carly wasn't that bad unless you looked at the screen, Archuleta loves poor people or whatever, Michael augmented his obnoxiousness with a literal cravat, and the judges didn't know what the eff they were talking about. Dolly thinks the kids are nice. I think Dolly's nice so I'm going to try harder to be nice.
Michael is summoned to Ryan's side, having stopped making those bullshit faces for a second. Randy said he was blazin' hot, and Simon rightly thought it was the best he's ever sounded. Michael agrees that he was awesome, because that's how he rolls. Michael is safe, except from my judgment.
On his way to the stage, David Archuleta starts crying like immediately, probably because somebody littered somewhere on Earth. He then is able to verbalize that he is crying about the following things in the following order: poor people, Dolly Parton's awesomeness, and being safe.
Carly's face comes lumbering out onstage and they talk about how severely she lacks star quality, how awful her tattoos are, how unappealing she is every day, and how her husband totally sold out the Jedi when he became Darth Sidious's apprentice and whatever, and Ryan's like, "You know how you're in the bottom three every week?" And Carly's safe and all, "I know I can be a silk purse if I just dream harder!"
Pimpmercial singing this song about how it's tricky to rock or something. Which explains why they fail: it's so tricky! Then they play basketball for an hour and by "they" I mean just the guys, while the women stand on the sidelines and cheer for them, and they're all dressed in shitty '80s clothes, it's tricky, and it's like a Bod commercial with ugly '80s clothes. "Love that Bod!" Ryan tries to make conversation with Carly, and it goes like hell, of course. Witty repartee: cross that off the list of shit Carly can handle.
Cook smarms up to the stage and Ryan asks him about how he went to the hospital and almost died and is he dead? He is not dead, he just has high blood pressure and an oddly proportioned body and a big stupid ugly melon head. He is safe, of course, and dorks on over to the sofa where he cringes at the idea of touching Carly.
Ramiele is wearing a giant t-shirt, overalls, and giant boots. She looks like one of the New Mutants, and you can cross banter off her list too. She's the first person in the bottom three, and doesn't seem to care any more than any of us do. KLC gets a lot of cheers from the audience, and then shit gets crazy awkward as she pulls out a scrap of legal pad paper that says "Kristy's Seat," and says how she belongs in the bottom three, and Ryan's like, "I don't even know what you're talking about," and then they are boring and he's weirded out by her some more, and she's also in the bottom three. Paula says that both KLC and Ramiele are people and have faces, and in the course of like two sentences she pronounces "Ramiele" about six different ways, because she is on drugs.
Then there's a pointless tape about how Nashville exists and Bo moved there and Bucky says...I don't know what Bucky is saying but he looks like a pretty lady with a mustache, so that's cool. He talks about length about something. And oh! Phil Stacey! Is still alive! He looks totally Dying Young still though, but I can say that because I'm wearing a bracelet. Awww! Bo Bice looks exactly like Bo Bice, which is to say like swamp trash with no intestines left in his swamp thorax. Is there any sadder statement than, "I started a record label"? Bo doesn't seem to understand the irony that the album after The Real Thing is the one that's the actual real thing. And he has a kid, and I refuse to describe kids anymore, because the hatemail gets so intense. Especially given that the trashier the contestant, the less literate the hatemail becomes.