Go to the gym? Are you freaking kidding me? What, so I can look better? Feel better? Guess what, it's not my outsides that are ugly. When I think about self-improvement it's things like, I wanna be impervious to fire. Move objects with the powers of my mind. I want to be faster than the human eye, okay, maybe grow a tail. But we're not there yet, you guys. We're just not there yet. So fuck the gym.
...Yeah, I'd say the coffee has definitely kicked in. Let's do this. Happy Cinco de Mayo from Ryan Seacrest, basically the America Ferrera of the Fox Network. Before the inevitable Sinatra medley, we learn about the Top 10 Tour, and Ryan gets the giggles when he squeezes Kara's shoulder and Simon jealously slides away.
They're all dressed like hired killers, and I guarantee I'm not going to know any of these songs, and then the song that they start with is "Lady Is A Tramp," which is one word you cannot call Crystal -- except for the fact that she is a okay with this kind makes of her one. Then Aaron sings about how when he was seventeen -- which he is -- it was a very good year -- it is not -- for pretty girls and other things in which Aaron has zero interest.
Casey takes the reins for a better-voiced and really truly embarrassing bad lip-sync about how he has the world on a string. It's sort of flesh-crawling to watch him emote this. Crystal beats everybody's ass on one line, and Lee impersonates Harry Connick on the . Mike is cheesy, Aaron gets steamy on "Night & Day" while the rest do a sort of amazing Manhattan Transfer kind of backup on it. More horrible Casey sucking real bad, and then Lee selling it and Mike trying to. Every time he licks his lips, take a drink. Just kidding, you will die. They all team up on how they want to spend their lives making love to us, and finally it is over. Nobody came off well here, but at least Mike's horrible mindless grin is there to remind us of all we've already lost.
week: Songs of the Cinema, with Jamie Foxx. I hope he performs! That's one of the things I remember from a year, when Jamie Foxx did his horrible song. That was so awesome. Remember? He wandered around with a microphone and kicked the air.
Ryan reminds us that Top Five is still pretty good. Then the pimpmercial which is all of them being gay in various French ways while singing some lame song I've not heard before, and Lee and Crystal getting all From Justin To Kelly on each other, but then also she smiles at Casey, which means the end benefit is that we get to see pretty Crystal smiling beatifically into the camera about sixty times. Or else she's going to fake-bang them both, because the lady is a tramp!
Ryan explains that Wednesdays are hard, but Tuesdays are just very busy. Let's peel back the skin on this horrible machine. Casey used to wake up late on Tuesdays, because he is a serious musician. Crystal's Tuesdays used to be her and her baby staring at each other over granola and the baby being like, "Just find a nice lady." Lee used to sell paint on a Tuesday. Mike used to train two people in the AM before his own workout. Aaron used to go to school and whatever. But now, they are living in awesome Hollywood apartments and doing... What we all hear about every year.
Lee and Mike have burritos for breakfast, if they're lucky, and Crystal fakes excitement in a truly embarrassing way. It's real gross how fake-excited she is about all this. Then they try to use makeup to make Casey's appearance do the tricks their faces don't know how to do. Then the judge stand-ins are more worthless than Jackson could even imagine being, and then they dance around like dorks backstage and try to avoid Harry Connick challenging them to pushups backstage and they hit the stage. And then they remember Wednesdays, and it all comes crashing down.
Everybody says meaningless things while dressed like Celine Dion. You know who I like? That one horny wolf from the cartoons that dresses like a pimp. I miss him. Slutty fairytales are sort of a hobby of mine. Casey whines about how he picked the wrong week to leave his instrument behind, but says he left it on the floor and now it's not up to him. Dim the lights now.
Done. Ryan makes fun of a girl for awwwwing that we have to do the results, and calls Lee to the stage. His bowtie is undone, and it's totally hot. He was the best last night, and the judges think he might have won the show. He, of course, thinks he could have done better, and explains about how both good and bad comments have to filter through and into babbling. Ryan asks if he's too hard on himself, and even though the answer to that question is always no, he says... Maybe. Sign number one that he is not half as subject to crushing self-doubt as his narrative would have us believe. On the other hand, the correct answer never sounds sincere either, so possibly it's best just to babble on incessantly. As he usually does.
Simon giggles when Ryan asks if he watched it back this week, and he says no, because he doesn't like to see himself on TV. Simon says Lee's night last night was the first time he felt Lee believed in himself, and maybe this is thanks to Harry. (It was, but that's not a great thing.) He tells him to carry on doing what he did, because he could win. How funny would it be if he was out tonight, after all that? But of course he is safe. Good.
It's Gaga time! Lady Gaga time! Ryan introduces "Alejandro," and overall here's what is happening: A giant angel statue under blue lights, a naked gay man having spazzers on the floor, and Gaga at the piano covered in spray-painted black branches, herself in a black chiffon version of the costumes they had to wear in The Handmaid's Tale. She starts out with a little unplugged "Bad Romance," and then one million gay men spazz her center stage while she does a weird accent, and the song finally starts.
There's a park bench/razor blade on which a violinist is sitting. The fog comes up and so the bike-shorted gay men think they can dance. Half of them are hot and the other half have a bit too much gayface happening. Dancers get a pass for that -- but ice skaters don't! -- but even still, it's excessive. Good thing they got those asses. Gaga doesn't take off the net bag over her head at any time, and they're all Calibanning around... Nope, there goes the hood. She's still got a fishnet thing over her face, because she's weird about her face. Because it's weird. After the chorus, more weird accent. The song is very slow and not my favorite of the catalog, but I finally get this could be pretty awesome to hear in person. The gay men fight and fuck while a severely goateed man does incantations, and then everybody starts waltzing with each other. Fire starts shooting out of the angels shoulderblades. Everybody masturbates.
Lady Gaga stalks over to a giant Halloween Tree/Meat God, and plays the piano hardcore and things get kind of Shakira for a second, musically, but now she's singing about somebody named "Roberto." Maybe this song is actually written from the perspective of somebody named Roberto and she's even more about appropriating gay men's sex lives than usual, taking it global. Or maybe those are the names of two of her dancers and she's just making this song up as she goes along. Or maybe this is a tribute to Cinco de Mayo, because she keeps talking about Mexico. Well, those dancers are getting quite a workout either way, I don't mind saying. They really work those obliques in this one.
I think that incorporating Pilates into dance, and then this new hybrid form of pilates-dance into Halloween, and then all of this becomes creepy gay orgies, I think that was always going to happen. Lady Gaga just got there first. I absolutely adore her, but I absolutely despise absolutes, so here goes:
Lady Gaga creates culture, but more importantly if you have a subculture of any kind, Lady G would like to be a part of it, because she's an upper-class prep school New Yorker and thus has been exposed to subcultures her entire life that do not admit her. So when that happens -- when you are too interesting for your world -- you have to do things like this, which are awesome, but also things that are not so awesome, like glomming onto gay culture so hard you actually have to pretend that your bisexuality is more than hypothetical. You have to look Barbara Walters in the eye and check in with yourself and make a fully informed decision that you will lie to her face and say you fuck girls all the time, even though you really don't, after just a few telling seconds of silence.
Because it could all come crashing down if you don't, right, and because so far it's been fine because only Barbara Walters is crass enough or old enough to think that particular distinction matters. And if that part of the GLBT isn't doing it, just imply you have a penis. Ah, the droll and decadent mystique. We love to pretend the '70s were real, because it means straight guys will blow us if we wait long enough. So eventually you will be accepted as an honorary queer simply by declaring yourself one, because gay culture is starving and because gay culture loves attention of any kind.
Harry calls Casey's mother to tell her that Casey is ugly, because he is crushing on Casey, and then talks about how Mike is an asshole, because he is crushing on Mike... Have you noticed that every fucking thing out of Harry's mouth is negative? That's not a trick of editing or a hilarious package. He's really just kind of a cock. So there's a long montage of that for awhile, and Harry tries to fuck Casey one more time, and gets more and more irritating, and Crystal's insulin pump goes off and he's a dick about it, which at least makes him feel terrible, and he and Lee stare at each other for awhile and then climb aboard the piano and sodomize each other and basically it's exactly like "Alejandro" by Lady Gaga, but with an old man's old balls.
More strutting, all-black suit (tasteful!) and then Harry singing the Beatles, and not so great. Bleep-bloop. I don't think it's funny when people make fun of stroke victims, I won't be a part of it. That's just the kind of person I am.
...And when we're back, he gives a little speech. Shits on Ellen, because she's the only one you can do that and have it still seem like it's a joke. And now, oh my God, we're doing another medley, this time of HCJ's songs, while he plays the piano and jerks himself off. I'm so sure! Does he even have songs? I didn't even know that. I guess hope floats after all, making Big Mike the Queen of Corn.
I thought he was, you know how eventually people get tired and are finished expressing themselves, but they don't know that so they just start doing standards (Rod Stewart) or weird crummy ether-jazz (Joni) or shitty bluegrass (Elvis Costello, getting back to his American roots)? I honestly thought that Harry Connick Jr. just went there at the beginning of things, and jumped the whole queue. Like that Grover guy that you raised him up, or Clay Aiken, or that Bublé character. To find out he just does exquisite pastiches, that this is what creativity looks like to him: Is that better or worse? I don't know the songs and they're not really singing, so I don't have much to say at this point, except that I truly do hate Harry Connick Jr.
He bitches more at Ellen, in a joking tone, but you can tell she's losing interest fast, and then awesomely he yells at her not to look him in the eyes, and Ryan jumps in there with a "Eyes off his organ!" Nice. Then Harry jokes about spousal abuse, except A) That's not funny when you're a dick and B) That is not funny. He embarrassed himself in front of Sinatra or something, there's a lot of detail in the story, it's amazingly long actually and I am not interested in hearing it. When you're a terrible thing that's one thing but when you're a Xerox copy of that terrible thing trying to measure up to the original horrible thing, and actually get in the face and beg for approval, that's like... Your whole life is fan fiction. Your music and now your whole life. Terrible. Upshot: Sinatra kissed Harry's wife full on the lips one time. Needless to say, he got a boner, because that's how those guys work. Ryan kicks it sideways, wisely, and we're back to results.
Crystal: Second lame performance in a row, but only to her very high standard. She goes stage right, in her awesome cummerbund. Mike "looked the part" and forced himself into being a "star." Stage left. Aaron Kelly comes shooting out of a uterus so we can talk about his lack of charisma, and joins Mike stage left. That puts Casey with Crystal, and then I bet Mike/Aaron are safe. We talk about how embarrassing and goat-throaty he has become, and there he goes over to Crystal. THEN THEY HUFF HIM!
Lee hates it. "If you had to choose... Would you even go for it?" Of course not. Nice way to keep the Huff in play without damaging any reputations, Ry-Ry. Lee is safe, we reiterate -- lots of clapping for that known fact -- and then... Mike and Aaron are Bottom Two! OMG! I can't believe Casey is safe. Well, I can. He's got Mike appeal for being all cheesy and obvious. So now it's Mike vs. Aaron. Send! Aaron! Home! He needs to keep cooking, he is not done cooking yet!
Okay after many votes, the safe person is not... Aaron Kelly. Obviously. You can see he knew it but continued to hope. So now Aaron is sad, Mike's family rejoices, and Mike says deep and thrumming comfort things into Aaron's head. His posture, even his hair, have completely decompensated in this moment, and we revisit his lovingly untragic family, and we see his many adorable looks, and it's very sweet and everything, but we've rehearsed this moment for so many weeks -- since Top 24, really -- that there's not much to say or think or feel.
He sings some song or something, that pretty one he sang last night, and then Gaga's dancers wipe off all that makeup and take him out drinking to a secret bar they know. And when he gets a little Neely O'Hara about it, they'll take him into their arms and look sagely over his little head at each other, and nod. It's time for him to get some sleep. And oh, he'll sleep tonight! And under a waxing moon, as he stumbles back to his parents' hotel singing softly to himself, belting occasionally to the delight of passersby, maybe he figures some things out. But I doubt it. Godspeed, little one.
Read our Q&A with Siobhan Magnus.
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