I didn't watch last week but I heard it was pretty fucked up. Either Casey acted nasty and gross, or was weird and 19. One of those categories, we already knew he was. The other I don't really believe. There's an insanely long thing about what happened last week, in slow motion, and it looks pretty shitty. I don't think that would have been a very good birthday gift, Ryan. I don't think so at all.
On the up, though, two of these dorks are going home tomorrow and there's no more of that dumb Judge Save crap to look forward to. So in the final analysis, even if it turns America on my man Casey like a pack of mean dogs, I don't really mind. This last week has been a whole dolce far niente, but now it's time to care. Not a challenge to which I am up.
In the audience tonight we have Heather Morris. Maybe she will do a little dance for everybody. I love watching that woman dance more than just about anything in the world. Or maybe she will rip off her shirt and toss Ryan Seacrest into the crowd. I hope he will be okay when that happens.
Old McDonald is wearing that goddamn jacket again, and it looks like Naima is actually wearing a matching pantsuit. I barely remember these people from two weeks ago.
CAN YOU FEEL THE SMUG TONIGHT?
Remember Elton John? He used to be really interesting, I remember when I was a kid he was super interesting to me. He seemed tiny, and I was obsessed with tiny people. I still love a good tiny person, they just make me feel nice. Wonderwall, I'm lookin' at you.
I used to mix Elton up with Paul Williams, which now that I'm saying it to you seems like a particularly cruel or childlike thing to say. I can remember the day I asked my dad why his songs were so good, but the words were so dumb, and he says sadly, like he knew this day was coming, "Remember that guy you always stare at and ask his name? Bernie Taupin?"
When I was a little kid I thought every singer wrote all their songs and lyrics, and played the instruments themselves. Like Joni Mitchell or Prince, the other two musicians I knew about. I thought my father wrote all of James Taylor's songs for probably the first ten years of my life.
I had no idea Bernie Taupin wrote those dumb ass words. I just assumed he was his husband or something.
I was raised by an army of grad students, I don't know if that helps explain anything.
They do this Entertainment Weekly photo shoot that is pretty ridic, but any establishment that employs both Jessica Shaw and Lisa Schwartzbaum is not a company I am interested in promoting, no matter how much I like Ken Walczak.
My mom wouldn't let me watch West Side Story when I was a kid because, she said, hearing Natalie Wood sing in that fake Puerto Rican accent made her feel like a racist.
(My grandmother, during this same period in my life, wouldn't allow me to watch Lady & The Tramp because it sends the wrong message w/r/t class, implying that marriage down is acceptable. Guess which one I take after more.)
On the other hand, the only Celine Dion song I actually like is "Treat Her Like A Lady," which if you haven't heard it do yourself a favor, I've probably mentioned it before, but she does that with a reggae swagger that must be heard to be believed. And you know, Five-Percenters are basically the Quebecois of black people so maybe this is all coming together.
J. Lo fully airquotes herself here: "Love the reggae 'swag,'" she says, sounding exactly like my grandmother. Randy fully says "Booyaka" and "mad flavor." Tyler opts out, I think, entirely.* Which is the right call, because good lord. Basically, they agree that Naima's bullshit is wearing thin and that this is not a talent show for unique individuals, this is the opposite of that.
*Oh, hell. Tyler: "Boom-shakalaka!" I wish there was a movie, like Date Night but a documentary, where Steven Tyler comes down off the millionaire tower for like one second and does any of this shit in front of real people. When I say he's the uncle we don't always invite to things, that's exactly the kind of shit I mean. Boom-shakalaka, for Chrissake.
I like that Taio Cruz. He always seems normal.
I hate Paul McDonald. He always seems normal too. He is extra ordinary.
GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR NEUROLOGICAL EVENT
Case in point, let's sing "Rocket Man," and let's do that with a reggae swag, like old Kate Bush back in the day -- I think I would enjoy Old Mac if he did something like that instead of just acting like the haunted toe jam of Jack Johnson -- j/k, he's going to do it "in the style of someone performing an encore after a successful concert." Whatever the jubilant motherfuck that means.
But then that's exactly what he does. A skeleton running its finger bones lightly across your skin, under a dark, dark moon in a bedroom you don't recognize, performing an encore after a successful rock concert, dusty cobwebs pulled taut across its hipbones.
He whispers the last note in a way that can only be described as an aggressive death-rattle, staring into the camera with hooded, hateful Parseltongue eyes, and we're done.
I think he's got my number. Wearing the jacket, even, and then the pointedly grody, scary ssssssss into the camera at the end? That was litrally flesh-crawling, Ann Perkins. Litrally my flesh crawled off my bones and under a duvet to get away from it.
I hate, fucking hate, the idea that tweens or teens or humans of any wayward stripe are seeing this, and thinking that's how people ever behave themselves.
Tyler: "I want to talk for a long, long time about absolutely nothing other than myself. I feel the need for some attention."
Everybody: "Done."
Judgery: "We sense a darkness in you, Paul."
Paul: "I've been falling down a lot."
BALLAD OF A WELL-KNOWN BALLAD
Pia tells some long story about nothing at all, just words coming out of her scrunched-up face, and then we find out what awesome stuff she's going to be perpetrating once she's done talking: "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me," of course. Why the fuck would she ever sing any other song besides that one?
Has any song ever been so relentlessly this song? Every fucking year they do it like it's no thing, like a toddler looking you in the eye while they shit their pants. Just hateful. I can't even tell if it's good or not because of the veil of HPV between me and anybody singing this song. It sounds very good, from over here. She can sing. She can sing exactly like this, every week, and do a great job.
Tyler: "Pia, you've done it again."
Nuff said.
...Nope!
Tyler (verbatim): "...It makes me cry inside, and it's because of the notes you choose to sing to that song." Jackson: "I know I told you to stop singing ballads, but now that everybody's kissing your ass, please remember that I never told you that. My lack of gumption has made me a success in this business." Seacrest: "Tyler and Jackson, punch each other in the nuts. Please, please, please."
Please, please, please.
YOUR MOM KIND OF FREAKED ME OUT
Jimmy Iovine has some kind of dominating Labrador sex with Stefano's shoulder at this point, like in the days of the Roman emperors when they had to express their power, or the complicated lives of the Bonobo, and Stefano is like, "I can take it," and then he sings "Tiny Dancer," because he is the male Pia.
Well I mean, you know what I mean. Difference is that I actually like this song and I actually like Stefano. He's workable. A perfectly fine contestant to be on this show. And he does a lovely, workable job with the song. I don't know how you're supposed to spin "Tiny Dancer" in any way -- not that he would, God forbid, because when he puts the twist on it that's when the crazy clowns come out and rush around in a Brownian motion -- but he's got his style and things.
Judgery: "David Archuleta, it is past your bedtime."
Stefano: "But I'm not..."
Judgery: "DAVID ARCHULETA! What did we JUST SAY?"
Stefano: "...Okay."
Tyler: "Also, you seem gay."
My friend Paul sent me a video from the season of Fantasia where they did an Elton John medley, like, to show me how far we've come, and it was pretty dire. The production values and the clothes and everything, George Huff, were all pretty KIDS Inc. and I had to agree that we've moved forward into the future at this point. But I think Stefano is the main one of this crop that would work, and work well, in any season.
(Also, whoever the ginger kid was that season, he seems pretty great. I'm sure he did a lot of zoot suit riot crap from the sound of his voice and that I wouldn't have liked him on the show, but I found him pretty charming in this one-second clip. I wonder where he is now, or what his name is. The only one I remember from that season, I only know his three initials and that he looked like a sexy hobbit. Tiny people!)
Seacrest: "Don't let these swill merchants rewrite you."
Stefano: "This song explains why I'm leaving home to become a stewardess."
Seacrest: "I don't make the rain..."
Jacob: "-- Lie."
GOODBYE NORMAL GENES
up: The bestselling song in Billboard history. Obvs this is going to be the Diana Remix of the Marilyn Monroe song. Obvs the person singing this will be Lauren Alaina. She was not born when Diana died, she doesn't remember what that was like. The sackcloth, the ashes, moms crying silently where they thought we couldn't hear them.
Hell, she wasn't born when Prince William got married.
Ugh, Howie Mandel. He looks the same on the outside as he does on the inside.
Whenever I see him now, I think automatically What if Howie Mandel had a threesome with Russell Brand and Katy Perry. OCD is funny and all, but that makes me sad to think about, because I don't think he would come back from that. I don't think anybody could, really, but poor imaginary Howie.
Lauren looks lovely, actually, and sounds very pretty. This might be her best thing. This is another one that Kara would have liked, she's doing that whole connection-to-the-song thing, which crowds out the pageant faces -- about half the time -- and that makes her easier to take. How unsettling, but I think this is the best song tonight. I'm flipping over to Lauren again. Feels weird.
Jackson agrees about her performance. Tyler agrees with himself about how this is all about him, and that fucking children is funny. Lopez agrees with me and Randy. Lauren loses the ability to speak sense the very second the song is done, and acts like a mental case for a good long while, and then it's over.
THE SPEED OF DORK
James Durbin describes to us his meeting with Hulk Hogan in such detail that it takes exactly as long as it took the first time, then explains that he will be singing "Saturday Night," which is all right I guess. For fighting. Durbin and Iovine have some kind of insane complex plan about how he's going to crowdsurf or detonate a dirty bomb or something in the audience, I didn't really follow it.
Rock jumps, growls, I don't know if you're familiar with Durbin but he does all those things he does, and it's cute and fun to watch and he's got the range and everything. It's times like these I lose track of what they're even judging or how people vote or why they vote. Singing an annoying song, but doing it with conviction, is often key. Ask Bo Bice.
Or the piano, which is: Currently on fire. Literally.
Or Durbin's crotch, which is: There it is.
The Judgery are completely undone by the unreal amount of pageantry and the cornucopia of things that just happened. Tyler talks about himself some more, Lopez compares him essentially to Cirque de Soleil, Jackson babbles impressively and repackages everybody else's opinion as usual.
Seacrest: "That was fun, man!"
Durbin: "Let me tell you about the hair products I have in my hair and this historical event where Michael Jackson caught on fire and accidentally make a drug reference before I answer that question."
Seacrest: "It wasn't a question. But you are great!"
I CAN FEEL AMERICA WAVING GOODBYE
...Wait, Thia Megia is still here? Is this real life?
Thia Megia will be singing "Daniel," which is a song I love, although I'm starting to get worried nobody will sing "Your Song," because if it wasn't Paul it would be Pia and if it's not Pia then it should be Thia Megia, right?
But "Daniel" works too. Also, how cute that she's dedicating it to her brother (who went away to college?), and not the gay men in her romantic history. There's still time, Thia Megia. This song will one day mean something very different to you.
The instrumentation, as a Thia Megia song you knew this would be true, is the most interesting part. It sounds like a OneRepublic joint, but with Thia Megia singing it. It's kind of a weird match, because one thing I don't think is usually true is that her voice is overpowered by the music, but the sweep of it, the Thia + The Machine thump-thump of it, makes her voice sound tinny and thin. Eventually she works it into the overall thing, but it takes almost the whole song to finally make it sound intentional.
I bet the studio version of this is fantastic-sounding, actually. I might look into that. I don't think I've bought a song from this show since Brooke White. I feel like I talk about the Florence + The Machine cover of "Halo" on Live Lounge more than anything in this universe, more than Downton Abbey or even The Good Wife, but if you haven't heard it, it's like dang.
Judgery: "THIA MEGIA! We love saying your name as much as Jacob does. THIA MEGIA! That was awesome, Thia Megia. Well done, Thia Megia."
...Aaaand Casey will be singing "Your Song." Whatever happens to me in the five minutes will probably be weird. I was kind of hoping he would plan the craziest song and snag the last spot this week, but whatever. Does that mean Lusk is going to sing "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" That sounds vile! I so hope that happens. I wish Lusk would go full-force and bring up like the didge and the bagpipes and the choir and some Tuvan throat-singers. I'm sure he'll get there eventually.
Iovine: "Do you know what was wrong with you last week?"
Casey, verbatim: "Some thangs?"
Iovine: "EVERYTHING."
Wow. Kind of loving Jimmy right now. I mean, I didn't see it and obviously I never will, I don't need to see the feet to know they're clay. You don't look boys like that in the mouth, and with something like last week's whole fiasco you just keep driving without even glancing over because if you see it, that's on you.
It's like, well, shortly after Dawson and I were married the first time, we were at Lauren Alaina's mom's quinceañera and Dawson had a couple too many Michelob Ultras and ended up getting into a fight with the DJ about who knows what, it's not even important, Cascada or something, but the day I'm doing my morning meditations out on the deck and the trellis was alive with honeysuckle and he comes out with my chai and he wants to talk and talk and talk about it and I'm just like, "Pootie" -- I call him Pootie Tang -- I go, "Pootie, everybody gets a little crazy sometimes. You could never embarrass me. I'm not going to hold it against you, I'm just going to add it to the portrait of you that I carry in my heart."
And he started crying, which is like the worst thing that you can ever see, and that's what I'm trying to avoid here.
CASEY ABRAMS VERSUS THE WORLD
It is so hard to concentrate -- I don't know if you noticed! -- but gosh. My guy singing my song, singing it for his life. Iovine uses the word "humble," which is good, and then the other man Rodney tells him to shave the beard, which is bad. But so he goes in for a little trim instead, which is fine. You can always look just a little bit better, can't you. They do some kind of dye-my-eyes-to-match-my-gown magic on him, and he comes out looking pretty much like Casey.
...
And we're back. That was kind of amazing. Classic and pretty and understated. The Judgery applaud themselves for saving him last week, but they have every reason to do so, because he is the greatest. Go ahead and get it, girls. We can wait. I have to deal with some feelings right now anyway.
Even by Seacrest time, there's still people crying in the audience. Seacrest asks him what the holy hell happened last week, with his Paul McDonalding his pants all over the place, and Casey apologizes for acting like that and is charming some more. I think that Casey Abrams officially makes my tummy feel funny.
It was a good run, Pootie. But I may have found my Pacey.
Stop crying. Stop it. My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Why do you never speak. Stop it, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Remember that movie where Julia Roberts started sleeping on the floor and eventually ran off to India? I am this close, Pootie. Imogen Poots, pull it together. You're Francoing out on me right now. I'm 'bout to eat pray shove you.
THE DOGS OF LUSK
Jacob Lusk -- of the Compton Lusks -- will be singing "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word" and not "Can You Feel The Love" like we assumed. There's a crazy moment during practice where Mary J. Blige -- who famously I guess sang this song that I can never remember how it goes -- appears out of nowhere, dressed like a hip-hop nun.
Mary J: "Just don't exalt your dancery over your singery, because that will take you right down to the river."
Lusk: "I don't understand what you are saying."
Mary J: "If this is the Matrix, you are the Mildred Pierce of the Matrix."
Lusk: "You're making me feel really confused."
Iovine: "You guys! I love this back and forth thing you've got going. Love it!"
The very picture of decorum, with his taciturn fisherman's subtlety and simple ways. No longer content to be the hairdresser or devilish emcee in a cyberpunk movie, he wears a classic tuxedo shirt and shoes without spats. He's a Lusk of his former self.
Just kidding, he screams his ass off and sings the song like he's being stabbed over and over in the abdomen by Leona Lewis, and then the last note is so long that Clay Aiken gets in his car and drives down to the shore and eats crabs he caught himself and then goes home again and dresses his baby up in little outfits and then sees his baby grow up and graduate college and right around the time they're discussing Clay's living arrangements in the autumn of his life and then Jacob is done with the note. It is so, so fantastic, as usual. Jacob Lusk, you do all the things I hate and it turns out so great every time.
Lopez: "Yeah, that was consistently amazing. When you're on this show it seems like you're slumming and then I have to be like, Then what is my deal?"
Jackson: "And yet I will find a way to complain about it. Don't showboat or show off. But be more like Pia and pick one 'Jacob Spot' where you go fucking nuts on it and showboat and show off."
Seacrest: "Um, he totally did that with the ridiculous last note."
Jackson: "I wish that you had sung more high notes."
Lusk: "Uh huh. Where would you like me to place them?"
HALEY TO THE THIEF
Haley is also here? Thia Megia and Haley should start an assassin's guild or something, superhero fighting club, for all their power to come as a surprise every time. Can you name a person that has actually been eliminated?
Oh, it's because it's Top 11 again. The reason all of these people are still here is because nobody's been eliminated yet. Ashthon. That was like a cookie party for everybody.
Okay, "Bennie & The Jets." The other song with "Crocodile Rock" that made me ask what was wrong with Elton John. It sounds so very great and the words are so, like, Why sing a song about that. Why not sing a song called "Bunny & The Frets" and have it be about a rabbit who runs a guitar repair place, or "Lenny & The Slats" about a violent moron who also installs aluminum siding. I just don't get it.
But then Haley sings the song, and it's so fucking great! Slinky and controlled and sweet and funny and charming and pretty, with all the tricks she does usually plus some more tricks she just made up, and she seems like she's having the time of her life. I kind of love this song now.
Casey-Jacob-Haley! That is how the lineup should always work, just going up-up-up. I know people are going to love Pia too -- and Durbin set things on fire -- but by the end of this episode it feels like one of the best episodes of all time. Well done.
So let's see. You got Scotty singing his usual same song he sings all the time, Scotty singing Scotty singing Scotty all the way into the corners, and it's pretty. You got Naima doing the funniest fucking thing I've ever seen on this show, and makes me hope she stays forever but I doubt it. Old McDonald with as usual no freakin' idea what the lyrics of his song mean, beyond "I will drag your bones to hell with me long before the devil knows you're dead."
Pia did her whole thing that generally people love on that song that generally people love. Stefano zoomed all the way into Stefano Things and made it work. Lauren redeemed her seed finally. Durbin: Fire. Thia Megia will be going home. Casey turning your recapper into all kinds of tapioca brain. Lusk freaking out on top of his freakouts. Haley proving that she is the superior DNA from which Lauren Alaina was derived mere weeks ago.
What will happen? I think two girls, but that makes me think two boys. Hopefully Naima has a voting bloc, and I'm guessing Thia does, which would be my two guesses. I hope that it is Paul, because I hope that every week, and this week even you must've noticed the creeping creepiness. If it's Casey I'll implode, I'll just implode.
Seacrest says sixty thousand times that you have to vote, hope you voted, please do vote, the Judges are even more impotent and irrelevant than ever before, and then it's a triple-header of Fantasia -- contact with whom will probably turn Jacob Lusk into some kind of nuclear Voltron creature that will assemble itself into all of your dreams coming true and exploding -- and then the obnoxious twosome of Jamie Foxx and will.i.am pretending they've heard of music. Should be amaaaazing!
Find out who will guide the career of this season's winner.