Okay 327 people went through Hollywood, some of them more annoyingly than others, Ashley, and now in the smoking wreckage of Group Night we find 100 of them doing the intense business of not losing their shit while we do the last thing: Solo Auditions, before the Chair. All the people with crazy faces make crazy faces, and then they all file into the auditorium with their shticks and instruments and whatever. There's a whole band there for them, which they can use however they like.
Haley Reinhart (20, Milwaukee) is a sometime Bessie Girl with a whole lot of face who later fucked up during Group Night and pissed off J. Lo enough that she got a "skin of your teeth" warning... But today, she totally rocks. She sounds like she is literally getting stabbed to death right onstage, it's great. Like, imagine Leona Lewis but from a bad neighborhood. Her voice is amazing. Her crazy eyes, not so much.
is the lovely Ashthon Jones (24, Nashville-ish) was in Ashley's group, which sucks for her, but then she sings the song about how she's not going, because sure, and everybody loves it. There are styling issues ultimately but we'll see what happens. And then Thia Megia (15) has a very deep voice and only a little pageant girl in her...
This episode is weird. They didn't even really fuck around, they were just like, "Here are some pretty girls that can sing. Check out what that is like." You came for the Hunger Games, now stay for the Dreamgirls.
I don't know if it's super nice or super boring or what, I cannot gauge my reaction as yet, but there haven't been that many girls that really surprised me one way or the other in the last five weeks, so maybe this is just the way of things. Wasn't there a year like that? The one with Fantasia. All the girls at once. Do you think that's going to happen again? I don't know if I can handle that, not without Victoria Huggins to fight Molly DeWolf Swensen.
You are right, Victoria Huggins should totally be a Pokémon. But what would her power be? Abrupt slaps to the temple. Knitting needle to the abdomen. Seething lunacy. Gnashing. Those choppers of hers comin' at ya.
Adrian Michael (19, Pearland, TX) starts well, not really that well, and Michael on the keys does one of those cute things he always does. Other Caleb messes up his key, causing Ryan to giggle with Michael. Frances Coontz (16, Santa Ana), I don't even know what she is up to but then, neither does she. Too bad, she's cute as heck. They give her the key and she boots around and is lost a little.
Junebug does his usual magical drama actions -- but first we relate the time he sacrificed Jacee to dark gods on a dark altar with a darkly shining knife -- and then his boombastic "Georgia" wins everybody over once again. He really is something, isn't he? Sometimes we retreat into artifice. I really can't be the one to call bullshit on that.
Kendra Chantelle (22, Loudon, TN) sings "Georgia" also, but has the added trainwreck benefit of being named not only Kendra but also Chantelle. Sophia Shorai (Minneapolis) has concept hair but a fantastic voice and is one of the few women I actually care about so far. She gets a standing ovation; one wonders if this is because they also miss Ashlee Simpson as much as I do. As much as Fallout Boy does.
Chris Medina will be doing "My Prerogative" but uh-oh, Malibu's weirdo mister Carson Higgins is also doing that song. They were in Group together with Caleb Hawley, if you recall. But now they are doing it, and they are doing it this way: Carson is doing it crazy but normal, because that is who he always is, and Chris is doing it like that Plain White T's dude I hated so much that one year that thought he invented covers. I won't hold it against Chris, but when you think about how many things we're not holding against Chris it starts to get a little daunting.
The segment is about how they all play instruments. Julie Z sings the song about how she won't write you a love song, which I love. Caleb Hawley, the real Caleb, sings Stevie Wonder and it's amazing. The double-hit of Colton and then Brett is still just too much to even deal with, and then Robbie Rosen, who is just about magical. It's so weird to see all of the obvious ones in one big clot like this. What will go on the rest of the episode? Oh, and now here's Casey Abrams with a giant stand-up bass. They have us, y'all. They have us all kinds of figured out. I can't even think of anybody else after this paragraph.
I mean there's still Jacee and Scott, both of whom I think will choke, but see: Colton, we have not begun to understand what he is doing. He is like OneRepublic had a baby with Gossip Girl and I guarantee you I will be 100% on his side forever and ever, because he jumped out of the wallpaper just like Blake did. He is not only a good kid, but he looks and behaves exactly like every band I have ever liked.
Brett, we already know what he's up to and it's going to come down to everything but talent: It will be about nerves and whether he's old enough to actually do this.
Robbie Rosen is doing some kind of piano man thing that totally works even though he's not really old enough to be doing it. If he keeps the cheesy grin under control and doesn't go Tim Urban on us, he'll be good.
And Casey... Does one of the best auditions I've ever seen in ten years of this show. It's just bizarre and masterful and beautiful, go find it. The man is a genius.
Chelsee is having trouble because Rob is gone and Crazy Jacqueline's crazy has finally come up in the form of the Ebola and now she is hospital bound and not coming back. So Chelsee's foursome is now down to only Chelsee, all alone, pulling it together. Which she does pretty well, singing "Because Of You" of all the awesome choices, but even if she duffed this one we already know she's reliable and can handle her shit. She saves her crisis of confidence for afterward, which is all I needed to see. Fingers crossed but the way the show's talking about it, maybe not so much.
5 PM. Lauren Alaina with the baby parents sings her Aerosmith song again, and it's beautiful again. I really cannot -- and neither can J. Lo -- believe she's 15, she's always so eye-catching and poised and fun to watch. I just hope she doesn't let the monster out.
Jacob Lusk that was so cool on Group Night pretty much confirms that he's less a one-trick pony than a pony of many, many tricks. He scats, he wails, he sings super deep, he looks fifty, he does diva movements. It's lovely to hear, but when I think about watching him do this every week, when I think about watching him do this on like Rolling Stones night, it kind of makes me want to die already. There are lots of kinds of singing. This one, it excites people. I know, I've seen Glee. Outside, after a triumphant lap around the auditorium... Jacob Lusk loses his entire shit. Even Ryan is sort of impressed with how crazy.
John Wayne! I forgot about him. And he sings "Landslide," with a guitar, and he's so pretty and it's so pretty and J. Lo can't help but sing along, and the camera is just a constant mélange of fades and soft focus and making you feel the romance of the ages and whatever. John Wayne. Now go hug Ryan Seacrest some more.
Ashley Fucking Sullivan is reading Chicken Soup For The Mentally Compromised and she will be singing the song that she "screams" at her boyfriend because of their crazy love. (The boyfriend, of course, was in Iraq.) Then she sings the song with crazy spooky eyes and then forgets the words and narrates once again what it's like to be awful Ashley Sullivan and she wastes everybody's time and thinks that her mental illness is cute and it's just horrible and she finally just starts crying and cuts to the chorus and then tells them several more stories about the chaos inside her mind.
Send her home! She is the worst! Everybody is so mean about Gwyneth all the time but seriously, honestly, what would you rather have: To me, they are the two boundaries of where your day might end up. Gwyneth day, you did okay. Everybody hates you, you're disingenuous and completely confused about what real people are like, but at least you didn't show your ass. Maybe you sent out a newsletter that was a mistake, but that's it.
Ashley day, you need a nice relaxing rest visit, somewhere on the coast, where they give you your meds on a schedule. You need to backtrack and figure out what happened. You need to understand first that you have choices and then you need to understand the consequences of those choices, and then you need to somehow work it out with both of those things at once, for the rest of your life. Maybe yoga, I don't know. I don't know how we fix Ashley, as a nation. But I do know it's tremendously important that we try. Or at least find a way to weaponize it.
Stefano is still just a little too charming to take seriously, but he does okay with his audition. Jovany is still working that weird face of his, and actually his audition is not great at all, which is too bad. Jacee does his usual thing and it's cute and controlled and talented, but guess what? Lower the age limit to six months old, it's still going to come down to who is hardened on the inside, which means the youngest people are always going to be screwed. You can't become Danny Gokey without something cold and dead inside you.
Scotty! Still singing that one song he always sings, except for this one day that's not on the list. And in fact, there's only like one country song on the list, and he doesn't know it. So instead of actually doing something interesting or cool, he stays in his box and mushmouths his way through it, and it's awful. "I Hope You Dance" is also a problem for this girl we haven't seen before, who has styled herself with a vengeance. Maybe she was too busy putting objects in her hair to learn the words.
He dead-eyed explains that he deserves to get cut: "The only reason to keep me here is my deep voice," he says. Scotty, I like about him that he generally knows what's going on. He is smart plus blunt, which is the best way to be I think, plus everything that comes out of his mouth sounds like James Earl Jones and God already cosigned it anyway.
The Judgery do that crazy thing in the darkness where they shove the photos around on the table, and then everybody goes into the Rooms Without Chairs. There are four of them this year. I wonder what that means? They will tell us what it means, but they will be lying. If Ryan says two rooms go through -- meaning we're down to 50 -- that would make sense, but I guarantee he's lying. No matter what. So since that makes the most sense, I'm betting he'll never say it.
Because if he does, then really all of them will go through and we'll still be at 100. Or there will be Wild Card and we'll have to have another Group Night (!). Or only one room will go through, and so to make Top 20 they'll cut five people in Vegas and leave them there to find their way home and before you know it they're breaking Jacee's glasses and speaking to a boar's head and Brett accidentally becomes the leader of a strange and wild desert wi-fi religion and they become post-everything and Corey and John Wayne are the only ones that make it back to civilization, on their horses, and they've got some news for us about what they learned about themselves, and each other, out in that wilderness.
Room 1: Ashley literally looking like something is eating her from the inside. Jacee, having had it with this whole motherfucker. Caleb H and some other crazy hot dude. Junebug, Durbin, Lauren, Robbie, Casey; Brett -- I'm not lying -- assuming the role of spiritual leader just as was foreseen, making everybody hold hands. J. Lo tells us that this part -- just like every part to this part -- is the worst part for her. Randy, he just talks for awhile. It's totally obvious to us that this room is fine, but only because these people have been shoved down our throats. Must be insane if you're actually there.
Room 2: Bunch of people we don't know, and also Corey and Jersey Briana. The most totally gone people. Corey, of course, buries his head in his jacket. J. Lo crouches on the floor to him and pats him on the jacket over his head, but eventually he refuses to remove it and she gets bored. Corey's got some stuff to do, with himself, but he's close. There was no chance for him at all, we knew that, but gosh he's just such a delightful funny little person that it will be sad to have him gone.
Room 3: Mark Gutierrez and Chelsee and a bunch of barely recognizable people, so I bet they're gone too. Oh, and they are. I'll miss ya, Chelsee. And I assume I will miss other people in this room too, but the deck is sorta stacked at this point. The one bad thing about Hollywood is how hard it is to keep all these bastards straight.
Room 4 is already obviously going through, but who is that? Adepopo, Carson, Julie Z, Jovany, Rachel Zevita (ugh) and Scotty.
So then we've got 50 people hugging and screaming in the hallway ("out and out jubilation," as Seacrest says) and we learn what the thing is: In Vegas, doing the Beatles, with only 24 hours to prepare before the final cuts. That is so much awesomer than the Chair! I couldn't figure out what they were thinking, but what they were thinking is: Let's take the best part of Group Night and throw a jillion dollars at it so it looks like Regular Idol but with all the crazy of Auditions. That is beautiful.
So what do we think? Caleb, Carson, Naima, and Julie Z are all definitely going to soar. Colton and Junebug I think will be amazing, or at least reliably fascinating. They're good men. Durbin has a decent shot but needs to diversify his portfolio. Casey could very well win, based on tonight. Scott I think won't last long unless they're working the demo, because he's not really for this show. Jovany, there's always one of those and I never get it. Remember that gay stripper one? I sure don't.
But the ones I'm interested in this year are the kids, because with the exceptions of Lauren and Robbie I just don't see it working out. Brett and Jacee can't possibly get through on good will alone, right? I mean, maybe Brett will pull the creativity card and get by that way, by doing musical things as opposed to just singing songs, demonstrating flexibility, maybe getting extra votes during the personal-time stuff where we see the shining awesomeness of his inner being. But Jacee? Come on. As much as I would love it if he just came out every week and sang "God Bless The Broken Road" as we were going to sleep, it's going to be really ugly when whatever happens, happens.
Buuuut not as ugly as Ashley's inevitable throwdowns with her crazy. Every time I think she's going to get cut, and every time she's like, "Oh, you thought that shit was enough to get me thrown off the show? Think again, motherfucker. I am only encouraged to act out further by this latest nonsense." Perhaps she will just keep raising her game forever, just refusing to let her insanity be anything but your problem, until she finally wins the show.
Or comes down hanging from the rafters slathered in blood like Gaga. Or sets the Kodak on fire in the middle of a live show. Or joins the cast of The Real Housewives Of Atlanta. Whatever it is, whatever eventually happens to Ashley, we're going to hear about it on the news, I know that much. She's not going down without pulling the tablecloth off along with her, ass over teakettle, car parts and bottles and cutlery, and that's a party to which we're all invited, RSVP or otherwise. So I'll see you there.
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