Tuesday
The 75 remaining contestants are divided into four rooms, by flavor. One group gets dropped almost immediately, the goes through almost immediately, and then we meet the people in the last two rooms and watch them sweat it out before one is cut and the other stays on. At no point are there any surprises whatsoever.
Room One: Underdogs and their Afflictions.
Sharon Galvez: Grew up in the Vegas. Shunta Werthen: Once got on the wrong bus. (Also, has a gigantic face that gets her called a drag queen when she's dressed like one.) Angel Higgs: Alleged child molester. Rashida Johnson: Had an illness. Would have been fine if she'd just stayed sick, or not gotten sick in the first place. Sean McNeill: Nice. Pleasant. Everybody looks hellish while waiting to get cut. Too bad we didn't get to meet many of these people. One might be Timothy from the Aaron WK-Timothy-Delma Fiasco, but I'm not sure.
Room Two: Obvious Producer Choices and Their Niches.
Delma Jamar Jefferson: Is not a crackhead like his brother. Wrote an original song called "Shake." Mario Vazquez: Is close with his mother. He sings part of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and it'sâ¦totally awesome, actually. Judd Harris: Is new and boring. Matthew Kester: Is new and looks like an alien and is boring. Carrie: Is from a farm. Again! She gets a lingo translation from frigging Constantine because he's so hardcore and streetwise. He's in this room. So are David Brown: Black and Churchgoing, Anwar: Gay Black Teacher, Janay: Survivor of Gina's Dad, and Vonzell: Mail Carrier. It's so very suspenseful. Paula and Randy perpetrate some bullshit before putting them through.
Room Three: Absolutely Not.
Jennifer "Daycare" Todd is amazing but not as good as years ago when we saw her last. Carrie "Mean Girl" Zaruba learned about fortitude this week, but sadly did not learn about choosing songs in her range. Aa'Shia: Says a bunch of meaningless things out of her ass, and sings like a Chipmunk impersonating little Michael Jackson. Larry Ellis: Fake fucking contacts. Fired. Sings in five voices, each more horrible than the last. Ross: Giant square-head crooner. Sings a Stevie Wonder song, but of course starts scatting as soon as possible. Also in here: Crazy Feet Dezmond, and Kurtis Parks, which is too bad, because he's talented and cool and has this weird thing where he gets progressively hotter every second of every day. Anyway, they get cut and Larry freaks out about how wonderful he is, showing his ass impressively, while Aa'shia just keeps talking. What an obnoxious kid!
Room Four: Bughouse Trainwrecks.
The crying remains of the most emotionally unstable, a few very obvious ringers, and a couple of new, also crazy people. Scott is here, representing for the Planet of the Ape, and Bo Bice is here to help him fill the Sling Blade quota. JP and John Zisa are here, still wondering why. Jaclyn Crum is here. Is she crying? Of course she is. Mikalah is here, looking rough and raw and scary as ever. We meet Tammy Wynette Nash, who's a basket case, and the disgusting Jessica Sierra, who freaked me out last week with her bedroom eyes at the cameramen and fondling of herself in the middle of the night. She sings like Natasha Lyonne and dresses like a guy who thinks he's Diane Keaton. Ringers include Sarah Mather and Lindsey Cardinale, who I can tell apart a lot of the time, Anthony Federov and his whole tracheotomy thing, and glorious Nadia with all the hair.
On the whole, it's awesome because they stick the craziest people in a room, make them wait the longest, and then give them the most drawn-out, manipulative speech before telling them they've gotten through. It's a little like taking a room of kindergartners and pretending to kill the class hamster -- but turns out it's just a joke! Anyway, they all jump around like freaks and they all cry because they're all completely freaked and exhausted at this point.
Tomorrow: Over the last three weeks, the judges spent time watching the footage of these 44 that are left, and tomorrow, LIVE, they're going to reveal which 20 of them are going home, and we'll have our 24 contestants. In case you forgot, or think this is good news, remember what it means for the three weeks: Three nights of American Idol a week. Yeah.
Wednesday
At the end of tonight, there are 12 "boys" and 12 "girls" left standing. That means 20 dead dreams, total, including alien blond boy from last night. David Browne is an obvious yes. Last night's two Room Four additional crazy girls, Tammy "Wynette" Nash and Jessica "Gone Wild" Sierra, interview one after the other: Tammy's a no, Jessica's a yes. I wish that were reversed. JP and/or Jaclyn Crum are subtly freaking out in the background of every single shot in this entire show tonight -- count on the Lamentation of the Unstable Idols.
"Nikko" (Osbourne) Smith gets through thanks to his lucky coin, ability to turn flips in the air, and facial resemblance to Usher. Aloha Micheaux gets through despite not being worth mentioning until tonight. For one thousand years, Mikalah is dicked around and finally gets through, and there's no reason to dwell on this, butâ¦I love her. You hear me? She's adorable. Under that bullshit clown suit prostitute she calls a personality is someone pretty awesome. And that person, I really honestly like. This show can be confusing, y'all.
On the completely, diametrically opposed side, there's Anthony Federov, who's so appealing I kind of hate seeing him on TV. He's like that commercial you hate to enjoy so much, like Vanessa the mod British gum lady. I'm just glad he can sing: even if I'm force-fed something, I'd like it to look and sound good. And he does both these things. Ditto Nadia Turner, Vonzell "The Mail Lady" Solomon, and Carrie "Duh" Underwood. Judd Harris -- whom we've barely seen -- is wicked hot, and gets through, while Erin Furey, Ivan Ganchev, and Yolanda McIntosh all miss out. Who are they? Don't know. Doesn't matter, I guess.
Now there's Faith Gatewood, who loses her goddamned mind for about a million years, getting into the following trouble: a staring contest with Simon, a counting contest with the elevator, a walking contest with her own shoes, a yelling contest with Ivan Ganchev, a wrestling contest with a Buick, and a cluelessness contest with Ryan Seacrest. And if Ryan Seacrest is enough to talk you out of your craziness? You're not trying hard enough. Constantine and his ridiculous crotch and his stupid-ass smarmy face get through, and I've officially hit that wall where I hate him too much to go on without feeling bad about it, so I guess I like him now. Great. Mikalah and Constantine in the same night. Arrr.
Meanwhile, Constantine's self-selected mortal enemy, Bo Bice, edges ever closer to being Boo Radley, while Jaclyn Crum and Amanda Avila are set against each other in a cage match. So, too, are Travis Tucker (DC auditions) and this guy we've not seen, Warren (SF auditions). Travis and Amanda get through, and I end up kind of bummed about Jaclyn. Then there's a montage of people we've lost along the way. There are a hundred of them but at least they show Adam Pratt again. Finally, Seacrest shows us the finals and explains week (and the two weeks thereafter):
On Monday, we'll see a showdown between the fina1 12 "Boys." On Tuesday, the final 12 "Girls." On Wednesday, the bottom two of each gender will be eliminated. This patter will repeat three times until we arrive at our Top 12, on whom we will vote each week starting March 15th.
"Boys" who will be competing (along with some hot sleeper guys we've hardly seen before at all, Judd Harris, Jared Yates, and Joseph Mureno) on Monday, whose names you must recognize by now: David Brown, Anwar Robinson, Nikko "Osbourne" Smith, Anthony Federov, Scott Savol, Mario Vazquez, Travis Tucker, Bo Bice, Constantine Maroulis. And God help me, but I agree with all 12, which means the extraordinary machine that is AI/FOX marketing seems to have located my secret AI button, and pushed it at least nine times in a row. Yikes.
"Girls" who will be competing (along with cute new sleeper chicks Selena Rae, Melinda Lira, and Aloha Micheaux) on Tuesday: Nadia Turner, Carrie Underwood, Lindsey Cardinale, Sarah Mather, Vonzell Solomon, Amanda Avila, Janay Castine, Jessica Sierra, and -- somehow making me happy -- Mikalah Gordon. This show sure is confusing.
So really there isn't real talking about how the three weeks are going to work, we're just hoping you'll watch this show all the fucking time, every night of the week you're not watching The O.C. week? Even Randy looks hot, which always means it's going to be awesome. There will be 12 finalist men with the phone lines open, 12 finalist women with the phone lines open, and an hour's worth of results on Wednesday.
Welcome to your Rupert Murdoch future. You paid with your soul.
All aboard.
Tuesday
Ryan recaps: It started with 193 people going to "Hollywood" for the "chance of a lifetime," and then there were three days of grueling challenges, such as singing a song, and dancing around, and making Elizabeth Pha feel like shit. Now only 75 remain -- but the journey is far from over. Tonight there will be "a battle on center stage" with one last chance. Your purple prose? Just gives you away. I know that the whole deal with this show is making us all into tiny Regina Brookses that totally might die if we don't find out right now who gets cut and who will make it and all that, but it's just so tiring every time. Twice a week? Makes it harder to care, especially since I barely remember any of the people I'm supposed to be rooting for in the first place. Sarah Mather and Lindsey Cardinale are different people, right? And tonight they're engaging in a battle on center stage for their one last chance?
So after that, we learn what it actually means: that all the people are in four rooms, and two of the rooms are going into yet another round tomorrow night to determine the Final 24, so really, what are we going to call that? A battle to the death on center stage? How can we get more topspin on that? Oh, right. An Evil Chair. Anyhow, we see some people in the four rooms -- this strung-out-looking dude, John Zisa, Cardinale, Scott Savol, Kurtis, Sharon Galvez, Mikalah, some long-haired guy that might be Bo Bice.
Wait, so it's just them in four rooms? And then some of them go through and some go home? So this episode should be like four minutes long, right? Wrong. Because we're totally going into a flashback.
That morning… It was totally crazy! It was "a mixture of anxiety and nervous anticipation." Also mixed in there were: some distress, a soupcon of trepidation, a liter of apprehension, worry all up out the joint, and some uneasy uneasiness. Not to mention redundancy. We see that strung-out guy again, now in the context of both anxiety and nervous anticipation. Jennifer Todd goes more into depth with Ryan about -- you guessed it -- how nervous everybody is right now. She can totally feel it coming from everybody. They're really nervous, you guys. Are you nervous? I'm nervous. Mixed with anxious trepidation.
Constantine, Anwar, that lamb-voiced bleating stripper girl with the dark gamine hair and horrific shiny eye shadow who I swear I saw once on Taxicab Confessions making out with her stripper friend. She bleats about how "it takes a lot out of you emotionally." Clichés in such brain-crushing amounts tonight, and I'm just getting angrier and angrier. Crooner Ross, Jaclyn, people losing their voices, people having throat discomfort. Mikalah, who is not "packing her bags." Mikalah singing in the bathroom. She's just got to keep pushing all the time, it's exhausting to watch. Stop pushing me, Gordon. Give it a rest. And on a related note, Anwar strikes quite a pose in the foyer.
Now Ryan explains how they got to sing "a song of their choice" a cappella for the judges before they were herded like cattle into their four rooms. But I wonder how "of their choice" they really were, since on this entire show I've only heard either A) songs from junior high or earlier, or B) songs by those people whose are the only albums being sold right now because only old people buy albums, like Josh Groban or Alicia Keys or that girl who doesn't know why she didn't come. Neither of which fit under my "choice," exactly. Well, okay: If I were auditioning for American Idol, I would sing that Helen Reddy song where the girl magically traps the man inside her radio.
Now there's: Ross freaking out, Anwar freaking out, Carrie shaking like a freak and then freaking out, Mario being nervous in a dumbass hat, and then a montage of everybody singing, and the people cheering in the audience, which you know I really like. Quick Jaclyn, Sean McNeill, JP, and Scott (looking utterly deranged, as per usual) filing out of the auditionorium as the judges begin their deliberations. It's like the Sorting Hat, only no matter what, you lose.
Then quick shots of the rooms, and this is ridiculous, because it's totally wrong and fake, and calculated to throw you off, because they're actually intercutting shots from different rooms? So it's like the only purpose of this little bit is to, um, show you that the contestants were, like, in some rooms. The rooms contain Lindsay and Jaclyn holding hands, and I think that Mean Girl that wasn't Carrie, Rachel, and the lovely Rashida, and a cleaned-up Sharon. One room contains Aa'shia, and Jennifer Todd in the same shot. So fucking suspenseful. Another room has JP, Bo -- who is looking a thousand times better -- and Anthony, and another room has Carrie Underwood, and some room has Mario. And the rooms also contain 62 other people, because they're all in one of the four rooms. So basically we're done here.
JP is, of course, freaking out and sweating. There's an alien I've never seen before with blonde hair and a wild look. There's effing Dezmond. Amanda Avila, and Shunta (nicknamed in the forums "Shunta Funkup," which rules), and Jaclyn, who thinks she did okay.
Pointless exposition that it's 6:00 PM, but that's meaningless since we could be in real time, or in a flashback, or the first day of auditions, or D-Day. We've established that once upon a time, at some point, in L.A., it was 6:00 PM. Now we focus on the individual rooms. I swear there's a point at which the rooms switch what number they are, but I couldn't care less, so I don't know when (or for sure that) it happens.
In Room One, they're all reflecting on their American Idol journey. I'd love to join them on that little hell ride, but I've never seen any of them in my life. We flash back to Sharon Galvez in her regular job as a cocktail waitress in the Vegas. She apparently does karaoke on the bar, as part of her job. I don't have a good feeling about that, as a career. Plus, it makes you look kind of like a douche, because like, singing karaoke standing on a bar in Vegas wearing the clothing of a common streetwalker? Shows you want to be a serious performer, like, not at all. She sings here in "Hollywood" that song about our future and how it's our children. I couldn't tell you if it's good. I no longer know what constitutes good singing. Too much of this show too often. It all just sounds like singing to me.
Also in this group is Shunta "Funkup" Werthen, who is wearing an insanely cute white suit and looks like a million bucks. The reason, I figured out, that she looks like such a drag queen is because she has a gigantic face, like her head and the front part of her head are huge, and her features are proportionate to that, and so if you slap on any makeup it all looks as big as the rims on my Impala. The point of makeup is to emphasize features and bring them all into harmony with one another, but since her features and face are so gigantic, she's just like this insect that appears much larger than it really is, when she's got the crazy obnoxious clown lady makeup on. Here? Her features are very distinctive and she has a really big face, and she sounds frigging great, and I like looking at her.
Yuck. Angel Higgs is in this goddamn room. Gross. She got through? But her lover slash student slash felony statutory didn't, remember? She sings, and it's okay, but she's pretty tricksy, as usual. It's so irritating and unearned when people do that that shouldn't. It's like painting your house all bright and pretty but inside there's a dirt floor. She looks cuter than she ever has -- nervous anticipation is good for her, I'd imagine she's used to it -- but she sounds worse. This room is doomed.
Rashida Johnson laughs about her anxiety, play-whining "I want my mommy so bad!" We talk about how she was sick, some more, and then see her sing that awesome rendition of "Baby Come To Me" from Day One, riffing all around the backup voices and sounding just amazing. I've said it before, but she's so great, because she's a creative, intelligent singer. She has a standard of what's played out in terms of trite phrasing, what's expected in those runs and ad-libs, and she does not go beneath it. (Janay Castine, take heed, please.) She sings "Overjoyed," and again misses out due to the comparison with her prior Sexy Phlegm voice, but she is still a really good singer, and incredibly interesting and enjoyable to listen to, because she'll surprise you.
Sean McNeill and his gorgeous smile and that whole thing, how he was the first person and he stole our hearts singing "Isn't She Lovely," back in DC. I was so much younger then, y'all. Flashback-within-the-flashback about how Simon said, "Voice no, personality yes," which is a bummer because I like his voice. But I like the him of him a whole lot more, so maybe Simon's right. Tonight, he sings "Your Song," which is like a personal favor to me, as far as I'm concerned. I love that song. I feel free to tell everybody it's my song, actually. It's very nice, but his voice changes completely for the "hope you don't mind" power part, and not in a good way -- it sounds like he's compensating or going for loudness over control, and actually he's not, but it's not a strong way to go out. In the room of doom, he looks very sleepy. It's cute.
Ryan tells us again about the four rooms, just in case we're too nervous to remember the basics. Simon is gone on a personal matter -- I vaguely remember seeing other seasons with these rooms, and isn't he always absent for this part? Who would want him there for that part anyway, though. I mean, he'd be a dick to the losers, a dick to the winners, and affect complete disinterest either way, and he would do this four times. And he'd steal focus from Paula, and this is kind of her show each year. Especially this year, dude. Dumbly.
So now Paula and Randy are here in Room One and they're totally going to blow your mind with their decision, because you already know this room is out, because it is obvious, because the rooms are: Probably No, Obviously Yes, Absolutely No, and Basket Cases. I'll tell you that right now. So we're knocking out the least dramatic room right away. Everyone in this room commences looking simply hellish. Well, Paula actually looks really cute, she's wearing a little barrette and a white collared shirt with cuffs under a black vest that's kind of like a bustier. It's cute. She looks like a doctor of Vibeology or something. (Paula Abdul, V.D.) She looks like she should have a monocle -- you know, just for fun. So there's silence, but not too terribly long, and then Randy sends them all home.
Paula says a bunch of nonsense as they all deflate like balloons and begin to feel horrible and wander around the room aimlessly. I'm sad that we didn't get to meet many of these people, you know? Because they weren't interesting as winners or losers, because I'm guessing they were too busy being, you know, people. Not good TV, that. Well, mostly: one guy completely loses his shit and lies down in the middle of the floor in this catatonic way. Sean tells us that he's proud of what he's done. Timothy (I think) is kind of bummed, but being cool about it. You know, stuff people do. Compare, please, this room to Room Four. Now that room is good TV.
Okay, Room Two. Delma Jamar -- is this a good sign for this room? -- and how he acted the fool during the group sing, but not as badly as his crackhead brother, who they show blabbering gibberish into the camera. Jamar is going to sing an original song, which he wrote at his grandmother's house. Oh dear. It is called "Shake," and I have written down the lyrics for you, for when you become the American Idol.
Shake shake
Off your problems
If you've got it you can
Shake shake
In the party
Come on won't you
Shake shake
With the lady that you want
You can shake shake
Whoa!
I love that he put his nose to the grindstone and applied some elbow grease and wrote this song, for the day when he'd become a superstar. And I love for some reason the fact that he did all of this hard work in his grandmother's house. Shake shake, Jamar. Oh, and while this is going on, out in the audience this cute boy and girl look at each other and start dancing around, without cracking smiles, and it's hilarious.
Mario Vazquez -- oh, had you forgotten about him for five seconds? Let's rectify that -- was much beloved by Simon in his first audition. Of course. He's all Latin Timberlake and quite talented. He looks so nervous right about now that Seacrest is even like, wow. We meet Ada, his adorable mom, who kept after him and made him practice all the time and just totally loves him and knows he can do whatever he puts his mind to because her baby boy has what it takes and all that. Which is great, especially because he totally does. I'm with Ada. In response to all this mom business, Mario just says he's doing all this because he wants his mother to "have hope." Aw. And Seacrest tells us Mario kind of "went out on a limb today," and before you can even wonder what exactly that means, Mario busts into "Bohemian Rhapsody," as an R&B song, and it's so freaking awesome. I mean, you couldn't really do the whole song without showing your pants, but it's nice to hear the part that he does sing.
Now: an alien. Matthew Kester (23, Hollister MO), one of those contestants they just pull out at the last second without every having shown them for more than a few seconds at a time. I wonder what Hollister, Missouri is like. Is it really dark with a confusing floor plan? Is there scary thumping music there? Is it easy to get lost?
He sings "Unchained Melody," and confirms my suspicions about his home town. It's easy to get lost. And the music is scary. And so too is Matthew. His hair is not concept enough to hit ugly-sexy, which is what he needs to be going for, and could totally hit, if his hair were way more beyond the pale than it is. I always bring up and name-check Udo Kier, he's like my own personal sleazy European congressional filibuster, so I'm not going to do that again, but honestly that's what we're dealing with. The problem isn't that he's teetering on ugly-sexy, the problem is that he's chock full of bling and whatnot. His pageantry is rich and weird and kind of Bobby Trendy-ish. Also he has a weak voice, and no matter what I do, he's not getting any less creepy-looking.
Carrie Underwood rescues fucking stray animals. I don't even know what to do with that information, but I read it in an article today and I felt I had to inflict it on you. Again with that whole "pictures of trees, pictures of stars" bag of bullshit. Remember how last week she forgot the words of "Young Hearts Run Free?" American Idol does, and will serve up that footage piping hot for the I think fourth time in a row in case you forgot! In fact, today's a double whammy because they hit us with both dead horses at once. Today (earlier) she sang some very pleasant country song about letting freedom ring and how today is a day of reckoning. It's nice. She's nice. Clearly.
After, she confabs with Constantine, and it's fairly awesome, because in his own mind he's the anti-Carrie. He's totally legit and she's totally manufactured, he's utterly hep and she's a square, he is a Golden God and she carried a watermelon, and he's in the know while she's painfully out with his hardcore world of botched sex changes and problematic stripper candles. So his congenital smugness has a field day as he explains to her that the comment she misheard ("Hey little momma you knocked it off the box," she giggles) was a positive comment having to do with baseball, and he's a rock star and hardcore and calling bullshit on her Pollyanna routine because he's all too streetwise. So yeah, he's smirky and nasty and has a very Brad Dourif kind of vibe, but Seacrest figures she's probably glad to be in the same room with him now, because of how obvious it is that he'll advance. For whatever reason.
Judd Harris (27, NYC) is unassuming, uninteresting, and never before seen on my TV. He sings "Mustang Sally" and he's awesome, with a booming voice and a nice growl in it back there. He's got those Sal Mineo dark circles and looks like he needs to rest up, but he's hot and unexpected and a good singer. Also in here are David Brown, Anwar, Janay, and Vonzell. Just in case you didn't get it, this room is all good.
Come with us now to Vonzell's life as a mail carrier. Join her in her truck, where she loves the fact that she gets to sing and listen to music all day. Some of the people on her route like to come out and bug her and ask about her musical career. Kickboxer, fashion victim, mail carrier. Awesome singer. There's nothing she can't do! She's got interests, I like that. More neon stuff all over her. She sings one of the creepier songs ever penned, "Natural Woman," while wearing a decidedly unnatural side ponytail, and there are some weird, unnatural goblin movements, but she sounds really good.
Randy and Paula finally come to give the obvious news that they're good. First, they are asked to give themselves a big round of applause, which: gay, and then Randy goes on and on about how there are both winners and losers in this competition. Barf. They're totally going to go there, yeah. So Paula whines about how it's "so tough" and it "breaks her heart" and she's acting like she's going to cry. You can only pull this crap so many times before it starts to grate, and that number of times is one or maybe two, but this whole last couple of weeks -- especially tonight and tomorrow night -- hit the panic button so many damn times it's like when the person in a movie hears the sound of the killer but it turns out to just be a cat. So dumb.
Paula, with this jacked up potato-like Botoxified immobile fake crying face? You have made your cute outfit uglier. I hope you're happy. Then, of course, they're through and they scream and yell and act like it wasn't completely obvious. Alien is crying on his cell phone. Constantine sticks his stupid tongue out and it's approximately as cool as when Drew Barrymore does the Wayne's World air-guitar riff at the burger place in Charlie's Angels, and they all freak out and are happy.
Into Room Three, where they can totally hear the Room Two freak-out, which is hilarious but kind of sad, but mostly hilarious. Dezmond, my great love interest Carrie Zaruba, Kurtis from VA looking if possible even hotter, Ross talking right out his ass, Aa'shia ditto, and Jennifer Todd. And then a funny meta part where Dezmond is talking also out of his ass about how Simon constantly tells people that are perfect that they are crappy, but he does it in this way where he's just concerned for other people, not because it happened to him, which it did, in his own mind. And then, of course, flip to footage of the whole "Magic Mountain" debacle, where Simon told Dezmond he was a freak show, and there's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," and I imagine Paula being all, "He did the California Raisins, and he did it better than the California Raisins!" And it's not that great, it's tricksy and lazy and annoying, and he's different and obnoxious when he's a cappella, and I hate it.
Then there's Jennifer Todd, whose chances are so very good that we haven't seen her once this entire time since her original audition. She sings "I'm So Excited," but honestly she doesn't seem that excited, and I'm not that excited, and her voice not all that exciting here, but she does do this one cool dramatic thing where she turns the volume up each time she says "More," and it's very controlled and pretty cool.
And oh, Carrie Zaruba. YAY! She's "remained strong," which gets a Hell Yeah from me, and she -- in response to another stupid producer question they asked everybody -- tells the judges that this week she "learned about fortitude." She sings "Lately" by Stevie Wonder. Dude! She looks like Carole King! That's who she looks like. God, that's been driving me nuts. Okay, so she sings in a key way too low for her range, like Liz Phair. As a brief aside, how come Liz Phair, a songwriter who writes her own songs for her own self to sing, by herself, writes songs that are too low for her own self to sing? It's so mysterious. Anyway, in Carrie's case, the higher notes sound vastly prettier than the low parts, and the low parts sound juuuust fine. I like her so much. She's very beautiful on the stage. In the room? Not so much. She looks like she might die. She looks dehydrated.
Aa'shia -- it's been so long I don't remember how they pronounced it at her audition, but either way it's pronounced tonight "Asia." We see her horrible asstastic mother again. Ryan's basically like, yeah, her mom's still horrible, even here in "Hollywood." What she has learned is that "the purpose of life is to have a life of purpose." I guess that's true, if stupidly obvious and embarrassing in the way that true things usually are. It sounds a little disingenuous coming from a 17-year-old gender dysphoric, but whatever. Still dressed like a dude, still singing like a chipmunk. Still upsetting. Why can't you go over to The Road To Stardom With Missy Elliott? They don't ever have to sing on that show if they don't want to, and the truth is that you don't want to, you just want to rap, and the additional truth is that I don't want you to, because it sounds stupid and always makes me think of the "Pass the Dutchie" song, and I like you when you rap, and at no other time, singing or not.
She's got this whole irritating Mikalah Star Search kind of act choreographed with her hat where she acts out the lyrics of the goddamned song like how she hides her feelings and hides her face with her stupid T.E.V.I.N. hat, and mostly I'm pissed because she's singing "Never Can Say Goodbye," which is an awesome song, and she's ruining it and only dogs can hear it, and then back in the doomed room, she exhorts everyone in the room to have hope because they are all so talented, but it's less about encouraging them -- or whistling in the dark -- than it is about making sure everybody's looking at her. There's this whole demagoguery thing she's trying for (you'll see it again in a sec) that is so painfully inappropriate for someone as off-putting as she's turned out to be.
Only slightly more maleward on the shifting spectrum is Larry Ellis (25, Shreveport LA), another Jack in the Box surprise contestant out of nowhere. He's wearing fake colored contacts. The End. He sings a horrible song, horribly. Five voices come out of him in rapid succession and they are all terrible. I want to punch his face. It's so boring. There is screaming and the making of noises and the lamentation of the Larry. It's so terrible. Also he is dressed like a septuagenarian Miami golfer. There are then some people talking about how phenomenal he was, specifically Tammy Nash, who's a total crazy we've seen a lot of but never talked to, and she's saying how when the Sorting Hat starts, she wants to be in the room with him, but she's not in his room now, and she's so lucky. On so many levels.
Ross, however, is there, and his giant square head is taking up all the airspace and the taller people have to bend down like when there's a fire and you have to put safety first, and we see that this time around he sang "Sir Duke," which is a pretty great song by the very awesome Stevie Wonder (it's the one about how you can "feel it all over"), and just as you're thinking, Jacob! You were wrong! He's not just going to sing Stray Cats and "Mack the Knife" and whatever Swingers bullshit like that the whole time after all, just when you're happy about Ross and his range and his ability to think outside the Zoot box, you feel something ominous and foreboding on the horizon and you remember: there's a bombload of scatting in this song. And that's why he picked it, and that is why I despise him. So he pretty much figures out that it sucked immediately after he's done singing, and I feel a little bad for him. And he flops around on the floor and generally shows that he has something going on in there other than the whole hepcat mess, even if it's something kind of smurfy with the flopping onto his knees and the anguish and whatnot, and for a second I think I might like him, and then I'm sure I do, as he smiles and goes, "I'm really fucked." Yep.
Room Four is stacked five deep with the crying, bruised remains of the most emotionally unstable contestants of all: JP and John from Hackensack, Jaclyn Crum, Mikalah, Crazy Tammy Wynette Nash (that's her name, dude), and Sarah Mather (I think). They're all looking totally freaked out. Like more than before. Mikalah is just looking as raw as ever and staring into space like she just saw a massacre. It's chaotic and kind of Blair Witch. Everybody's being crazy, privately. Tammy is crying. Probably because she's not in the same room with Larry and all his ridiculous bullshit. Why the hell are all the crazies upset? When you're so totally fixated on being fucking freak, you miss stuff. For example, if they were to take even a cursory look around, they would notice how they're fully in the same room with Anthony Federov, Nadia Turner, and Lindsey Cardinale. This is so dumb.
Anthony continues to sound more and more like Clay Aiken with a slight Slavic accent. Well, he's way less ornamented and silly about it, but I think mainly I resisted the comparison because he looks so very little like Clay and I didn't want anyone to have to carry the weight of being the new Clay Aiken. I don't even want Clay Aiken to have to carry the burden of the old Clay Aiken, but it's too late to save him now. He sings some song that is the same song that he sang in Cleveland, and he's such a shoo-in that the only drama Ryan can come up with is, like, "Will this hurt his chances?" Yeah, the fact that months ago he sang this same song is going to matter to three people who are variously so high, nonsensical, and utterly uninterested that they're barely going to remember that he himself was in Cleveland. Or the fact of Cleveland, for that matter.
We learn that Jaclyn Crum is the youngest person still in the competition, at 16. She's very likeable, but I can't see ever rushing out to buy her album, or like, putting a poster up in my office cubicle at all. Well, maybe. She's kind of weird-looking. She makes the utterly boneheaded mistake of singing a Kelly Clarkson song at this time. Also it goes on for a million years, and also it's pretty great. I keep waiting for Paula to say, like, "She did Kelly Clarkson, but she did it better than Kelly Clarkson," because that joke is always good for me, and then I remember that all three judges are going to pretend it's some song they slightly remember having heard but not how or where or why. Which basically is what they do. I wish she had opted for "Sorry 2004" instead. How awesome would that be?
Tammy Wynette Nash (28 Greensboro, NC) Jacks up out the Box and sings "A Place For Us" as a sad ballad, and it's pretty awesome. I like her, even though she's nuts, because of all the songs she could sing, she thought to sing something from West Side Story, and that's cool and memorable. She's had a hard week, and Ryan documents this for us with many, many shots of her becoming more and more insane up until her talking about how good Larry was, and she sings all awesome and then wanders out of the auditionorium, shaking off the hands of comfort she shouldn't even need because she rocked, and then yelling crazily into the camera about how she DID HER BEST. Jesus, these people in this room are all crazy.
You know, Scott's in this room. Just saying.
Okay, Bo Bice is that one long-haired guy I thought he was. Scott Savol sang "Ribbon in the Sky" for this round. I don't know that song. Mikalah acts like an insane freak and continues to address only Simon and continues to be pretty charming while being completely upsetting and horrible at the same time. "Today, she toned it down," says Ryan. Not in the looks department. Also, she has now become Barbra Streisand altogether. Yeah, congrats.
She and Ryan riff about how she's so outgoing, and then Ryan asks what she thinks the other contestants think of her. It's ugly and weird, and she's still just a little kid, no matter how weird she is. It's so terrible to behold, because she can't tell if he's really asking or just implying that everyone else in the group thinks she's an obnoxious whore, and then he realizes that he gave her the wrong impression, and he fucking rocks right here, and he makes these encouraging noises, so she slips back into performance mode and talks about they probably think she's fun and funny and nice. "Do you think they like you?" Um, yeah? Has anybody said anything? Which is so cute. Ryan Seacrest thinks she's adorable.
Maybe I do too. They've both kind of acquitted themselves admirably in this awkward little scene and I'm feeling all kinds of love right now.
Damn it.
Lindsey sings "The Woman In Me," wearing underwear as clothing again. Ugh. She has a very pretty, classic, nice pop voice. We don't spend too much time on her because it's a duh.
Today is Jessica's birthday. Who's that, you ask? She's that girl that touched herself in the hallway the night before group performances and tried to fuck the cameraman and, by proxy, me and you. I find her utterly creepy. One of the other contestants sings "Happy Birthday" to her and, of course, she winks into the camera. Jessica Sierra (19, Tampa FL) has had a hard life, and I honestly don't want to know the details, because it's clear things went more awry for her at some point than I am capable of imagining, and that bums me out.
Here, for her Jack in the Box debut into our lives, she is dressed like a homeless person, a man homeless, like a professor of geography, and she is making the faces of rabies. She is also wearing a trampy keyhole top. You know that show The Simpsons? There's that crazy gibbering lady who wanders around town yelling and covered in feral cats? That's what she's reminding me of right now. However, this is offset considerably by the fact that she is singing a totally banging rendition of "The Boys Are Back In Town." Which I love. I only like drastic covers. I still don't find her any less creepy, though.
You know, if Carrie Z. had not broken her spirit and if she'd applied one scintilla of effort at any point and had gotten through, this would totally be the room where Elizabeth Pha would have ended up. The trainwreck room. I wish I was there right now so I could go, like, "BOOM!" And watch them all scatter like an anthill. Or stand outside the door and scream "KELLY CLARKSON OH MY GOD" and cause a stampede and thin the herd a little. You know?
So one of these rooms is in, and one is out. Will it be Room Three or Room Four? Suspense. Randy and Paula enter Room Three smiling, so you know it's over and that the noise is going to turn out to actually be the killer and not a cat after all. We see again all the people that matter in this room: Ross, Dezmond, Kurtis, Aa'shia, Larry, Jennifer. The judges withhold a bit long and finally Aa'shia, who couldn't keep her damn mouth closed if her life depended on it because she's a retarded amount of annoying, finally yips, "Okay?" into the silence. The painful truth is revealed and they start crying. Paula makes some rancid lemonade about how they shouldn't "let the dream die," and the dreams immediately start dying all over the place.
Wednesday
More scary doom music tonight because Ryan is going to attempt some simple arithmetic we've already done any number of times before. There were over some number of people that auditioned, then some other number of people that went to "Hollywood," and one of them got on the wrong bus and got lost and then after some number of days there were a certain number of people left, and then…fewer. And tonight, 24, because one by one each one will sit in The Chair. THE CHAIR! I don't like Willem Dafoe. I think he's grody. But I did enjoy the awful parts in the Spiderman movie where he yelled at The Chair because it was possessed by the Green Goblin or whatever the hell.
So we see some examples of what might happen, if you are in The Chair: Randy's all, "You're not going to make the final," and Paula's talking about "your journey" is going to have to "stop here," and Simon saying, "You're not going through to the round." It's all so biting and scary and crazy because we've only heard it ninety-nine thousand times before.
The contestants hang around outside before the big ugly: Judd and JP laughing gaily, Tammy laughing insanely, some people, some other people, Anthony and Mario being babes, the gross alien guy watching some girl get all freaked out for real, Bo and Constantine holding court with a Delma, some girl we'll meet tonight, some other girls, somebody that just needs to be alone, Scott alone with a table napkin looking perturbed, the guy Ivan looking like a UT student, to somebody giving the bold viewpoint that "Everybody in this competition is very good, everybody that's here now deserves to be here," and then Faith (Worked in a hotel? Remember? Is not Shunta?), and then awesome Shunta. Ivan smiling again, but we'll see what happens later -- he always looks like he's smoking a cigarette even when he's not. Nice smile, crazy eyes.
Then everybody walking, especially crazy-ass Tammy and Jessica Sierra, and Nadia wearing a cute skirt and hideous Regina boots, and you have no idea about the order, or what they've done, it's just a photo collage, basically, of people you may or may not recognize. Tammy and JP exposit that there's just no telling what will happen. Seacrestiana about how it's a thirty-second ride up to the top and a thirty-second ride down and there are cameras in the elevator, of course, for all the pain. Also, he tells us, the walk to the judges' table is about 60 feet. Somebody walks toward The Chair and voices over about how he's not sure he did "enough." We get it.
Matthew Kester is the first one in the chair. He's wearing a horrible pink tie to go with his gay alien face, and sang a bunch of songs to audition. Nose ring. He's doing better on the ugly-sexy front, but like, ugly-sexy is still half ugly. I like him, I guess, and he's freaky-looking but nothing will make this interesting. They make small talk about how his New Year's Eve was because it's so very live tonight, and they tell him unanimously that he's not going through.
It's a long way back to the holding room, and the talking echoing in your ears and it's totally clichéd in every way, and then some people we may or may not have seen before. Within the first 30 minutes of this phase of the torture, six people have been sent home. Delma and Jaclyn and Mikalah and this chandelier earring girl all are like, "It's crazy." It's cute.
David in the elevator holds onto the walls as he "remembers" his church and thinks about God and stuff. Flashback to the church chaos again, and Ryan reminds us how now "that support is two thousand miles away" and he has to face the judges alone. He's still beautiful and has a great voice…but is he Top 12 material? He looks utterly fucking freaked out but thinks he made it. Randy goes, "Your prayers have been answered, dawg." Which I think would be a bit much, except not for David. His literal prayers have been literally answered. He comes out of the elevator downstairs, and everybody fucking freaks out. He's like Dionysus and everywhere he goes there's insanity and screaming. Or like the Beatles. Fittingly, he's the first contestant to get through. up, Tammy, predictably, freaks out. Some more.
Tammy and Jessica are the best of friends, because they're both troubled as hell. "We've waited for this for a long time," she says, in a momentarily Jamaican accent. In the background is JP.
Then Seacrest acts like it's so freaking surprising as he points out that nobody: the crew, I don't know, producers, Loni Anderson, nobody knows what's going to happen except the judges. Duh. Tammy waits downstairs while Jessica gets The Chair, and of course starts losing it. This is like her fifth 'sode of the day already. Then she turns it up and now she's going crazy in clip and talking gibberish. Meanwhile, we flash back to Jessica singing "When You Tell Me That You Love Me." She's got Dallas hair stripes, weird teeth, and remember please that I already hate her due to the whole deeply troubled and not seeking help and going on TV thing.
Then Tammy's journey ends and she thanks them for the opportunity, and then, of course, she freaks out about how it's okay and God's will and whatever. She comes off super-cool, actually. Class. She says she'll be voting for Jessica, who's now crying, and Tammy's like, "I don't have any more tears, so don't cry, please." Nice and sweet and a little sad. Also believable. She's been on a non-stop crying jag for weeks. Maybe her whole life. No tears left, you say.
Osborne Smith is now "Nikko" Smith, which apparently is the name of a monkey from The Wizard of Oz or something, which is cool I guess because Nikko's dad is, of course, the baseball player Ozzie Smith, who's called the Wizard of Oz, and whatever. They ask him, "apropos of nothing," whether he still has his lucky coin. Bet he does. Yeah, he does. They tell him to thank it, and then congratulate him. The signal to noise here is such that I might -- in the heat of finding out something like this -- be a little confused as to what in fact my fate might be, but he's smarter than me, old Nikko. He gets it, and lets it go, and he's happy. It's nice.
Aloha Mischeaux. Who? I know, right? Simon tells her the decision was not unanimous, and lets it stretch out into infinity before telling her she's through to the Top 24. I'm so totally excited because I've totally never seen her before in my life and couldn't care less. She totally collapses and I still don't care. Ryan giggles because he can hear her screaming in the elevator. She and her mom freak out and she wants a donut, and it's pretty adorable but I still don't really care.
So Mikalah is so fucking freaked out that she's acting like a person, and even her mom from deep within herself has pulled it together for me and is being pretty sweet about how Mikalah's really talented (true, in a brassy Divine Miss Mikalah kind of way) and she is a good girl (I don't believe it for a second). The judges are all pleasantly surprised because she's acting like a human girl instead of an unholy amalgam of Jerry Lewis and Ethel Merman. Paula is like, "How are you feeling, honey?" in this tone where it's like she's worried because Mikalah's not acting like herself. As though that's a bad thing. She's pensive and really likeable -- I know, I know -- as she just pretty much bares it: "You know, I can't even…it's been rough today. So…I've seen a lot of really talented people go home." It's all so real. The judges talk crazy about how they've had to send people home and then Simon has to be the cliché that he is, so he's like, "I don't mind." Mikalah looks at him like he's repugnant. "Oh, Simon!" Randy agrees that he's being pointless and classless.
Paula asks what she'd do if she had it to do all again, which I'm guessing she asked every single person, and which is utterly dumb and meaningless and has no good answer. Just like every other question they ask them. "Why do you deserve to be the American Idol?" What the hell do you say to that? I can't even think of anything funny to say. Or anything to say, period. Anyway, Mikalah again does the right thing by…not answering the stupid question at all. Good girl.
"I feel like I've…whether making it on not, I'll leave here with…a fabulous experience, and a lot of lessons learned. But -- I don't think I'd come back year."
This makes Paula sad, because she loves it when people are coming back year, because she's not sure when that is. "I'm sorry to put you through this," she says, because there are producers holding a knife to her back that we can't see due to the power of editing, and they are forcing her to do this shit even though she would prefer not to do so, because it makes her look like a dick. And then she puts Mikalah through.
And the sucking begins. All hell breaks loose, and Mikalah turns on to her weird persona of Barbra Streisand and scariness and…it's like Lauren Ambrose in Psycho Beach Party, only not at all freaking adorable. Uncouth. It's like her fake personality is her real personality and she only turns into a human girl at times of breakdown or stress or fear. She's like the opposite of the Hulk. She gets less gross when she's freaked out. Which, I mean, you do the math for yourself, but at this point I can't say I'm all that dissimilar from her, so it would be hypocritical to hate her. So I don't.
You hear me, you stupid show? I love her. Okay? I hope she fucking wins.
Even though she's gross.
Anyway, she wigs the fuck out and hugs everybody and the only person not into it is Simon. Of course, she hugs Paula across the table, while coming around to give both males the full body contact hug because she's obviously into the approval of men blah blah blah. I mean, it's legitimately sad. Somebody with a personality this big could have guys eating out of her hand, but instead she comes off like that little girl in your elementary school that was sick all the time and always needed a hug from your teacher.
Oh it's fucking amazing to see this. She talks and talks and yaps and is weird and it's so fucking strange how she goes from human to this Fran Drescher bot, and I know I'm going on and on about it but it's like -- if this were a movie about a person with some kind of disorder where they turn into a vaudeville act when somebody snaps their fingers, she'd win, like, an Oscar. She does manage to fit in the fact that Simon is pretty much a fuckface, and as far as I'm concerned he is, here. With regard to her specifically. But then so am I, I guess. She talks to the cameras and the judges and whatever and asks disingenuous questions about what elevator button she should push, et cetera, whatever, like she's just so flustered and schritzing and whatever.
I'm happy for her, so much so that I'm surprising to myself, but on the other hand, you knew it was a snake when you picked it up, so I'm going to repress. She tells her mom the good news, and they jump all around screaming like fucking twice the cabaret show and I'm so horrified that I'm going to ignore it because I want to be happy for her, I guess, loving the alien and all that, and also I've heard her sing enough at this point that I think she deserves to be there.
Anthony talks to Ryan about the shaking of his legs, while holding hands with Tammy. It goes on a long while, this talk of shaking. Ryan finally sends him up. Suit as usual, shirt open to sternum as usual, admitting that his last performance wasn't so great. He's quite good-looking, in a grody, creepy kind of "Shia LeBeouf just turned eighteen" kind of way. He tells them how nervous and grateful he is, after a clip of him singing some song during Hollywood week. They tell him they discussed him at length. How I wish that were true about the forums too, so I wouldn't have to feel so bad about how much I hate Constantine every time I read the threads. He's through, and it's a shocker. He jumps around spazzily like he's pogoing for real, which is actually pretty awesome considering he looks like Doogie Howser's little brother at a circuit party and talks like James Earl Jones. Cognitive dissonance rocks my hizzy.
Nadia comes in like a beautiful movie of glamour and Chanel Number 5, and Simon's like, "Shall I tell you?" And she pulls the triple axel of Simon, looking him right in the eye and saying with a sassy charm, "I don't know. Shall you?" It's very Melrose Place, because they stare at each other and draw their words…out…very…slowly and it's cute. "I think I will." "Okay." And guess what he says. Nadia Turner is beautiful even with hideous pelt boots. Vonzell's in there for five seconds, up, and Paula blah blah and perfunctorily puts her through.
Carrie Underwood comes in, and Simon immediately signals that this is going to take forever, as though anyone watching this is in suspense about whether she's getting through, as though anybody cares, as though you're sitting on the very edge of your coma. But on the way to boring the ever-loving anything out of me, he says some interesting things about how they've had to let good people go in order to maintain the gender balance, basically. Which fascinates me. And then he says that those people, those good people who but for the hideous machinations of this show, would be well-advised to come back for year. But of course, "You won't need to do that, because you're through to the round." She covers her face and is wearing a total Seth Cohen green sweater with a aqua collar and too-long sleeves -- it's seriously so cute. She's nice and likeable and cool, and very happy.
Judd Harris, whom we've barely seen at all but is no less hot for that, does some splits in flashback and then tells the judges he's "hanging in there," and that it's been "a trying day." It is explained that there was a split decision, but it fell out in his favor. I just assume that this always means Simon hates the person. Judd smiles, and if you thought now was your chance to see him and how he is and what he's all about? Keep wishing. For now, lots of people in lots of makeup and capris, getting cut. I'm cool with that. Ivan Ganchev, who we'll see later, smiles sweetly when he's cut, and then Yolanda McIntosh's "journey" ends, but her giant Shunta face never, ever does.
Faith Gatewood is there now, and she wants you to know that she is VERY CONFIDENT AND HAPPY AND FULL OF JOY and I think she might kiss the camera man. She's got this whole Bunifa Latifa Sharifa Halifa Jackson, non-standard grammar, losing physical control at a high pace kind of thing going on. Then to "Hollywood," where it's not that great and there's a side ponytail in attendance. Specifically she reminds me of the video for the supremely irritating and insulting Destiny's Child song "Soldier" that the kids are listening to these days. The degree to which she just does not get it is very entertaining.
Simon's like, "We've had to make a decision based on the strongest girls and strongest guys today." Oh, okay. Is that good or bad? "It's bad. You haven't made the round." I haven't? "You haven't." I didn't make it? "You didn't make it." Fucking seriously. And we got to watch it happen.
She wanders out and it's…pretty ugly. "Oh my God, oh my God, this is not even happening," et cetera. And Ryan has to get in on it now and all, "Things went from bad to worse," and she totally gets out on the wrong floor and pushes all the wrong buttons in that six-inch acrylic nails way where she has to angle in parallel to push it with the pad of her finger. I love that. So she gets more and more upset and for a second I think she's going to hurl and then she comes out of the elevator sobbing openly and then makes a general announcement to everybody in the whole world: "I didn't make it, everybody! You thought I was good? I didn't make it!" How do you respond to that? If you're Jaclyn Crum, you burst into freaking tears like you're about to totally die, of course.
"Why didn't I make it? Now I gotta call my mom and I gotta tell her this." It's so ugly. It's just so inappropriate and difficult to watch. Ivan G., who we saw once earlier and never again, tries to be comforting, saying, "Come on, Faith," in a very sympathetic manner. Faith is so not having that.
"'Come on'? Man, give me a break! You know how hard I tried to get here? You're telling me to 'come on,' you know how many doors have closed in my face? All I do is just try for people to like me…I haven't done nothing but be nice to all of y'all, and I don't understand why I didn't make it. I don't even have a life to go back to…I don't have nothing to go back to…this is my dream. Somebody…somebody just…this is all I ever get. Just, always, like…boys, money, jobs, everything. Ooooooh my God, I can't even believe it, just…this is crazy!" And then she runs out into traffic.
It's horrible in lots of ways, but most of all is how deeply painful and mortifying it is, and of course how wrongheaded the whole thing turns out. This kind of thing irritates me to no end. It's like a checklist of bullshit I can't handle: being rude to people who are trying to help because you're so feeling your drama, and how she implicates everybody around her in her breakdown, hate, and then she basically tells them all that she deserves it more than they do because she's a better person, and of course I also hate it because it gives Jaclyn Crum yet another excuse to lose her shit altogether. And that Ryan runs out after her to try and calm her crazy ass down, and that takes away from him comforting JP, which is more fun and slightly less annoying. I mean, JP's just as much of a drama queen, but at least he's not acting ignorant as he does it.
Ryan talks some bullshit about how much pressure she's under, and it's kind of hot, but mostly because -- as some forum posters also decided -- it seems likely he's just trying to get her mic back. "Just take a breath. There's a lot of emotion right now in this. You've been working really hard for a long time, there's a lot of pressure. It's on national television. It's a big deal, I know. Just take a breath, just take moment. Just…" It's a funny mixture of telling her exactly what she does not need to hear, on the way to trying to make her feel better about everything. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't help. She's in the tall grass, emotionally speaking.
Faith gets herself together just long enough -- and no more -- to call home. "I didn't even get a chance to let the world know that I could sing. I would have been happy if I would have just made it on the show and would have been booed off, you know? I didn't even get to that stuff! All I just wanted to do is just let people know is that I can sing too, you know?" She'd have been happy to just get booed off the stage, which I completely believe, because she could spend months bitching about that shit. Which for her, would be like winning. How contrary.
Sarah Mather is totally cute facing the judges in her suit; Randy doesn't fuck around at all, just tells her she's through to the round. As she leaves in triumph there's this other girl, Selena Rae, whom we've never seen before (on this show, I mean), and her deep knowing of the simple fact that every person who gets through to the final means one less spot for her. But actually, it's each "girl" that gets through that does it, and I'm glad they mentioned the main fact of the gender split thing in this episode, because it's kind of a bitch if you think about it. Sorry, you're a girl, so we're going to let three sucky guys in while you go home. Not that that necessarily happened, we don't know whether it's true yet, but it's just hypothetical. I guess.
She sang "How Will I Know," and she's so pretty and I like her voice, but it's just good, not brilliant. She doesn't stick out. She's not Rashida, for example. (I'm a little bitter.) Her faces are iffy and her clothes are iffy, but she tones it down well enough. Simon again implies that it was not him that elected to put her through. She's so unbelieving about it, it's fairly beautiful, she walks about like she's having a migraine, and raises her arms in the air. Downstairs, Nadia swings her around. Lucky.
Janay -- you know she's fine. She's going to be okay, even though she's uninspired and sings like Little Eva. She is shaking like a freak in the elevator, while downstairs her mom is a nervous wreck. April is so cool, because pulls off being totally interested and loving and supportive, but somehow doesn't seem like a classic Stage Mom to me. She basically explains to the camera that if Janay doesn't get into the Top 24, she will have to deal with that shit. "No matter what, I have to deal with it." That's so awesome. That's what being a parent is like sometimes. So Janay comes out looking so fucked up, and we don't see her judging at all, and she lets on that she got through, and then April smacks the shit out of her for not immediately saying.
Cut to JP on the edge of fucking freaking out. I can't stand it. I love him. Now, Joseph Murano, who is setting the internet on fire this week. He's looking pretty good; there's a fake tan thing that I don't like, but he's okay. Paula tells him he was "real good" in his audition, and congratulates him. He goes, "No way," and we all get in our time machine and Paula says, "Way!" and everybody laughs because that's still funny because it's 1992 and I'm fourteen years old and I'm convinced that the "Rush, Rush" video is a personal love letter from Keanu Reeves to me.
"Can I ask you something? Have you ever been in love?" If I was, I didn't know it. You? "No. Isn't that terrible?" Terrible? No, it just reminds you that we're all alone, that's all.
You know what, never mind. Party on, Paula. "Way."
Anwar. Riffing on how he's a teacher, Randy talks some crazy talk about how "We don't want the kids to miss you, but um…the kids are going to have to wait, dude. Maybe you do know what you're teaching." He's like, "Wow." Then they talk about how it's validating, not to mention good for the kids themselves, because "they'll really be able to see that if you put your best foot forward, and if you believe in yourself, you'll be able to go very far -- even further than anybody could imagine." Barf. I love Anwar and all, but jeez. The whole time Ryan's got his arm around him and is staring right into his hot fucking sexy mind-obliterating eyeballs. It's nice, not dirty or anything, I'm not writing fan fiction here, but it is kind of hot. That's all I'm saying.
Ryan voices over about how "the good luck stopped there," and then we cut to Delma, and that's funny, because clearly, and then same deal with good old John Zisa, who's cool about losing out on the split decision, and then Ryan begins the whole wax-on wax-off about the crappy performance of John, JP, and Kurtis, and says the awesome: "On that day nobody did worse than JP." And I mean, I like JP a whole lot, but even he would admit that he was the worst by a long shot.
JP's confident today. "I believe that I brought it to the table." He takes a seat in The Chair, and looks so adorable and sweet and wholesome. Randy gets kind of weird and goes on and on about how some are going to lose, and some are going to win, and some things are obvious, and other things are self-evident. He deflates because it's clearly a no, and then he JPs out and thanks them one million times and they stare at him, waiting for him to leave.
But he doesn't. "Wow, I didn't think that was what was going to happen, but…" So they tell him he made it a long way and had a good journey -- you know what, drink every time they say that word from now on -- and he nods and stares and they all look at each other. This is the point in the evening when you can't find the words to tell your date that the date is over. More staring. They say, "Sorry." And then they stare. And then he kind of clicks in and says, "It's okay you guys, it was nice to meet all of you." He finally stands up. And the staring continues. Randy and Paula hug him, at a loss as to how to get him out of there. Simon shakes his hand, and then a voice-over of him singing "That's Life," and I really think real is underrated. He's like, "I'm 28, and this is it for me." And I want to tell him how wrong he is, and not to buy that shit, but he can't hear me. He's just on TV.
There's some commercial for some show called Life On A Stick, okay, and there's bad acting, and homophobia. I hope it's as awesome as it looks like it's going to be, because the sitcom is dying.
All the people you know already are now doing the math: 15 of the 24 spots have been taken. Amanda Avila does the math and laughs about how each person that makes it lowers her own chances.
Lindsey Cardinale gets called and as a group we remember how in New Orleans she sang in her many pieces of underwear. Now, because everyone's on the brink, she looks fucking broke-ass. She's so pretty, but she's had a horrible day and you can clearly tell. I don't know how it went for real, but in this edit she sits down and Simon immediately tells her she's through to the Top 24. And she's relieved, but not as relieved as she would be if she had her shit together right now, so she just gets up and walks out, happy as can be. God, these people are just all used up. I wish they could all have a big nap. I'd sing to them, a nice lullaby. "Magnet and Steel" by Walter Egan, I think. Sleepy little Idols.
Hey, remember Melinda Lira? Nope. I must say this is all kind of poorly-designed in some ways. The number of Jack in the Box contestants that are actually making it through is unconscionable. I know everything there is to know about Jaclyn Crum. I know her Social, okay. But I've never even seen the faces of half of the Top 24. And that's not my fault. What's the point of all this? Simon asks, "Do you think it would be the wrong decision if we sent you home?" and she Randys up, all, "Definitely, definitely." Simon tells her she's not going home. Neither is Mario, who cries and is awesome. First there is no Kim Holloway, and then there is Kim Holloway, and then she goes home.
Constantine's crotch all up in my face. God, I hate this show sometimes. He stares at Bo Bice and thinks dark thoughts because he knows that the machine is going to set them at each other's throats and it's so dumb because they are completely different, but whatever. His stupid smarmy face. He points out how suck-ass they were together. He is kind of cool as he talks about "rocker guys" and how they're "rocker guys" and it's clear he hates all of this -- but less cool, because why are you here? I mean, it's possible I'll stop hating him -- although not ever will I stop hating his stupid face or his stupid armpits or his rock star faces or everything else that is awful about him -- but that doesn't mean I'm going to softball it.
Harold "Bo" Bice is a lot cuter than he has been. At least he doesn't look all psycho-killer qu'est-ce que c'est like he did before, but whatever. Simon informs him that it wasn't unanimous. At all. "Yes sir, I think I understand sir." I know I do. And so he stands up to leave, and that's so awesome, because he's being a total dude here. He's like, he tried, and he's not going to get all Faith about it or anything. Awesome. I really, really like Bo Bice now. Sadly, it steps all over Simon's big scene he wants us all to see, although in some ways this is better. "No, it's not finished yet." I must admit to a gorgeous thrill right here. "Two people think you are very, very good." Bo straight up tells Simon he knows that Simon wasn't one of them, still in that polite and respectful way that isn't weak or vulnerable, just fair and good. I like him. On the elevator he looks really good all of a sudden. Constantine interacts with him in some way, and nobody else cares.
Jared Yates has totally fake contacts. Who the hell are you fooling? Do you just hate your ancestors, or…? I'm done talking about you. Although I am not done bitching about fake colored contacts, because I am absolutely never going to be done with that. Not until they are stopped. Constantine thinks it's slim-to-none for him now that Bice is in, and talks some fairly believable shit about how he's really "psyched" for Bo and really "psyched" for everyone because there's so much talent here. Randy puts him through and yells, "You made it. A rock and roller made it!" I'm so embarrassed.
Amanda still isn't getting the math right. Jaclyn takes the long view, saying, "They do crazy stuff on this show" -- so do you, darlin' -- "and I'm not saying nothing." Amanda resolves cutely not to get excited yet. Then, because this show is evil, they send Jaclyn and Amanda in together to fight for the last spot. Aw hell. They hold hands until the last second, and then set up some flaming hoops for them to jump through. For no damn reason, I'd like to point out, considering they've already decided. They ask the same stupid, pointless question about if you'd do it again.
Jaclyn says, "Probably." She's, like, a fetus. She's got time. And a great voice, too. Amanda says, "I would go back to my normal job," which got a laugh from me, because her "normal" job involves running around on a pirate ship in her underwear, "but I think that this might be the end of the whole 'trying to be a singer' thing." Well, that didn't last long -- now I have seen the face of true dedication. I am humbled. "I don't think I can take another rejection like this, if I get rejected." I would like things handed to me, please. I won't be trying, otherwise.
Simon obliges, and sends Jaclyn home. They both fucking lose it. Jaclyn comes down crying and Amanda laughs and screams and cries and hugs some other girl. I don't see Jaclyn's mom there -- I hope she's okay -- so she hugs some other girl. It's a bummer, but like in the case of Jaclyn Crum, there's no relativity to her heartbreak. Tie her shoelaces together or put a fork through her hand, she's going to flip out the exact same amount.
Now, all that is left are Scott and Travis, and this very nice-looking guy named Warren. Scott gets called up first, meaning that either these boys are going to be best friends, and get in together, or will have to go up there holding hands like Amanda and Jaclyn and fight to the predetermined death. As usual, Scott is a whole lot like that movie Saw: horrible decisions you don't want to make arising from the mind of a serial killer.
Paula points out the very encouraging fact that Scott's basically too old to do anything with his life, if he doesn't make this. Scott responds in a crazy creepy way. Everybody covers their faces because of the crazy, and Paula says, "Well, the industry's tough." Downstairs, Travis and Warren are pretty cool because they know they're hot and smart, and talented, and because they're exhausted and pretty much over this whole thing. They are also comforted by their very feeble-minded and optimistic view of the statistics, which is that they both still have a 67% chance, since either one of them will be going through with Scott, or both of them will get through instead of him. And actually, maybe they're not wrong, because Scott's voice is perfect, but he isn't a viable Idol, so we can split the difference.
Paula explains that he's getting the awesome chance to prove that he has what it takes, and this might be his only shot, so he's grateful. "Work it out, Scott," calls Randy as he's leaving, and I wish he'd take that advice to heart and get some professional help. Downstairs, they're beatboxing. Scott comes down, and their statistical analysis will have to wait, because you would never be able to read him, because he's incredibly weird.
Warren and Travis are super-class in the elevator and they share a little hug and Travis is all, "After you, man," as they get off. They sit. Dude, I like both of them so much! Despite only having seen Travis once and Warren only just now! They joke with the judges and say how effing "cute" it is that they're up there together, sweating it out and being horrified for our benefit.
Randy: "Travis: hate to do this but…[forever]…you're through to the round."
Travis: "Filthy. [Or maybe he calls Randy a bitch. I can't tell.]"
Everybody apologizes to Warren and there's another hug. Then there is Seacrestiana about the judges and a bullshit montage.
There's Rainbow Brightman, and Darren, and fucking Gene Simmons, and ADAM PRATT, and this old, old man but not the missing Busey one that recognized Kenny Loggins, some guy that looks like Paul Vogt in a soccer outfit, this other girl that looks like Stephanie Weir wearing a giant flower and dancing like whoa, the old man in question, that deaf Neil Diamond guy, the aerobic instructor with the prosthetic head over her real head, Mary Guilbeaux, the trio of losers, Regina, The Boy Who Loved Kelly, Elizabeth fucking Pha, Songs in the Key of Purple guy, Ryan pitching, some people having a good day, Lashandra, the judges, Kenny Loggins, ADAM PRATT and Dirk, some gay farmer dudes with their funky ways, this cool psycho sound effect mixed into the general inspirational music as Simon pretends to stab Paula, Aa'shia sucking, that cute mime, LL Cool J, the shadowboxing accountant, and a big girl we never saw doing half of a Kid N Play.
Not done! Justin's mom shitting herself, that big fat lying pink pants girl, people I don't remember, a crazy girl from week one, Mark McGrath, the not-at-all-fat but still talentless, irritating, and gross triplets, hot old Michael Luizza running out into traffic -- why do they do that so much? I've never done that, and I've had a bunch of really good days! -- the psychic psadsack and her psychic pschoolmarm, the Delmas dancing like fools, the really pretty blonde girl who pretended to be crazy in this one way where she yelled at the judges but was actually crazy in this other way, Brandy shaking her head and being all beautiful, some huge crowd shots, the group hug of Lashundra and LL caressing her pathetic head all sexy. A Molfetta being fucking hot, Leroy yelling "Can you dig it!" and Paula drunkenly yelling, "We can dig it!"
Finally, we get back to Ryan with a cute haircut, telling us week's agenda: Monday it's the guys, Tuesday it's the ladies, and Wednesday it's the results. Then he names the final contestants as they dance like utter toolboxes in front of the camera: Judd Harris with the deep circles under his eyes, David Brown of the Lord, Bo Bice, Mario Vazquez in yet another awful hat, Anthony Federov, Travis Tucker, Scott Savol, Nikko Smith, Jared Yates with the sideburns, Joseph Mureno who at this moment completely changes my opinion of him through the power of dance, Constantine Maroulis, and Anwar Robinson are the guys.
Women: Nadia Turner, Selena Rae, Janay Castine, Lindsey Cardinale, Jessica Sierra, Melinda Lira, Vonzell Solomon, Amanda Avila, Mikalah Gordon, Carrie Underwood, Sarah Mather, and Aloha Micheaux, with a big stupid flower in her hair. There's no talk about how it's going to work (for three weeks, the bottom two "boys" and bottom two "girls" get voted out, until there are 12 total left), but basically it's like, "Just watch this show all the fucking time, every time you turn your TV on, and when there's no American Idol, that means it's the day we watch The O.C., and then it's Friday." Seacrest out.