Ryan calls what went down last night an "onslaught of talent." Um...sure? Not that I'm complaining. It was an onslaught of something, that's for certain. There's so much filler tonight that we barely have time for what we're actually here for. No, instead, we have to look at Peter Noone's scary face singing a song. It's nights like these when I find it very hard to justify why I watch this show, paycheck or no paycheck. Like Manilow last year. What kinds of people do they think watch this show? So when we finally get down to business, Ryan calls up the finalists in groups of three. Phil, Melinda, and Blake are told they're not the bottom three. I kept waiting for Ryan to pull the super-mean fakeroo in which he'd be all, "...but one of you is," but it never comes. Which is too bad, because it might have cut down on all the obnoxious whooping from Phil. Sligh, LaKisha, and Jordin are all...obviously safe. Then it's Sanjaya, Haley, and Gina, who would make total sense as a bottom three, which means of course they're all safe as well. Which means it's directly to the bottom two: Stephanie (who was boring and kind of crappy) and Chris R. (who gave the best vocal he's given yet). Oh, America. You're so cute when you're stupid. Steph and Chris have to wait through two commercial breaks, one performance by Lulu ("To Sir With Love" is way more boring than I expected it to be), and one instance of explaining to the audience at home how corporate responsibility works (vis-Ã -vis the Idol Cares thingamajab) before Ryan has to try and wedge the results into the last five minutes of the show. As you might expect, Chris is safe and Stephanie is going home. Strictly speaking, she's going home before people far less talented than she is, but she blew it on a night when she couldn't afford to blow it. It's hard to get too offended.
"Last night, we lost ourselves in the '60s," Ryan Seacrest begins, in that way he has of speaking where nothing makes sense and he's just trying to gather up enough words to fill time until the credits roll. Let's take a look at the top 11 contestants and see which ones look like they're going to puke: Sligh, Phil, Stephanie, Gina, Chris R., Melinda of course, Blake, and Haley. Sanjaya, I am pleased to report, is no longer on suicide watch, which is nice to see. I think that Kinks performance really knocked all the nervousness right out of him. If he can act like that much of an idiot onstage and still live to tell about it? That's gotta be a little liberating, no?
After the credits, it's time to review the signage. "LaKisha Is Forever": uninspired and cheap-looking. "Blake Is My Idol": like we haven't heard that one before, plus the pink-and-blue lettering makes it look like we're at a baby shower. "i vote 4 ryan seacrest": well, that's just stupid. What number did you dial, girl with the crazy eyes? Huh? What number?? Ryan introduces contestants and judges alike, but there's no time to talk to any of them, which I appreciate. Keep things moving, people. On to the recap of last night: First things first, we're reminded ever more bluntly that Crying Ashley was reminiscent of the girls who freaked out and died in the '60s when the Beatles came to their hometown airport. Paula, then, was drunk and suggested picturing Simon without any clothes on. Ryan giggled like a little girl. Stephanie and Sligh are grouped under the generic heading "Everybody was great...even these two!" Blake "breathed life" into a Zombies song (get it??), before Ryan once more displayed his total lack of shame by trying to dance. Then Haley got Simon horny (seriously, that's what the show tells us), and LaKisha wore diamonds, and we're specifically instructed to find her "If I sound like this at 50, I'll look good" comment delightful. Chris R. was "tender" and sang a song about crying, which leads us to...that's right. Sob, little girl, sob! Phil and Gina are herded into the "rock" niche and told to wait there until the coast is clear. And finally, Jordin and Melinda were our Shirley Bassey singers, and both were oh, so kick-ass.
"For once," says Ryan, "it wasn't Paula crying." I think she's about to start crying now, though. Or maybe that's just the usual glassy eyes at play. up, Ryan starts to introduce Peter Noone, and while he does, we get more of that goddamn footage of Noone patty-cake clapping from last night. He looks developmentally disabled; stop showing that! Noone takes the stage to sing "There's A Kind Of Hush," which is one of those very early-'60s songs that set my teeth on edge. The sounds of lovers in love and whatnot. That's a sub-"I Want To Hold Your Hand" sentiment, is what that is. Luckily, I'm not paying too close attention to the lyrics, because Peter Noone's scary cartoon face has me captivated. Not to mention the fact that, if he ever was able to sing, he can't now. He bops from side to side like a Weeble, and he keeps giving corny thumbs-up gestures at the Idols. He's the Platonic ideal of cheesy embarrassing dads. He makes some goofy gesture with his arms, and Gina and Chris R. straight-up look at each other and go, "Queer!" without even moving their mouths. That was fantastic. Even Sanjaya thinks he looks like a fool. Think about that. Blake's whispering something bitchy (you know it is) to Melinda, but she's still down with respecting her elders. He'd fare better with Jordin, to his left. Man, I fast-forwarded through this last Wednesday, but I'm so glad I'm being forced to watch it now, because everyone is snickering like mad right now, and it makes me love all of them.
Pimpmercial: "Another Saturday Night" becomes "Another Saturday Night At The Laundromat Because FOX Won't Let Us Go Anywhere Where There Might Be Cameras Or Dancing Or Carnal Temptation." And like near every pimpmercial seems to be, it's filmed in that quasi-stop-motion style, where everything is sped up and methed out and creepy. Points of interest: Sanjaya and Jordin line up side by side for Round 13 of their hair-vs.-hair battle (for those of you who care: Jordin's curls best Sanjaya's mop, which may have gone a tad limp due to the comically overflowing soap bubbles); Blake makes the pouring of powdered detergent appear positively unseemly; and Melinda embarks upon some sort of CGI cartwheeling spree, proving that, yes, she even defies physics. How can she not win?
Back on the couches, the Idols are, as usual, laughing about what idiots they look like in the pimpmercial. And they're also joined by the very tall, very silent, very orange Brad Garrett of Cross-Promotional Sitcom About Married People Who Hate Each Other. Brad's wedged between Gina and Chris R., which robs the rest of us of their siblings-with-benefits antics. Then Ryan goes through the jokey fake "elimination" of Brad, and Blake is adorable with the fake hand-holding and fake tension, but Brad Garrett is, I suspect, kind of an asshole, so I'm just happy when he's gone. "How are we gonna fit this show in?" Ryan wonders. Pssst! You're totally not going to.
So the way the eliminations are going tonight is, Ryan asks groups of three people to stand up, and he tells them whether they're this week's bottom three or not. And if you can count, you know that with 11 contestants, that's going to leave two stragglers, but Ryan's banking on us not looking ahead that far. He first calls Phil (who's nervous but makes a jokey royal wave), Melinda, and Blake. "America voted," says Ryan, "and you...are not our bottom three tonight." I'm always guarded against semantics on this show, so I'm half expecting Ryan to split the hair -- that while Phil, Melinda, and Blake are not all the bottom three, one of them (Phil, probably) is. It doesn't happen, but frankly, that would have been welcome, because Phil could use some shutting up right about now. He's hooting and hollering and screaming, and I know it's half relief because he was seriously in danger and half tied in with his extreme neediness, but it's also super obnoxious. And his friends in the audience all look scrubby as hell besides.
The three to stand are Sligh, LaKisha, and Jordin. This would be the "Fuckin' Yeah Right" group, and indeed, they're all safe. Phil's still screaming, and high-fiving Sanjaya, which means he's really not thinking of anyone else but himself, because Sanjaya just became one-in-five to go home. Speaking of which: Sanjaya, Haley, and Gina are asked to stand. These three would make sense as the bottom three, you'd figure: Gina got panned, and Sanjaya and Haley didn't need the sympathy votes, for once. In the back row, though, you can see that Stephanie knows something is up. Gina's totally about to hurl, meanwhile, while Sanjaya and Haley look more sanguine about it. Ryan tells us they're...safe. Haley and Gina dart out to hug each other, and to his credit, Chris R. has a huge smile on his face, like, "Wow! This show is so weird!" Almost as an afterthought, Ryan asks Chris and Stephanie to stand: they're our bottom two. Phil's still making faces, by the way. Keep pushing it, Sick Boy.
Back from the break, Brad Garrett's still here, holding up a sign that says "Clay Aiken hurt me." It says Clay's name, so I know it's supposed to be a joke, but...why is that funny? How hard is it to make an "I Know Where Clay's Hands Have Been" sign and be done with it? Anyway, the American Idol Challenge is still stupid, so I still won't be devoting much recap space to it. , just to ensure that we devote as little of the results-show time to the actual results as possible, Ryan is going to talk to us some more about how the Idol Gives Back fundraiser is going to work. You know what's more fun than reading the small print on a contract? Hearing it read by Ryan Seacrest on TV. More shots of adorable African children. More soft plucking of the guitar strings of hope. Ryan asks us to think of the 30 million votes that were cast last night and "imagine if we could translate that into money." Then you'd have a show called American Idol! Ryan says that ten cents per call would equal $3 million for charity. Yeah, and a dollar per call would equal $30 million, cheapskate. $3 million? Nobody even buys a lotto ticket if the prize is down to $3 million. Come on, AT&T and Coca-Cola. You can do better than that. Ryan then solicits corporate donations and promises an "amazing week" to come.
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up is Lulu, who's performing "To Sir With Love." To Sir With Love was Freedom Writers before Freedom Writers was Dangerous Minds. Which I think makes Lulu's song the "Gangsta's Paradise" of her time? That sound about right? I actually don't remember hearing this song before, but the title makes it sound like it should be a torch song, does it not? Also, remember how last night Lulu looked like Twiggy crossed with Marianne Faithful? Tonight, she looks like Olivia Newton-John crossed with Helen Mirren... I don't know. The lyrics to this song are kind of sketchy. "How do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume?" With a handshake and nothing more, young lady. The camera pans across the Idols, who -- in a stark contrast with their behavior while Noone was prancing around -- are really in awe of Lulu and how great she is. They're about to write across the sky in letters a thousand feet high for her, I think. She's still got it, too. The whiskey voice of hers can still go places. So one of this week's mentors turned out to be worth a damn, at least. It's too bad she couldn't have worked with the guys as well.
So we're back from commercials and there's literally two minutes left in the show. Nice timing, geniuses. Thank God we had time for Brad Garrett, though. So Stephanie and Chris R. are already standing at center stage, hand in hand. Steph's in a pretty red dress, while Chris has a yellow polo on (collar un-popped: good boy) that is doing all sorts of good things for him. Chris is nervous but still kind of fidgety and smiley, while Stephanie has that look of resigned despair on her face. Yeah, it's kind of a stretch to think she'll be sticking around, given the situation. But hell, the fact that Chris is in the bottom two at all is proof of a world gone wacky. No more singing the melodies, I suppose. Seacrest reads Stephanie's stats while Chris looks at her, dare I say... lovingly? Chris's stats read like this: "Randy thought it was a beautiful vocal, Paula thought it was charming and sexy, Simon believes it was your best performance so far." So, obviously, he's in the bottom two. Lord. Can't somebody start a website that tells people to vote for who I want them to? So I don't have to go through this? (Related sidebar: Do you think if I started a web site called Vote For The Best and just told people to vote for Melinda each week that I could start taking the credit when Melinda sticks around? I'm seriously considering it.) Anyway, Blake, Jordin, and Haley all have their arms intertwined, and he screams for Chris, because they're the real BFFs on this show -- sorry, Sligh.
"After 30 million votes," Ryan reminds us, "Chris...you are staying." Chris turns and hugs Stephanie for a million years. As consolation prizes go, I've seen worse. We see "Chris' [sic] Family" captioned and applauding, and...is that Alaina Alexander? Is she sitting with Chris's family? Or are the caption spotters as inept as the caption spellers? Chris says something into Stephanie's ear that gets them both laughing, and he heads back to the couches and into the waiting arms of Gina. Hmm. Stephanie's Idol Journey features her audition, where she looked like a PTA member, albeit the Janice Dickinson kind of PTA member. We're reminded that Steph's parents had to drag her out of bed to get her to her audition in the first place. And then my DVR cuts out, because nobody knows how to plan this show for 30 minutes. It's called "send Peter Noone back to England a day early." Anyway, here's what happened to Stephanie: we never saw her. Not in auditions, not in Hollywood. She came on like a house afire in semifinals, but she (a) still got out-shined by Melinda and LaKisha, and (b) gave performances of steadily diminishing returns the past three weeks. And you can't do that when you're already being crowded out of your niche. It's the same this year as it's always been. The niches hold sway early on. The people who will vote for Gina are voting for Gina, and the people who will vote for Blake are voting for Blake. But the people who would vote for Stephanie were voting for Melinda and LaKisha, and maybe Jordin as well.
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But who wants to hear me talk about How This Show Works for the eighth consecutive week. Stephanie's gone home, and it's sad, because she was cool and nice and not a bad singer. I'll be sad along with the rest of y'all. Until week, when Sanjaya sings a Sex Pistols song, and I'll start laughing all over again.
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