Ryan does a Randy impression for a sec at the judge's table, and then they do a very silly and awkward thing where they tell you to go to iTunes or something, I don't know. Cut to Syesha in a limo acting like Raven Symone, all, "OMG u guyz I just got txted by Randy Jackson saying im singing if I an't got u by Alicia keys I guess sometimes randy Jackson is an old white guy too lol." Her favorite artist -- "of course!" she fakes -- and she's excited and whatever.
Randy chose this because Syesha is "young, hot, and unbelievably talented, and in charge" and he had this feeling Syesha loves Alicia. You know who doesn't care for Alicia Keys? This guy. I can't defend it, I don't really have a reason, I just don't like it in my ears. She seems like if you got a couple of drinks in her she would make you listen to jazz on vinyl. She seems like even Norah Jones would be like, "Lighten up, superstar. Life isn't Juilliard." I do like Syesha in my ears, though, so is she doing a good job? Man, she's doing a great job. Of being a less interesting celebrity singalike of Alicia Keys. Every intonation is exactly ... Oh wait, this is the Alicia Keys song I like. Still, though. So she sounds exactly like Alicia Keys only with all the edges rubbed off and sounding like she's on that show American Idol.
Randy can't believe what a fucking genius he is for picking that song, blah blah, Syesha is amazing too? But mostly he's a genius. "I'm so happy that you are peaking at the right time in this competition," he says. Which is a total effing backhand not just to her, but to everybody, as is Paula's talk about how she's the last lady standing. Also, she looks amazing in a sparkly gold/silver gown. Simon calls her out on the karaoke, and Randy lies and says that it's not true, but it is. Simon's like, "I guess so but not enough." Which is kind of like reminding Randy that he's a douche. Ryan also asks her if she's been totally boring all season on purpose, and she responds by acting like Cameron Diaz, and it's excruciating. Syesha's concept of having a personality is so much more off-putting than whatever she was doing before.
Cook just "happens" to get his Simon text message while he's live on FOX news in wherever he's from, and he's all, "I actually forgot to turn my phone off while I was sitting here on TV at the news talking about how I was about to get a text from Simon, sorry to interrupt" or whatever, it's stupid. Then he holds out his hand toward the camera and it says "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack. Which, David Cook singing that particular song is already a hot enough concept that this is going to be super weird because I don't really like to talk about how much I like David Cook. Because I don't, I hate him. Hate his ass.
A man who cannot possibly be Jack White but might be Gavin McGraw is in the audience. I don't know. He is agog at the hell that Archuleta just unleashed. If this is what happens when DA makes his own decisions, I am begging you to bring Daddy back. I'll let him beat me, if that keeps him on set. It's just unconscionable what they have let David do here. Randy points out that DA singing "my boo" is the saddest thing in the universe. Let me tell you that he did not choose this song. There was a whole kerfuffle this week I didn't really pay attention to involving DA's dad, like, pistol-whipping the sound guy or some shit. So maybe Dad didn't pick it this week, but whoever it was, DA was not it. David Archuleta makes me sad because he doesn't even know he has options yet. Maybe he never will. Paula says it was great or whatever. I wish all three of them would tell him how hard that was to watch. It was like a murder scene!
Simon tells him that A) congrats on not singing some shitty ballad about getting your pets spayed and neutered, but B) he might as well have, because apparently he was going to do something ridiculous and stupid either way. "A Chihuahua trying to be a tiger" is the phrase that most accurately sums it up. Then Ryan calls Simon his boo three times in a row, and all is right with the universe.
Time for Syesha to tell us her choice. "Fever" by Peggy Lee. This should be weird. Ryan gets weird immediately, and Syesha follows: "I liked the vibe of the song, and I wanted to use a chair." Ryan's like, "This is going to be troubling, I can tell." But can she out-weird DA? Not on her weirdest day. So instead this is just going to be like something Tina Fey would write, probably.
She sits on the chair, awkwardly, and then vamps over her shoulder at us, and touches herself a little bit -- sooo tenderly -- and then bounces her shoulders in a very Beyoncé way. She stands up and vamps around the bass player. And it's Syesha Mercado: there is nothing organic about the girl at all. You can see her brain going, "Touch left hip. Turn to chair. Bounce. Stick right leg out all sexy. Walk around the chair. One more time. Plant those feet. Screech a whole lot. Dig down into that nonexistent lower range." It's the most unsexy sexy thing I've ever seen. (...I write, as Justin Guarini appears on the screen.) Also? Concentrate more on singing, lady. We are never going to love "Syesha" until you give us one that makes sense.
Randy is like, "That was fine." Paula says it has nothing to do with Imaginary Syesha inside Paula's head, only she's right in a way because it was also nothing to do with Actual Syesha. Simon calls it a regrettable cabaret performance. Which is, again, what it was. It was lame and too conceptual and she could never have pulled it off. So she didn't. Spectacularly. It was like those creepy kiddie pageants when they shake their asses.
up? DC, perched on a stool like a tool, while Ryan straddles the sexy chair and tries to have a serious fucking conversation about Switchfoot. Jeeeezus. I love this song "Dare You To Move," I'm not proud, but Cook does his usual ruination of the moment by being "amazed" that the crowd has heard of it. Go do a fucking crossword puzzle and leave me out of it. You did not discover every lame band of the last ten years. I don't have anything written on the inside of my hand, but if you look real close you can probably see a message for you on this finger right here.
This song is awesome, though. I have a whole file in my head labeled Leery-Clifton Nuptials, and it's all the songs that will be playing when I meet, woo, date, destroy, rebuild, renovate and eventually marry Dawson Leery. I can't remember if I ever told you about that. I don't tell many people because it's a lot to take in and I realize that, but anyway, this is a major one of those songs. I don't listen to these particular songs, on purpose, very often -- I am not David Cook, I don't know too much about obscure bands like Switchfoot -- but if they come on the radio, that's four minutes of wedding planning in Cape Cod or whatever. Like the Switchfoot song, that is for when I have to decide between Paris and our love. (I eventually choose Paris, but only because Dawson Leery loves me enough to set me free. Thanks, bro.)
(Five years ago TODAY, by the way, was the last episode of that show. Think about where you were and what you were doing and what you were wearing. I know!)
And you might think that this is a file folder which eventually would stop growing, but you would be wrong. I add songs to this mental playlist all the time. Like "Apologize," that's for this one day when it rains and I'm waiting at the bus stop or the airport or something like all day, because he's of an artist's temperament and sometimes loses track of time, but I'm wet and hungry so I throw a massive fit about it, and things get kind of ugly, which is sad because usually we support each other and help each other to make good choices, and although we eventually we make up, I spend the night alone for the first time in months sucking down cheap Cabernet and smoking cigarette after cigarette and tearfully wondering if it is indeed too late to apologize.
All of which, sorry, is to say that it sounds exactly like that song sounds, but with David Cook's voice. Randy gives a bunch of shoutouts to himself, Paula thinks it was a bad edit because it didn't build too much, and Simon agrees with both of them. Not impressed. Still, the other two actually sucked, while David just sang a less used-up song really well. Which is his entire thing. So round two: David Cook. Dammit.
SHUT! UP! I was just telling you about the Wedding File and now DA is singing another one of the songs from it! You guys, what if this is a sign and I have to start planning a wedding right away? What if our Cape Cod love is finally coming to pass? Because this is a sign of something, I'm sure of it. Davy's producer choice is "Longer" by Dan Fogelberg. It's all coming together. I can't believe I'm ... This is the last time I'm telling you what I like. I mean it. There is a particular cheesiness in us all and I'm no different from you so don't throw stones in the cheese house.
"Longer" is this song that used to come on the radio every time -- I mean every time, it was weird -- we came home from the Hobbit Hole, now the Hobbit Café. There was a waiter there with whom I was deeply smitten from about 1995-2001, called The Hobbit (obviously not his given name), and every time we were leaving I would hear this song on the Oldies -- often of a summer, at dusk, when the poison clouds of Houston make their most beautiful sunsets -- and think about The Hobbit, who had just served us, and what it would take to make him mine. He had really good manners. I also like this song because it sounds like castles and shit.
It also reminds me of when we saw Iron Man last weekend -- which by the way is maybe the best movie I've ever seen in my entire life, and you should see it six times, and actually it's probably the reason there's so much romance in the air of this recap, because that is the most thrillingly romantic movie I've seen since, like, Stardust -- and the whole time Jeff Bridges was doing his thing I kept secretly wanting Iron Man to say, "I loved you in The Last Unicorn!" So to sum up: Hobbit waiters, Dawson Leery, magical castles, Stardust, strawberry smoothies, and The Last Unicorn. That's David Archuleta all over the damn place. Let's see how he does.
...Perfectly! He does perfectly. That was like the best he's ever done, and I'm not blowing smoke. I might be biased because of that whole mess I just failed at explaining, but he did it really well. (This song is for when Dawson Leery is shot down over the Sahara in a biplane and I nurse him back to health in a cave, using only my wits and half-remembered medical training and the various native grasses, even though he has forgotten his memory and possibly marred his wonderful proud forehead, and I end up having to choose between the unwrapped giant mummy-head of Dawson Leery and the smooth metropolitan chic of Victor Laszlo, gentleman and revolutionary. It's kind of a long song.) And the judges... could care less. Randy tells him it was weird but good. Paula won't commit to much more than "lovely." Simon calls it "gooey" and "horrible," and even though it'll get him into Final Two, it's still too old for him But like ... this is Dan Fogelberg. He invented goo, my boo.
They must have sung at least fifteen songs by now. Ryan calls Syesha's dad a homosexual, and then almost bitchslaps Paula for explaining that it's Syesha's dad. It's rough. Also rough: Syesha's flat-ass rendition of "Hit Me Up" by ... whom? What particular kind of asshole am I if I assume that this is Rihanna? I don't feel old, but I'm at a loss. I wish that this were better, I do know that. Her moves are more natural and fun, and she is pretty cute, but I swear there is not a single damn note in tune the entire time. How painfully shitty. Bye bye, Syesha. Even the band and the background singers don't seem too committed. Plus the song's not even that cool, and there's a creepy scary sound like a chainsaw or diamond saw going on the whole time. At least her sexy dance moves are actually sexy instead of seeming like a symptom of a virus.
Randy's like, "kinda," and calls it Rihanna-esque, which doesn't answer the question. Then Paula starts talking about penguins because it's from Happy Feet, which still doesn't answer the question, and tells Syesha that she's going home tomorrow, and that again she is not acting like Syesha tonight. Simon assures her that it was better than the second song, and that her best moment was last week. And now it always will be.
And guess what, it's time for David Cook. What pile of rocker crap did they ... Oh, no! HA! That's so shitty! I can't believe they ... But they didn't sandbag him, did they. Everybody likes this song "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" except little old Steven Tyler-hating me. And probably Cook will make the arrangement at least a little more interesting, and there will be a light show like whoa, that's a given... And thus does it come to pass. Strings until the chorus and then a totally awesome -- is David Cook's mom Cojocaru? -- guitar rip through it, and the lights go totally wild, and he acts like a rock star like always, and it's good. These songs are too short. I can't believe that I'm actually bitching about that, especially with this song. Oh, actually Diane Warren is Cojocaru. Didn't see that coming. Randy and Paula blather for a while and Simon says that David just won the night. Which of course he did, he always does, David Cook is awesome, shut up.
To review: Exactly half of the songs were awesome, and exactly half were bleak as hell. There were nine songs, an odd number of songs, but of them, four (DC's and "Longer") were totally incredible, four (Syesha's and Davy's) completely sucked and were awful, and two of which were such amazing eye-bleeding trainwrecks that they worked themselves all the way back around to halfway-awesome (Idol's Choices "Fever" and "With You"), which equals exactly four and a half either way.
David Archuleta brought up a little mortar and pestle and ground up his special mixture of sleep relief; bounced on his heels and had the unmitigated audacity to call us his boo; and then bought his way back into the Finale by rocking out on a song that not only evokes Dan Fogelberg and Harry Chapin sodomizing each other in Care-A-Lot, but actually references the act itself, with diagrams.
Syesha failed to suck in the usual way, choosing instead to suck in a whole new vampy sexy way: first on Alicia Keys awesomely but boringly; then whilst riding a chair around the stage like a bronco, also boringly; then by impersonating a sexy penguin who cannot sing, and may also be the Jigsaw Killer. Weird night for you, goodbye. I can't believe I like you less, but tramp-tromping around the stage in Mommy's heels doesn't make you sexy, it makes you awkward and difficult to deal with.
David Cook: Rocked the Flack, rocked the Switchfoot, rocked the Armageddon, won American Idol.
And of the four faces? I would have to say that Simon was even more right than usual, which I didn't know was possible; Paula was a bit more coherent but mattered even less; I am so over Randy I am right this second standing on top of his head playing guitar for Journey; and Ryan Seacrest is, and will always be, my boo.