The opening Vegas Fights montage has an interesting moment in it, of Lil once again just assuming that the judges, and their advice, have nothing to do with her performance or the voting of America. Very interesting. I can't say that I would be disappointed to see her go. I have no animus toward her -- she's just tired of the runaround, and not actively obnoxious like Danny and Anoop -- but she really has just brought all she has to the table at this point, and there's nothing to be done about that. I feel like she's actually on this show five years ago and nobody's articulated to her the difference, or the year, so we're just getting like these scratchy Frequency phone calls from her intentions.
Ryan wishes us a happy Earth Day and reminds us that the finale will be "green powered," whatever the holy hell that means, but tonight they still have to use an entire coal mine full of children to power the whirling insanity that is the Idol stage. There will be some legendary disco faces, if you can call them that -- hell, if you can call them "legendary" even -- and then David Archuleta, of the Salt Lake Archuletas, and then finally the hotly anticipated double elimination. I wish I could care, but they've settled the finale so early this year that it's really just a group of three or four people and then assorted cannon fodder, and it doesn't really matter what order they leave in.
There's a long, actually enjoyable sequence of Paula Abdul teaching the kids tonight's group sing choreography. She's pretty intense about it, and you spend the whole segment in wonderment at how present and delightful she's being. I imagine it's nice to remember what you're actually for, like The Mouse & His Child or The Velveteen Rabbit; it takes years off her. Lil does a great job, particularly, in the group shots, but mostly it just manages to make the idea of watching them do these dances more exciting than it has any right to be.
Ryan does a weird little dance, and then Paula introduces them with a swooshing motion, and it begins. They're all wearing disco clothes and look fantastic, except for Lil who looks like Heather B crossed with Humpty. They all sweep past Paula onto the stage -- Danny, of course, finds a way to be five times as in your face as everybody else -- and then Paula does another funny move, and Anoop lip-syncs for awhile, and they all sing toward a camera on the ceiling, and finally the group dancing starts. Now, if you know me at all you know that group dancing ranks just above single moms and right below Ryan Seacrest on the list of my favorite things; even knowing and adjusting for this, the routine is awesome. Awesome! Danny does a fantastic job, while Matt is way behind everybody else both in terms of tempo and skill. In a group dance situation it's sometimes opposite to real life and people who normally have good moves on their own fuck it up for everybody else. And I guess vice versa, because normally Danny Gokey dancing makes me want to... Oh, there are crotches in this dancing. Never good.
Allison does a little dance past everybody wriggling on the couch, and I have to say as bad as the lip-syncing has been this year, tonight it is a fucking joke. It looks like foreign TV, where they haven't figured out as much as TV as America has. That's what it looks like. God, the lip-syncing. But when they're not doing that, it is amazing. Danny gets disgusting, followed by Anoop, and then I think Adam suffers a critical lack of self-confidence during his solo dance moment, and dorks out. Kris is, surprisingly enough, white hot smokin' sexy, and then Matt redeems himself with kick-ass moves in the solo dancing. Everybody kneels down so Adam can do his stuff, and it's great. This is so good! Look at these guys doing so great! If this show were about dancing, it wouldn't even seem like a fucking retarded waste of time!
Plus, who loves crotch thrusts more than Adam? Nobody on this planet is who. And there are crotch thrusts in abundance. Everybody humps in every direction like a ceremony of thrusting, and Ryan "drags" Paula up to the stage, where they give her a huge bouquet. That's nice. I wonder if something's going on that I didn't hear about? Usually when they give her flowers it's because she raped somebody, or somebody committed suicide. In any case, she deserves them for that. That's the coolest thing to happen on a Wednesday episode since that Megan Joy was taken into the parking lot after her elimination and beaten up by first-graders with week-old baguettes, or so I imagined privately.
While the ladies change out of their disco garb, we see a pimpmercial containing "I'm Good, I'm Gone," by Lykke Li. Is this song, like, known? I heard it on the Unusuals pilot and got really excited. I guess she's cooler than I thought, which of course means I'm way less cool than I thought. I was there when Lykke Li was born, I was actually in the delivery room. Taught her to sing. So the actual content is pretty nil, like, they wash a car or bake a cake, or something, and then go somewhere. Back in the studio, Allison has gained about thirty pounds. When did this happen? She looks pregnant. Maybe all those hideous costumes were just their way of keeping it a secret: "Look at this bright pink rooster hair and the fifty chains hanging everywhere and pantyhose or some pants under a short skirt, I think, and then you have the pants under the skirt, and then you pull the stockings up over the pants, underneath the skirt, and you can always take the skirt off and use it as a cape!"
Let's start with Lil, in her adorable and fashionably misbuttoned vest. Remember how she was "every woman" except the most important one, herself? Kara feels a little chagrin about that line, a day later, which is funny considering how much she'd obviously rehearsed and relished saying it. Lil makes a mean face. They talk about how Lil is still not yet an artist and has no idea what they're ever talking about. Lil makes a mean face. Ryan tells her she's fucked and she makes a mean face that cracks to reveal a very, very sad face, and he tells her straight up that he loves her and that "we need someone like [her] in the competition." Somebody like her how? Forty years old? Bored off her ass?
Then, shockingly, he walks over to her at the stools and sends her ass home. Just like that! It's like that B3 thing he does where one person is safe and so the suspense is simultaneously ratcheted up -- because that's one of two people left -- and down, because somebody's safe. But also it's kind of worse because you realize there's still a fucking hour left.
Ryan asks if she's going to be singing her stupid song, and she does, and it sounds great even though you can hear her flipping out in her weird ruffly outfit and sad, sad face. A lady in the audience, one of Lil's people, sings along with the song, but with words of her own invention. I'm still sort of reeling about how she went from B3 to dunzo so fast, like, without warning. In a long history of Ryan's trickery and chicanery it takes a lot to surprise us.
So then once the song is over, because this song is about six years long no matter how much you chop it up, she's standing there huffing and proud of herself, and then Paula and Kara take the counterintuitive route of "praising" her by yelling that she could have saved herself by performing that way last night. Which we always say here, in the real world, but sounds a lot more damnable coming from the Judgery. Paula says she's leaving on a classy note, which is always funny because I do agree, but also, what's better than a classy exit is sticking around, so what have we learned. Simon claims once again to be a "massive" fan, mourning her terrible choices that accumulated and compounded every single week. Simon and Ryan say goodbye also to her family, which brought life to the party, and then Ryan is very privately sad to see her go.
That Jack In The Box commercial with the little people singing in little people voices about the tiny sirloin sandwiches is so fucking awful. I wish somebody would make a fuss about that somehow. Maybe the sandwiches are just so delicious that they bought off the... Oh, who am I kidding? It's Jack In The Box. It all tastes the exact same: like barf, in different shapes.
Kris stares dewily into the camera for awhile, sparing a grin when Ryan brings us back from commercial with an awkward "Sup?" Then everybody has to stand up for some random lady who was born in the 1800s singing the "Band Of Gold" song with her face stretched over and around her head like a papier-mâché project gone hideously wrong, and trying to impress us with her body. Which beyond her arms, which look like they belong to Rowdy Roddy Piper, is the body of a dreadfully ancient, withered woman in a dress too young for her, or for modesty.
I'm not entirely clear on her intentions or her premise here, but I can't look away. As you might expect from a wizened disco queen, her voice is not shagadelic, but then this song has always bugged me. Is it even disco? Why is this happening? Who is this woman with the arms of a stevedore and the bison hips in constant movement and the jowly breasts? This is awful. This is terrible to watch. Grandmas can be pretty, don't get me wrong, but grandmas aren't pretty when they dance around like this, grunting into the microphone and putting their back into it and the light shining through their dresses with the constant fear of a flash of underpants. Then when it's over, she introduces another one, which... Oh Lord.
Okay, so the front of the ruffly yellow dress is just gone, like in the olden times, and she's singing the "Don't Leave Me This Way" song, which I kind of like. Her feet are fleet and she's very pretty in the face. But again with the crotchy dancing and tits shoved up like enormous sideways loaves of UFO, and again: why? Don't you have kids? Don't they have kids? Don't those kids have kids? Aren't they all watching? You were dancing so awesome before this turned into the 2011 future of Dita Von Teese. She sings the whole song to Simon, which doesn't even make sense even though everybody always does it and it never makes sense. He's not going anywhere, you have no claim on him. Simon is like the wind: fair, foul, ever free.
Old lady No. 2's hair looks like A Different World after a tornado, blonde afro braids shooting off sticklike in every direction and ragged as though the moths have been at them. If she were just standing there, I would be like, "That old lady is crazy cool." But instead, the flapping and the lunging and the bending and the turning and the flopping and the constant threat of seeing an old lady's grandma vagina. When we said make it clap we didn't mean we actually wanted to hear it, ma'am. I beg of you not to leave me this way, in particular: shivering and nauseous and obsessing on your old lady business.
Then that one introduces another one, and I was about to start crying because how many are there that are even left, but I didn't cry because the answer is both "none" and "just one, but a very special one." Welcome to KC "of KC and the Sunshine Band," they keep saying. And I realized that I had no idea KC of KC and the Sunshine Band was a person, a woman or a man, black or white, rich or poor, gay or straight. And God help me I'm still not sure.
KC of KC and the Sunshine Band looks sort of like a chemistry teacher, but with a high voice like a lady. He's very thick and also has fleet feet; he has clearly done a lot of living. Most of which I'm still too innocent to know about, and certainly too classy a motherfucker to hear about. Tonight, I believe every story I've ever heard about disco. Did you ever think about how, if you really sit and watch The Sopranos or The Godfather, half those guys could conceivably be gay, if you really think about it? Not like woo-woo choo-choo gay, or even normal gay, but like those scary old guys that try to purchase you. With the chains and the plastic surgery and the shiny lips and maybe a pinkie ring or a glittery earring? Lots of times they are chefs, most of the time they're married, not even that queeny, and certainly could be in the real mafia. Welcome to LA, here is your sugar daddy, set some boundaries upfront.
Do you know the guys I'm talking about? There aren't so many in Austin, but man, Houston was just lousy with 'em. Sweaty, not in a hairy way but in a sort of hairless shiny way, and they're always super nice. If they're into anything weird it's totally transparent vanilla weird shit where you're like, "You mom sure did a number on you, and this is not going to be on-demand, but fine. Stop crying." I don't know if I'm describing them accurately enough, but even if I'm not describing them right as a group, I am at least accurately describing KC of KC and the Sunshine Band. That's what he's like, and I'm telling you right now I would totally let him buy me. I don't give a shit, I like this song. And say what you will, but those dudes are hardwired to remember important dates and information like that, which after a few months of drummers and actors is all it takes.
So far we've lost Lil, but who else is in the B3? (Oh, stop looking at me like that. If you didn't spend at least part of your twenties in a Dennis Cooper novel, what were you doing instead, crocheting? Philately? Repenting?) It's not Kris, duh, but let's talk about his original take on "She Works Hard For The Money," which everybody loved, although I think Ryan secretly loved it more for the ongoing joke about Kris "shopping in the ladies' department," which Kris has been over since it started; they giggle adorably and he's safe.
Adam is also safe, of course, and his "If I Can't Have You" was so brilliant that the audience cheers so insanely that tears well up in his eyes just as Paula starts crying. Brilliant approach and "immaculate vocals," per Simon, will put Adam in the finals, double duh, per Paula. Adam's voice does that thing where you know he's about to launch exuberantly and nervously into an explanation of his artistic choices that will freak Ryan out, timewise, but it's pretty sweet: basically that he didn't want to mess with the arrangement too much, but realized that the emotions of the lyrics are so exacting that even if you didn't recognize the song you'd recognize the words, if they were sung "honestly." It's shit like that which separates those of us who can understand Paula from the rest of you, because that made total sense and was embarrassing at the same time.
Continuing the obvious, we talk about Danny's "pitch perfect" vocals on the September song, his "sexiest voice ever" shoutout from Paula, and Simon's upfront putting him on notice for lack of star power, awkwardness and general clumsy lack of charisma. Then Simon stares at him like a bird of prey and slowly and sinisterly licks his lips, like he's rehearsing to take over for Gary Oldman in something. Ryan talks about "the bloggers" and how they thought Simon was harsh, but Lord knows what crap Ryan's reading. Danny "meditated" a lot on Simon's advice and -- needless to say -- thought about himself a lot, and doesn't know what Simon means, but has figured it out even though he's still not sure what Simon means. Whatever makes Ryan leave him alone and makes American idiots think there's a goddamn thing going on in his head, that's what he says.
Ryan pushes it further, asking what Simon meant by "clumsy," and Simon tries to get him to drop it several times and move on, deflecting a joke onto Ryan ("you know what being clumsy's all about, Ryan") before straight up telling him to stop being a dick and move on because they all know exactly what the fuck he meant. "All right, Grumpy," says Ryan -- which looks like Seacrest returning the serve until you realize he's going to do exactly what Simon told him to do -- pronounce Danny safe and move along -- which means we all win. Danny claps, because he's so happy for us that we got to see him safe for another week.
Anoop is, if possible, at this point smarmier than Danny. Simon hated him, but the rest found him "magical." I can guarantee you based on that sentence alone that Anoop is going home, because that's how this show works. Ryan sends him to the stools, leaving perennial B3ers Allison and Matt. Allison's "Hot Stuff" had great vocals but split the Judgery with its arrangement. Paula and Simon found her "authentic" and "brilliant," which I always do.
Allison tries to explain her idea with that version, but before she even starts talking you know whatever she says is going down in flames. I didn't even bother writing it down, but it was something along the lines of how unless she sang it like she's done every other song, it would have been a disco song, and that would have sucked, so originality and like such as.
Matt's "Staying Alive" was loved by the lady judges, but Simon found it "desperate." Matt responds that he was trying to make the arrangement unique, after sixty-seven episodes on the block, and hopes to stick around. Those are not mutually exclusive, and I defy you to find a performance more desperate than Lil's anyway, but Matt's not doing himself any favors by admitting how flipped out he is about all of this. He nearly starts sobbing just talking about the whole PoV thing and how he feels endangered every second of his life these days. So Ryan drags it out about how the judges saved him last week, but this week it was up to America... Who saved him! AWESOME!
Allison dorks on over to Anoop and sings that OK Go song "Here It Goes Again," because they are in the B3 again, but he's such a tool he doesn't even understand why she's being embarrassing. Then commercials. You know, no matter how many times I see it, I don't really believe that the movie is going to be called Fighting at the end of the commercial. I really think it's going to be something else, and Fighting was just the name they were using for now. It gets me every time.
I also never really thought there would be David Archuleta again, either. But there he is. He sings some song about how if you scream loud enough at the Jonas or Archuleta or whatever concert, he will see you and take you backstage and then the two of you will get comfortable, turn the lights down, light some candles, and pray so fucking hard you'll be walking funny for a week.
I don't get the Edward Cullen/Jonas Brothers thing at all, I don't like it. I don't get it and I don't like it. I grew up with George Michael literally taking his dick out for us, and I thought he was adorable. Even the NKOTB guys weren't constellated around virginity as the ideal, it was just part of the package. Half of them looked like they were in their thirties anyway. But this new crew? Ugh, so creepy. What's sexier than a boy who will never, ever fuck you? Waiting five years until your parts work, and then having sex like a normal goddamn person.
I get that they're like, sex methadone, but it seems like a dangerous precedent to teach your kids to sublimate their sexuality in that way, like, the downside to abstinence porn is that you're basically being asked to fetishize not having sex, paraphilically focusing how on not fucking is the new fucking, which... Why bring a little kid into that mess? That's so gross.
It solves the problem now, but in the most twisted, confusing way where you hyperfocus on stuff that's not even that interesting when you're that age anyway, and then instead of just going, "Yeah, that's normal, you'll get there later" you take this bizarre left turn and say, "It's natural, but it's not natural, so let's talk about how natural it is, but act totally unnatural about it, and instead you can focus those natural feelings you weren't even thinking about on some weird absent void of sexuality."
To review: "There is not an elephant in this room." "Do not think about the elephant in this room." "Over there is a monkey. Monkeys are the opposite of elephants. Instead of thinking about the elephant in the room, think about this monkey. Think about the monkey!" "Your favorite thing about this monkey is how much he hates peanuts! You like peanuts? So do elephants. Which don't exist! You hate peanuts! Look at that monkey hating peanuts! Covered in peanuts, but just hating them. Are you hungry for peanuts one day? Don't be bad! You're a bad girl! Stop thinking about the elephant!"
It's not even a metaphor, it's just sex Ritalin, that defers the problem so you don't have to deal with it. And ten years down the line, they may or may not have discovered the delicious taste of peanuts for themselves -- despite all your efforts to the contrary -- but more than likely they'll need to get tied up or choked in order to enjoy them at all. Well done once again, Boomers. And now I gotta watch David Archuleta licking his lips and sounding super fucking weird now, like Antony Johnston. Like a scary witch pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman in the body of a little boy. This is stressing me out.
Bleep-bloop. Anoop and Allison. And before you can even blink, the person going home is Anoop! Awesome. Allison is, against all odds, safe. I should have trusted my gut. Anoop does some kind of Thanks America deal, but Ryan steps all over it and brings Lil back onstage, which irritates Anoop a little bit and will continue to do so. Matt looks like he's dying of grief through their whole video journey, fake-smiling through the tears and trying to give them both something. I think all they need is a nap.
The video journey is pretty yucky to watch: Lil's entire spirit leaking out through her feet week by week, Anoop slowly collapsing into himself like a World Of Warcraft gamer left alone at a school dance. Then Anoop interrupts Ryan's goodbye conversation with Lil to tell us all what he's going to miss about something, whatever, nobody cares, and then it's over. I've not met even an only child that acted like that so consistently. I'm sorry to say that I'm glad he's gone. And that his fans, as far as I've personally experienced, are illiterate pricks. week: Top Five, but I have no idea what the topic will be. I hope it's either lullabies, in honor of Allison's massive baby, or Bereavement Week, in honor of... Anoop.
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