Hollywood! Jacob's favorite part of this whole stupid show! Men and women perform in groups of six, then get cut, then do groups and get cut, and then 40 of them will go to the Chair tomorrow. None of them are that interesting, but some boring stories ("She's dressed like Paula! And Ryan!" "He sings flat today!") get us through. A girl threatens to shit herself, that was entertaining. Rachel "Unbreak My Face" Jenkins and Nicole Turner go home, except Nicole is awful and her mother can't stop her and she won't take no for an answer, no matter how many times Simon explains to her that she sucks extrinsic to her family drama. 56 people go home, some other number stay for group day, including Gina Glocksen and the mentally compromised Jamie Lynn. Brian Miller takes yet another dip on what he calls this "an emotional rollercoaster," failing out of Hollywood for the second year running. Wildly, aggressively, frighteningly, violently, jarringly gay Matt Sato spins a tale of high drama containing tears, accusations of parental abuse, screams and hushed moans, numerous turns away from the camera, and possibly the vapors -- but never explains the drag queen eyebrows. Gone. Baylie joins with BFFs Amanda and Antonella, and that's three people I don't care whether they live or die, but suffice to say Baylie and either Amanda or Antonella go home, and Amanda? You're repulsive, and also God called, and He said you're quote "kind of slutty." The reliable Gina Glocksen and her buddy lonelygirl15 (who's either Jessica Gordon or Marisa Rhodes) have a time with variably fake-Colombian Perla, who has no idea what the hell she's doing, and is the only one to go home, thankfully. Sundance looks scared and sounds bad, and SCREAMS like a JERK, but gets through. Jacob all-time favorites Chris Sligh, Blake Lewis, and Tom Lowe -- and that guy Rudy that tried to bone Ryan -- form a veritable SUPERGROUP that ruins the curve for all people. I almost cried I loved that so much: see it if you can. 36 people are cut on group day, including that guy with all the beard. Then Three Rooms freakout: the 40 who will proceed to the Chair include Sundance, Gina, Sanjaya, Blake, Chris, a highly visible Korean guy, and Buckstein. Eliminated from Room Three of Three include Shyamali, Jamie Lynn, and that boring boy who keeps failing. Shymali and Sanjaya cry for a billion years, of course, but mostly it's distracting how cute his highlights are. I wish Hollywood lasted five weeks instead of those shitty auditions, don't you?
Ryan opens my favorite phase of the entire show -- One whole episode this year, out of the fifty damned times a week this show comes on! Thanks! -- with a dubious statement: "To be an American Idol finalist," he asserts, "Is to be a superstar." Kinda; in the same way that to be Ken Jennings is to be a superstar, or more to the point, that crackhead-looking astronaut lady. To be an American Idol is to be possessed of fame equal to or eclipsed by that of Jennifer Wilbanks. Taylor, Kat, and DAUGHTRY are all what we're charitably calling "powerhouses in the music industry," and there are a million stupid pictures of DAUGHTRY and how he went platinum in five seconds because he is marketing to Wal Mart people, because he is one.
A total of 172 people got golden tickets, is the math we're spinning on this -- although I'm sure there were the requisite five scandals, four porn sites, three payola schemes, two nepotisms, and a partridge up Cowell's ass -- and now they're in Hollywood for five days of boot camp. Those 172 include maybe...ten people I recognize? I think that's partly my bad, because I haven't really been paying attention to the auditions, because I keep a bunch of crazy people and retards downstairs to point and laugh at whenever I feel like it, right to the Starbuck's, so I don't really need the auditions for anything I can't get for myself. People I know include Tom Lowe, Chris Sligh, Blake Lewis, Gina Glocksen, and that pretty girl that everybody hates. And you know what, it's partly NOT my bad, because those are exactly the people this stupid show wants me to recognize, with the exception of Tom Lowe, who was like a Perfect Storm of getting tossed aside by this show, what with his gayness, hotness, oldness, Britishness, prior-contractedness, and life as Simon Cowell's pool boy, and we're all supposed to pretend we never saw him, after tonight. I refuse. Never forget!
"It's Hollywood Week," quoth Ryan: "This...is American Idol." And then that music, and I guess sometimes that music is a little exciting, okay, but I still hate this show.
0800 hrs., and I see that boring crying boy who came back, and Tara Reid-looking Baylie. The boys aren't stressing today, Ryan says, because he gave them all friendly backrubs, and also because it's the girls who are singing today. Twice as many girls as boys got invited to Hollywood this year, for some reason, so I guess maybe that explains why I can't tell any of them apart. Well, that and the fact that we've never seen most of them before right now. Gina's sitting with that lonelygirl15 person that has the Fiona Apple Lesbian Voice, on a bus, telling us how terribly hard it's going to be. Like how the other people who are looking at this as a fun and exciting experience are going to be ripped apart by wild dogs, in the end, and it's almost pathetic of them not to be scared out of their wits. "Look to your left, look to your right: one of the three of you is going home," says La Glocksen, and I mean, that's true. Over at the theatre, everybody's stressing about how there's "so much talent" it's lying thick on the ground, which is self-aggrandizing to the same degree that it's self-dramatizing, which is what happens when you hit a certain population density of theater types and vocal types, which is the unavoidable result of American Idol because it's the killing field where these two awful types of people meet and greet and act elite. But no matter how many times you say this to yourself, and trust me I know, nothing will prepare you for Matt Sato. Nothing.
This cute girl that looks like Delia talks about how you see American Idol on TV, but now they're actually here, so it's like being on TV, and then I think she has an existential crisis of such power that she dissociates and quickly blinks out of existence altogether. You can either see where an Idol contestant is, or where she's going, but never both at the same time, because observing them on this shitty show invariably distorts and warps everything, so this is really your fault. Baylie sits in the auditorium, looking broke as usual. Simon sweetly wishes everybody luck, and Ryan explains how groups of six of them go backstage and sing, one after the other, for thirty seconds, alone, with no feedback, and then the whole line comes out onstage at once so the judges can dick them around in an unending Wii avatar shuffle and then send them home.
Jory Steinberg (Santa Monica CA, but NYC Auditions) sang that Anastacia song and was a judge favorite at auditions, unanimously invited back. Jory cracks a nervous joke onstage about how she is dressed just like Paula, but nobody points out that, today at least, this also means they're both dressed like Ryan Seacrest. In terms of cuteness resulting, it goes: Ryan, Paula, shivering Jory. She sings with all that Britney breathy stuff, and I don't know enough to say it but I think maybe that's the fault of Anastacia, or the vest, and whatever, she's boring. After her come Geri Guyer (Altoona, PA), who sings a song about a window to her heart, and Kelly Caruso (NJ), scary- and scared-looking, Lisa Morrison (26, Selden NY), who I don't really get any read from at all, Christen Itam who is flat as hell and scared and awful, and then Jeromishia Lemar (23, Philly), who sings "I Just Called To Say I Love You." None of them is better than the others, and with the exception of Christen, none is worse than the others, but it's pretty lackluster.
Jeromishia is standing very sassy and prepared as Simon stretches it out into eternity but finally tells them they're all six going home. Jory screams, one of them shrieks in what may or may not be confused joy, and Simon repeats that they're all six done. "You're going home. None of you are any good. That was an absolutely terrible start to the day." He tells them they're all horribly unoriginal, and shoos them away. Ryan stands on the balcony, shitting it. I think that was partly Simon trying to scare the rest of the ladies (2/3 of 172 is what?) and partly trying to spice this part of the show up a little bit. Ryan notes that this is going to be "brutal" because of how many girls 2/3 of 172 is, and then one girl threatens to shit in her pants. For real. Charming. Simon explains that in fact yes, this is a wakeup call. Ryan asks Jory if it was too harsh, she has nothing of import to say. Lots of reaction shots from various girls in the audience trying to convince us this was hugely important and a big deal, which I guess it would have been if we'd seen the ten minutes it took to happen, instead of just a blur with Christen Itam's horrible voice shooting out of it for a second. I'm not convinced this is the most interesting thing that ever happened on this show. Coming up, Ryan tells us, there will be "more drama -- onstage and off" and you know what? It's all going to come from sucky people, because that's how drama works.
Commercial, during which Carrie Underwood is congratulated on her Grammy. I join the show, the FOX network, and 19 Entertainment in these congratulations, in the same exact spirit of sincerity in which they were originally given.
It's "crunch time" for the girls; two of them tell us that they are "cool, calm and collected" in a way that suggests between one and three of these things is categorically untrue; another girl calls it a stiff competition. The violently obnoxious Perla Meneses, a fake Colombiana from Florida, acts like an asshole for a million years, singing "Hips Don't Lie" in as close to a fake-Shakira voice as she can muster, and talking in a Hilda Suarez fake accent the rest of the time, that comes and goes. So she auditioned in Minnesota, hate, and when she comes off the plane in LA it's like...it's like she looked at Mikalah Gordon and thought, "She had a good shtick, but a little high-concept, a little too Harvard. Let's bring Mikalah Gordon to the people." She poses and minces and prances and acts the fool for the cameras; my notes say, "She sure thinks she's fucking cute"; this muscle queen guy waiting to get on the plane and get to the Keys already is like, "Who are you?" and she's too dumb to say anything funny, so she goes, "I don't know! You tell me!" Truer words, you little moron. Ryan tries and fails to get a word in edgewise before her Hollywood performance, talking about how she needs to GO BIG and whatever horrible persona she projected at the audition, she needs to be "that girl, PLUS." I like to think that he is doing this out of spite.
Simon is unimpressed with both the Fakira BS and the obnoxious accent, and says nothing, and she scampers and capers and assholes it all the way offstage. up in her group is Army Reservist Rachel Jenkins, who sings "Unbreak My Heart" and looks like a woman about to find out that her husband is fucking their husband's live-in best friend Greg on the Maury Povich show. "Ah just thought they was on the rasslin' team!" Weird body, squashed fat face, husband in Baghdad since 2005, nasal voice. She hits a terrible, awful, ugly high note, and Paula tells her to stop. The other four, presumably, perform at some point, and the six, including Perla and Rachel, line up. Perla and some other girl go through, Rachel is out, one of the Cool Collected Girls is out. Ironically, she does not take it well. Simon tells Perla she's "personality over talent," and she interrupts him a billion times to tell him to shut up, basically, and that she's from Colombia, and ready to work, but more than that, she's ready to get on everybody's nerves that has ever met her. He's like, "Okay great, good luck," and thinks about how cut she already is and doesn't even know it. Reservist Rachel wigs out in the lobby and talks about how she got as far as she could, for her husband, and then she finds some ways to work the word "husband" into fifty more sentences, but at least her hair looks pretty. She looks about a billion times better than she did onstage, and smiles through the tears as she informs us that her husband is husband to be husband in a couple of husband.
Perla cries about how everybody thinks she's a joke (she is) and how they think she's a poseur with a fake personality (she is) but how she can't help being herself (true enough, I'd imagine) and that she's "bubbly" (if in the context of some snack chips containing Olestra, I guess that's true) and how she "can't not have that," you know? I hate being at the mercy of my horrible made-up stupid personality!
Ugh, Baylie Brown from Krum TX, 16, scary pageant mom, sings that song about the window to your heart. Her makeup looks awesome. She has a really good voice, but there are lots of weird little places where it drops out of singing and it sounds like she's talking instead; it's amateurish, but at least she's on pitch. She gets a standing ovation, and Simon congratulates her on being "very good," as does Paula. She gets through, a couple of others from her group of six get through, and she hugs her mom in the lobby, and her mom is creepy some more.
"But as the afternoon wore on," Ryan says, they were sucking. "Most girls just weren't making the grade." Randy begs them to be good from the very first note. Some girl named Ashley from San Antonio, an early standout who's now going home, tells us she's still going to do music, no matter what. Which begs the question: What did she think was going on here? That's like getting turned down for Dancing With The Stars and being like, "But that's not going to stop me from my lucrative career in motorcycle maintenance." This show is not about music, idiots! Some scary Concealed Russian Lady with a face like a melon goes home, being per Simon "below average." Sarah Burgess, who lied to her dad about the auditions, cries and smiles: "I made my parents proud, so I've already won." And you lied to them, so you already lost. Drama!
A large young woman gets cut from Gina's line, and somebody cries, and Ryan gets worried that they're cutting too many ladies; it's suddenly 1800 hours and there's an abandoned name tag lying in the streets softly illuminated by the storied lights of the historic Kodak theatre and the broken dreams of a thousand young fools, and the last person of the day, Nicole Turner (27, Richmond CA), is repulsive. There's this whole unending fight between Nicole, her mother, and her aunt about how she must pick the perfect song, and her mom and aunt are both very excited about "Ain't No Way," and all three of them are utterly annoying, and I guess they've been fighting about this all day. And you already know where this is going, so let's skip forward to her singing, of course, "Ain't No Way," and she does a great job but not a superstar job, and immediately after starts bitching about how she didn't even want to sing that song anyway, so ... So what? So they should handicap her so-so job for the fact that she wasn't feeling it? Why yes, that's exactly the pile of shit she's bringing to the table. But! That's not all. She gets cut, she goes outside, she cries on her mom and says things like, "I can't put my heart in a song I'm not feeling, Momma!" and "I have sacrificed so much!" And we're so done with Nicole Turner, I mean, you've gotta know how gross that actually is.
First of all, you sing what people tell you to, every week on this show, and unless America is even stupider than I think, that excuse is only going to work -- how many weeks was Elliott on the show? That many weeks -- and anyway, you have sacrificed nothing except your dignity. Get your face out of your mother's tits and stop crying. You are 27 years old. There are people 11 years younger than you in this room that are appalled at your lack of professionalism right now. You literally could not go lower in my... Oh. Guess you can. Hi, mom. Mom wanders onstage and gives a stupid speech about nothing whatsoever, along the same gross lines about "feeling it" v. "not feeling it" or whatever, and tacit acknowledgement of the fact that she still controls the brain and vocal chords of her daughter, who is bounding toward thirty like a kitten on the hillside, and Simon's like, "It wasn't the song. It wasn't the song. It wasn't the song." And after he's said this about ten times, and the little jerk and her mom continue to whine and moan and bitch -- for what we can agree, right, is no reason, because it's over, it's over, she sucked, she's going home -- he finally shouts from the back of the theatre, mic-less, "IT WASN'T THE SONG!" And just in case you were unsure that Nicole Turner is an asshole, she gets that gross, ignorant, offended face and goes, "Don't you shout at me, Simon." Like he was intruding on her personal space or something, by finally yelling...after she blankly ignored him the first through ten times, then went and got her MOMMY to ignore him in tandem with her a few more hundred times. This is learned behavior, this is something she's seen somebody do, and didn't understand that it was probably (though not definitely) warranted at that time, and thought it was a good way to pull moral high ground whenever anybody yells at you, which is actually not what it is, unless you're a tiny mean little person who writes yourself the pass all the time to act like this. What, NOW you're going to be like, "There are certain ways I will not allow myself to be treated"? NOW you're going to take up for yourself? About something stupid like that? It's fine to demand that people not raise their voices to you, I guess, although you're an idiot for creating drama about it, but it's actually something you earn by not inducing them to yell in the first place by being an ignorant, self-dealing, whiny little jerk. I hate her so much. What a worthless individual. And of course, Paula's completely in the weeds and adding to the whole problem, mumbling crazily as Nicole CONTINUES to lecture them about how song delivery works, and how singing is done, and how nobody in their right mind could expect her to truly bring it with a song she's not "feeling," and I cannot believe how long this awful part of this awful show has been going on, and it's still going on, and finally: of the 114 girls, 56 of them plus Nicole go home to mommy.
Simon sends a whole line through, as though to defy the awful stars that brought him Nicole Turner, including Melinda Doolittle from Memphis, Gina Glocksen and her buddy Paula, and Tatiana. Also making it through is Birmingham's Jamie Lynn But It's Okay, who chuckles like a hick and does a stupid dance and...how does she keep from falling over? Walking down the street or hallway, how does she keep from just tipping the fuck over?
Day Two. The boys. Sundance Head was an idiot in Memphis and could sing, he's an idiot in Hollywood and no longer can sing, and we see him every five seconds throughout both this and the episode, meaning he gets through. Brian Miller the crying boring boy is there, telling Ryan this whole thing is an "emotional rollercoaster" and noting that he's only 19. But MAN is it a young 19. He sings "A Change Is Gonna Come," which is I believe the only song he knows, and he still looks boring, empty and soulless, and has a totally unmemorable voice that manages to bring everyone to their feet anyway, and I guess he was the first audition of Boy Day, because Randy says we're starting well ahead of the girls, who started poorly and didn't really get better. As though in protest of his innate boringness, Whatever His Name Is Miller kicks his heels on the way offstage.
Jarrod Fowler (27, Peoria AZ), out of uniform, is the singing star of the Air Force, who just love him, and told him he had to wear his uniform to his audition the first time around. I know I always say this or that thing is "embarrassing for everybody," but I don't often actually mean "everybody" when I say it. This time, I can't think of anybody that isn't at least slightly touched by this amount of shame. He is -- okay -- "dedicating the audition to them" -- "them" being the Air Force. Perspective just completely out of the window, which I guess is not that surprising, because if the Venn Diagram of singers and theater is terrible, add the current state of the majority of our nation's military, and you get somebody who thinks dedicating an American Idol audition in Hollywood, which nobody is ever going to see, because we don't do that on this show, actually means something. "This yellow ribbon is the least that I can do. The very absolute, literal, definitive least that anyone can do, I'm doing that. Slap! Right on the back of my car. Take that, al-Qaeda."
His voice is stupid, and he sings the stupid song about how you raised him up like you were a mountain or whatever, and he sounds bored and boring, and crappy. Simon cuts him for sounding awful, and he goes out to be nice to wildly gay Matt Sato (Maplewood MN), who has been starting drama since he was born but only really started the drama in earnest starting at his Minnesota audition. His eyebrows are plucked to tiny gay-porn exclamation points emphasizing his extreme gayness and slight creepiness. The creepiness comes from the eyebrows, but also the shivery lapdog twanging drama field that surrounds him like a million guitar strings pulled just almost to snapping, all the time. ["I keep trying to shield him from you, Jacob, but it's not working!" -- Joe R] He calls his mom -- who is to blame for all of this -- and can barely tell her, back in Minnesota, that he got through to Hollywood before he falls to the floor in a wet sobbing mess. Repeat, one thousand times. He tells this story about how she's "never" proud of him, and "never" supports anything that he does, and how they "never" hug and he's "never" felt loved, and then he goes flopping to the floor again mid-story about how his mom hugged him. And I will be totally dead honest with you: I was this kid. I mean, as possible as it is for someone with any sense of...no, you know what? Full stop, I was this kid. So I can tell you that there is no drama like gay high school drama. You don't even know. Out of nothing, literally no ingredients whatsoever, the most grievous hurly-burly can be whipped, given the correct environment and motivation to dramatize.
Being a teenager is a bloody slow-motion car accident for every single person on earth, which is why we (North Americans especially) are so obsessed with high school until we die and use it in every metaphor and everything we do and say constantly. Like, a regular boring heterosexual person finds high school difficult, that has to do with fitting into one of about a dozen preset John Hughes categories and then hopefully at some point realizing that whole thing was bullshit and then graduating from college and going absolutely insane for about two years when you realize you've got to start the whole process over. But a kid who figures out he's gay in high school? There's not even THAT amount of guidance as to who or what you're supposed to be, so you find whatever role models you can, and hope for the best, and spend every day -- like this kid -- demanding whatever ground you've found to stand on. (The only reason my outstanding personal gayness was not my defining characteristic, and this is a win/lose, was because I was completely nutsack crazy, in ways that had nothing to do with being gay, which is a whole other area of drama and manipulation that's just as destructive but at least doesn't get you beat up, though it can and often does lead to heavy drug use. And I know this isn't about me, but I don't want you to think I'm being callous or mean about this kid. I'm really, really not.) However, if you're terribly boring, or weak, or not that smart -- like this kid -- you're going to go for the most obvious ground to stand on, which involves reducing yourself to a sexless squealing infantilized broken mess, because every cue you're getting is telling you this is the only possible way you can exist without causing all the people around you -- who are dealing with a hefty amount of shit that has nothing to do with you -- to recoil violently from the idea that you're a dude who kisses dudes, and doesn't act like a dude is supposed to. And the reason these people can't handle it is that you're asking the question they're not allowed to ask, so you're the fifth column of their own confusion about everything there is to be confused about, which is the entire story of hormones and sexual identity in one sentence. And the more overt and fabulous you are, the more loudly and more often you're asking the question just by existing, and that's unacceptable, so either you push it down and act right, which would be better, or you turn that into your entire shtick, at which point you've become less human, to the point that it doesn't matter whether or not you're screaming, because nobody's listening either way. You get sympathy, you get cluck-cluck, you get everybody sighing in silent relief that you didn't push the issue, and at the end of the day you get friends and you don't have to be alone any more: just a cartoon version of a girly boy without genitals. And that's the story of every slow-motion car accident, from one angle or another: how you got your rough edges rubbed off and how much it hurt when it happened.
All his life, Matt tells us in excruciating detail, he's been trying to impress his mom, but now that he's here, drama. He's got a good voice, and honestly, I think the eyebrows are mostly the problem. It's a big problem. He could have been cute, even with the acne and the weird Howdy-Doody face, but those brows, man. It's like FOX accidentally put gay porn in there for a second. So Jarrod and Matt are together in line, and a guy named Michael Lawson, and Chris Sligh is there, and Jarrod doesn't go through, because per Simon he wasn't as good as before. Which I don't remember, but I imagine Simon is completely right. Matt screams and jumps around and does little gay dances and hugs his buddy Jarrod, who calls this an "awesome experience" that he "wouldn't trade for anything." Matt cries and flops around and shakes and shivers and calls his mom on what I'm hoping is Ryan Seacrest's pink Razr, generating even more drama and talking about how his mom never ever ever says she loves him, and I'm kinda done with Matt Sato. Not in a way where he's bringing up painful memories or whatever me-stuff, and more because: if this was a girl, we'd all be screaming SHUT UP, but because it's a lapdog gay kid, we're trained to respond with sympathy and sweetness, and that's like the entire problem right there. Infantilizing these kids is more than half the problem, and we're the ones doing it. "Be yourself" is nice glib advice, but it's a lot like saying it's okay to fit into whatever box we put you in, so be that -- and it's not. "Figure out what 'yourself' is without regard to other people's input, because they're acting on their own behalf and doing everything they can to make you act the way they need you to, for their own equilibirum," is a lot closer to correct, but it's...admittedly wordy. Shut up, shut up...he shuts up. And has a coronary or an Emily Rose issue or whatever, I don't know. Effin' grows a pair and stops with the Jack McFarland act for five seconds.
In total, 34 guys made it through including a wacky black guy and a whole line that Paula sent through that contained my main man Blake Lewis, Nick Pedro who dropped out last year, weird-looking Phil Stacey who missed his daughter's birth to be here, and Charlie Manson gets through, and Ryan plays the boy game with them all, shaking their hands and going, "All right! All right!"
92 total are ready for the group round. Group night! Jacob's favorite part of this whole stupid show! They all wander around searching for groups to join and try to pick from a list of nine annoying songs, and there's this pigtailed girl who looks like that girl in The Rules Of Attraction that was in love with Van Der Beek, who sounds drunk when she talks, and she can't find a group, and Matt Sato is having trouble fitting in, because nobody wants his hysteria or his eyebrows in the mix, and pigtails gets into a group with some Christians, and Buckstein even turns down Matt, because of how that didn't work out with the turkey kid last year. (He is working with Nick and Phil, who I cannot tell apart, but I can tell you that their harmonies are no better than Buckstein's team last year.) Ryan giggles about them in voiceover, and then...Chris Sligh, Blake Lewis and Tom Lowe are in a group. My three early favorites, plus Rudy Cardenas, who I guess is married, are the supergroup. Unfair, yet fantastic. I had this feeling they were going to be awesome, and then they were. My notes actually say, "Fuck yes."
It's 2300, and Baylie is with the Jersey BFFs Amanda and Antonella, who are hard to tell apart despite looking totally different. They fight over the song they should sing, with a bunch of horrible Jersey voices having Jersey drama, and Ryan characterizes Baylie as being "caught in the middle," and this goes on for awhile, and there's a funny shot of Baylie looking away from the BFFs, into what seems like space until the camera pans over to reveal an awesome group of girls already doing three-part harmony on the song they've chosen.
Midnight, they head to the hotel for the total social breakdown that makes Hollywood so much fun. Another group is Gina, Perla, and girls named Melissa and Jessica, one of whom is the lonelygirl one. Gina complains that "one of us" isn't as talented as the others with harmonies, and that bothers her, and we see her trying to teach Perla the basics of music. Gina Don't Lie, dog. I know she comes off a little harsh, but I've liked her since last year, and I always like the harsh professional girl every year on group night, so I'm fine with all of this. Another iteration of the harsh group night personality is lonelygirl, who is not having this, and interviews that it got more and more difficult as the night went on. She leads them and has an amazing voice; she's even prettier when she's singing, which is like the opposite of most people. If I knew her name, she would so be one of my favorites. At least I have it narrowed down to Melissa and Jessica, so that should make it easier, because those are both such unique names.
Both lonelygirl and the Baylie/BFF team are not comfortable going to bed unfinished, but once you get a look at Team BFF and the scandalously bullshitty performance they have in store, you wanna tell them to just get some rest because the day is going to be a lot of travel and exhaustion, back to the Dairy Queen or Avis Rent-A-Car where they belong. Amanda dances around all slutty while Baylie forgets the lyrics; Baylie tries to spin the different skill levels for the cameras with a whole "I'm staying positive" act, which is like: the biggest smile in the world isn't going to help, so how about "getting competent," instead? Amanda doesn't know the words, Antonella tells the camera they are going to rock out, against all evidence to the contrary, but the way she says it makes me think that -- birds of a feather notwithstanding -- Antonella's not so bad. Amanda wanders off to stare at Blake and Tom and act like she got hit in the head by something heavy; the other two get bored and go to bed finally. Amanda is still up, though, hooting and hollering and rolling around on the floor and exposing herself and acting like Lindsay Lohan in a room full of Whip-Its. "I should be practicing...but I'm sick of practicing!" she giggles. We've seen this Craggle story every single year for the last six years, but this is definitely the most annoying: she's not even drinking! She's just LIKE this!
0330, Gina and her group trying to get Perla together. At some point I think Perla suggests that they switch songs, and lonelygirl15 almost spits on her. She's like, "I have it down! Lyrics, harmonies, choreography! The only reason I am awake is because you are an idiot!" Perla is not feeling this, doesn't understand that she's the problem, because that's how you end up with a Perla: the ongoing feeling that she's not the problem, when in fact most of the time I imagine that she is. It's a vicious cycle. Gina's like, "Perla. When we all stop and stare at you, you get mad. When you ask for help or to tell you when you're off, we try, and you get mad. You are full of shit, sweetheart, and I'm at a loss." Perla denies, denies, denies. She's like literally too dumb to even have this simple conversation. Gina finally just laughs into the camera: "We're not...going to be friends, after tomorrow." I was over Perla about a minute after the first time I saw her, so congratulations on getting up to speed, Gina.
Group Day! Ryan lets us know right off the bat that while some groups were good, others were not. (SPOILER!) In the latter column are Team BFF, where Amanda lets us know she's "Not that happy," due to Baylie forgetting the words and scaring Antonella. For those of you keeping track, what this means is that Amanda is heading for a righteous smackdown, because the silly Hays Code morals of this show dictate that anybody who stays up late or goes to bed is going to be punished horribly. My question to you is purely hypothetical, but I do believe apposite: You're in a hotel, doing something stupid with at least one other girl who is also stupid, and elsewhere in this hotel are Tom Lowe, Blake Lewis and Chris Sligh, being sexy and/or talented, and all in the same room. I blame her for a lot of things, such as raging hypocrisy, but...it wasn't going to get better, in there, and meanwhile: Tom, Blake, Chris. Simon's like, "Do not forget the words"; the gods of irony are like, "Amanda, we are coming for you."
Jose Laguna (24, New Brunswick NJ) forgets the words and is gone. Matt Sato is with Gigantic Anna and the Scary Carrie, and sounds horrible, and forgets the words, and looks very weird onstage with Gigantic Anna and Scary Carrie, like how they made hobbits in that movie; the backup also sounds bad, and they all sound terrible, and Matt gets cut and cries some more on the phone with his mom, but honestly doesn't have the energy to once more throw himself to the floor. He's simply too tuckered to flounce around, or bounce off the walls, or discuss his unprecedented martyrdom any more today.
Gina's group is upstairs, dancing wonderfully, and we're invited to remember a few minutes ago, when Perla couldn't harmonize, before the update about how, minutes later, she still can't. Gina and lonelygirl15 agree that at least if Perla falls apart, it's "going to be that much more clear that we're all together." Which is harsh but true, and by the way: if you're gonna bring it, bring it. This isn't summer camp, it's eliminations to star in the most powerful show on television, whose ratings on a regular night outpace those of the Superbowl, which I'm given to understand only happens once a year. No matter what kind of a princess you believe yourself to be, this is infinitesimally improbable for every single person, and you have to bring your A game. Perla whines to Ryan about how "right now they're seeing me as the weakest link," and how she's somehow got to man up and suddenly become talented and prove she's not the "weakest link." AWESOME edit of Gina and lonelygirl15 dancing around and having fun ... and tiny lonely Perla, in the background, all alone. That one shot contains the entire truth of the world. Jessica Gordon (27, Philly) is the secret identity of the Awesome Superhero Formally Known As lonelygirl15, and I don't know what we're supposed to think about her. I think she's the Stevie that only I will remember or like; I know Paula Abdul hates her ass. Gina Glocksen (Naperville IL) takes her turn at the front, and I don't think Simon's happy, and finally Perla shows up, forgets the words, sings a charming mix of nonsense and Spanish nonsense, sounds terrible with the backup -- though props for at least covering the lyrics issue with Spanish, that's quite clever -- and then Marisa (not Melissa like I thought) Rhodes comes up, sounding great with the backup. Perla does her level best to, I guess, screw up the harmonies as horribly as possible. Why not just tell her to stay quiet on those parts? Anyway, Simon detects that she is the problem and tells her she's the only one of the four that is going home today. And you know, she takes it well. She knew it when they were done singing, and she doesn't yak a whole lot about it or act stupid, just says some things in her vastly variable accent and takes off. Mediocrity. What could compete with that?
Oh, I dunno. How about the best thing that ever happened in a Hollywood Round? I don't know if I've been clear about this, but Blake Lewis is, in my opinion, somewhat awesome. So then there's Chris Sligh, who's funny but maybe not for long, and Rudy, who I don't feel strongly about one way or the other, and Tom Lowe, who no longer exists ever since that giant Haitian man came by the house today with Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. So they start singing "How Deep Is Your Love," and do their whole changeout thing as usual, and then as Tom's finishing up, Blake comes back to the forefront and starts beatboxing in a new time signature, and the other three immediately come down and start harmonizing over it. And while technically it is really imperfect, and at least one person is singing in falsetto and shouldn't be, but the whole thing about this show is the difference between what's good and what's marketable. In other words: "Is it awesome?" is a better question than "Would your choir director approve?" Because I have a list of names for you, and it's the Billboard Charts for the last fifty years. Whole lotta awesome, variable level of technical quality and/or talent. Is it awesome? It is awesome. Do I care beyond that? No, because I like people and things that smell like money. It's why I never got along with...what was that gay fella, with the dreadlocks? That was so terribly earnest all the time? ["Tracy Chapman?" -- Joe R] He was good in many ways, but he was not awesome. Versus Simon Cowell, who plays a character on this show that is good in no ways, but is always awesome. Rudy does some weird crotchy dancing like he moonlights at the strip club, and the camera swoooooops around like this is actually taking place in the dramatic future of this season, rather than just auditions, and I kind of completely lost my mind at this point and my notes are mainly just long strings of unlikely profanity, so hop forward. I don't know if Tom's mic is even working, because he's working it really loose, and at the end there's a particularly hilarious/lame echo effect they all do, with hand-dancing, but man, Blake Lewis is awesome. My first question is this: So now that you know it's possible to put together something that polished and smart and well-arranged and surprising and gimmicky and commercial and awesome, future Idol contestants, how about you do that? Because trash entertainment is one thing, but if this show were like that all the time, I'd actually enjoy it. Anyway, I watched that over and over for about six hours, and then moved on.
Sundance Head (27, Porter TX) looks scared, and also like a tool, and he whines about how he biffed it yesterday -- he totally did -- and I'm already sick of him. Which is funny, because he looks incredibly like almost every guy I've ever dated, and I thought I would enjoy him and his business, but seriously he's just annoying and self-obsessed. Flashback to Simon telling him not only that he sang through his nose, but also looked "boiled," which was due to the horrible straining and squealing and screaming that he has suddenly decided is "singing," running counter to his understanding of the term. He goes on and on about himself for a thousand years like we're watching a movie about his life, and then they finally sing. L'Paige Bedford (16, Dallas) sings horribly through her nose, and either doesn't know the words or isn't expressing them properly, because it sounds like she's playing a nose flute. Sundance grins dopily at the camera; Robyn Troup (Houston) sings through her nose, and also won some kind of other adjacent contest to sing at a hockey game or something. Then finally it's time for Sundance to sing, but instead he goes sharp immediately and screams his stupid face off for a million years. Wow, he's annoying. I'd heard a lot about him, and I was trying to be fair because I didn't really remember him from before, but damn. There's like a tiny sweet part, and then a bunch of faking and covering for his lack of words, and some tricksy BS, and a buncha yelling and shrieking and screaming. Paula dumps everybody except Jason, for some reason, which horrifies Simon, and he calls her "generous" a few times. Now, the actual reason is that Paula likes distracting shiny things, and Sundance just grandstanded all over them and screamed like a fool, and to Paula that's memorable and exciting. Sundance, offstage, agrees that this is insane of Paula, and continues to talk his stupid ass off at the camera, while up on the platform the judges fight and fight. So he's going to be in the Top 24, then, I guess, since you're giving him huge amounts of face time in which he's saying nothing whatsoever. Fabulous. "I gotta get something right, or they will send me home ... And I don't wanna go back home." Then get better, Head.
Heh. Team BFF, they still suck. "Thing is, girl, when I help you? That's when I get thrown off." I don't know who says that, but I know they're talking to Baylie, whose mom is very worried. Previously in time, Simon told Baylie that she was "commercial with a capital C," and I guess that's kind of true, but she's also dumb with a capital D, based on what we're seeing here. The BFFs hold hands and only kind of pretend that Baylie exists, and then they sing. Antonella Barba doesn't seem to be really trying all that much, lifeless in her tiny shorts as Paula and Simon chat, but compared to the fresh hot hell that follows, she's great. Baylie forgets all the words. All of them. Baylie Brown. Forgetting the words. How ugly that was. Amanda Coluccio, the one that didn't go to sleep, is not that great, and bores Simon, and...forgets the words, just like we knew she would. She also makes a ridiculous face when she sings, like Maya Rudolph makes, but it's not funny, it's scary, and it's not on purpose, it's just her face. Paula goes, "Uh oh!" and Randy tells them "rough is an understatement..." and then they send Baylie home. The BFFs kind of try to be nice, but not really, and Baylie's creepy mom cries, and the BFFs immediately turn to the camera and start talking about how much they rock. Meanwhile, Baylie flat-footedly lies to the camera about how she "worked the hardest out of all of them" and is "not even lying." And just when you're recoiling from the gross implications about Baylie, Amanda does her one better: "God likes good people!" Shut the everloving motherfuck up, Amanda Coluccio. God HATES people that say shit like that. And so do I. Baylie accuses her of flirting with boys, and Adama grossly lies about how that never, ever happened. I wish all three of them would go straight to hell.
36 people were cut on group day, and a couple of them are yikesy but I don't recognize them. Sean something, the Charlie Manson guy, is gone. Some girl is gone, whatever whatever, 56 people are left. They do their final performances, which we won't see today and will barely see tomorrow, and come down to 40 people who go to the Chair, or all 56 of them something ... I don't know, but whatever. No, wait, the thing with the rooms. So 56 people into three rooms, one of which contains 16 people to get rid of all at once, creating the 40 people who go to the Chair tomorrow, of which 24 will then be up for votes in Semifinals. So we skip the solo stuff altogether, and then we get to see the judges playing with photos like on America's Top Model and their heads fly around, but you know, I don't recognize any of the people, so who cares. Shyamali, Jamie Lynn. None of this is real anyway, I mean, the judges are like, "I like this one but I'm not sure about her professionalism," and they show a random head floating around them, but it's not like there's a causal connection there, so whatever. It's a signifier of what actually happened, but it's not real, and then FINALLY, we get to Three Rooms Final Death Match 6000.
...Which is full of people I don't recognize anyway, because we didn't see any of these people, so we're kind of in the same stupid boat but whatever, because you know why? Because Ryan is wearing an adorable vest that he borrowed from that girl on Day One, and is totally awesome right now. He talks to the camera about how nerve-wracking it is to be in any of those rooms, because you look around and think, "That person was kind of sucky, or maybe they were good, and I can't figure out if I was good based on subjectivity and context because these rooms are chosen for maximal drama and emotional duress," but then you try to figure it out anyway. And the edits are so dumb I can't even tell who is in the same room anyway, so here are some people's names I remember, because that's literally all you get out of this content-free montage. Sundance. Gina. Antonella. Sanjaya, who's with Amanda, I think? But that doesn't make sense. There's Shyamali, who's totally going home. There's Blake for the eightieth time this episode, who is with people I don't know; Gina some more, Chris Sligh, a Korean guy I don't recognize but we'll be seeing a lot more tomorrow, buncha girls I don't know, and Buckstein. And whatever room that is, I guess Room One by virtue of the fact that we saw it first, they're okay.
Room Two: Antonella? Amanda? I can't tell the difference. Sundance and Sanjaya. I like Sanjaya okay, but it would be worth it to lose this room. So of course they get through. Finally, Room Three, the suckiest room to be in, because three minus two is just one, and that's you, going home. Shyamali, Jamie Lynn, that crying boring boy that how now failed twice. Everybody you assumed, and everybody you never ever saw. They get shuffled off and away so they don't get loser on the other rooms, who then come rushing together in a screaming fit of celebration: Chris, Blake, Buckstein, Antonella realizing Amanda didn't make it, God congratulating Himself on dicking her around, Sundance Head, Sanjaya wigging about his sister and running downstairs to hug her. It's pretty heartbreaking but it goes on for like ever. Some girl asks why we even come here. I can't answer her. Antonella and Amanda stand in front of the camera, and Amanda lies some more about how she's such a great person and totally doesn't begrudge Antonella anything. Which is like completely in line with what portion of her personality we've seen thus far, isn't it? Whatever. I'm still mad at Nicole Turner from like ten pages ago, don't listen to me. I'm grouchy. Tonight we celebrate, for tomorrow: the CHAIR.