Scene 1: The Guys were from Mars, the Girls are from Mars.
(That useless voice introduces the Judgery. Jennifer is dressed like a superhero, Randy is dressed like that guy that used to hold the umbrella for that rapper, Steven is a crusty some more. Your Top Five of both genders will be in the Top 12, so presumably the Judgery will rescue two of each. Timeframe being what it is, who knows who those Two Guys will be. I can't judge because I love all of them; my only hope is that Jovany will eat it because who cares about Jovany. Sorry, but come on.)
(Seacrest makes a scripted joke about his height that so screams Vilanch Ruins All Things that he actually must discuss how dumb the joke is.)
Seacrest: "Who cares about the girls this year?"
Lopez: "Not even me. This shit is stupid."
Seacrest: "This is about America Deciding, right?"
Jackson: "Well Ryan, this is about America Deciding. They should listen to the people sing, and then make a decision, and then Decide. Americally."
Seacrest: "That's so true, Randy. Let's talk about it for a long, long time."
Jackson: "Done."
Seacrest: "Who gives a shit about Steven Tyler?"
Gross Aged Whores: "We do!"
Seacrest: "Won that round, bitches."
Scene 2: The Children are Introduced. Sandinista sets the Tone.
(Tatynisa is the one that can sing, Naima is the one with all the problems, Kendra Chantelle is the one whose problem is right there in her names, Rachel rules and is nuts, Karen is so adorable some more at various ages like Portrait Of Jenny, Old Lauren is Old, Ashthon might just throw down, Julie Z por vida, Somebody somebody, Thia is little, Lauren A is the one we like, Pia is the one that's a Hefner candidate but nobody told her she should be blonde or that there's a war on. Yay for a bunch of girls that pretty much don't matter.)
(Ta-Tynisa decides to make her name even stu-pider. Then she fucks up that song about being the only Rihanna in the room. She does this in a cute skirt that she does not use to its greatest effect, and also while singing like she's just won a marathon. On the one hand, this is a singing competition and yet you're managing to make a great song suck plus fighting your awesome backup singer; on the other hand, you just won a marathon. Ta-Ta, Ta-Ta-Ta. Boomdeay.)
Tyler: "That was just fine."
Lopez: "I'm glad you stopped singing. I hope you enjoyed you stopping as much as I did. There were parts where you didn't totally Ta-Tim-Timmy this one."
Jackson: "I disagree with everybody because I think I'm new Simon. Crowd, please boo."
Everybody: "Well, okay. We're idiots."
Jackson: "On the other hand, I'm actually right."
Everybody: "Are we still booing? Do we shoot ourselves now? Tell us, Randy."
Jackson: "That was bullshit, you guys. Give me a break."
Seacrest: "Because Randy Jackson is fat, we like Ta-Tynisa."
Jackson: "Even I can discern how dumb that is."
America: "And yet."
Scene 3: for naima girls who have considered naima when naima is enuf.
(After a big problem with Dwayne Wayne's feelings about women, they take Cousin Pam back to talk to Dr. and Mrs. Huxtable, who set her straight about our heritage and her own personal pride. Later, Naima Adepapo makes her own dress -- canary yellow, fucking gorgeous -- and realizes she can do bad all by herself. She needs neither his regular glasses nor does she need his sun. She will be singing "Summertime," and why? Let's talk about it forever.)
(Naima cleans a toilet, Naima dresses like the entire cast of Rachel Getting Married some more, Naima sings an actually fun version of "Summertime" that has a discernable melody. Turns out this song is awesome if you play it at regular LP speed and not 45. Also, turns out Naima is just about full-on sexy. She tailors for her ass the way most people tailor for basic clothing reasons. From some angles, she has Winehouse Mouth. Not her fault. Love this girl. She knows how to fix songs that were born broken.)
Lopez: "You're like an exotic flower in a regular flower garden."
Naima: "that is what my name/ means."
Jackson: "You are neither Fantasia nor Casey Abrams."
Naima: "i have a vagina/ for starters."
Tyler: (Sounds. Noises.)
Naima: "i found god in myself/ and i loved her/ i loved her fiercely."
Scene 4: "Kendra" "Chantelle" the Shipboulder with Boobs at Half-Mast
Seacrest: "Don't let her name fool you, she's only mostly trash."
(Memories of Steven Tyler trying to fuck her and J. Lo being surprised that she's not broken already. Or is she.)
"Kendra" "Chantelle": (Sings "music." Is hot. This shit sounds like Alicia Keys. She says the same thing a billion ways -- "It's impossible; baby it's also impossible; additionally it is impossible" -- and then one dumb big note that doesn't even count.)
Jackson: "That was kind of dumb but look at you."
Tyler: "You're so played I almost can't hit on you. But I can try."
Lopez: "You fought really hard to get here, and I hope you realize that. What I mean is, why are you here."
Seacrest: "Anything to add?"
Kendra "Chantelle": "Nope, don't have to. I have chains hanging from my nips."
Seacrest: "By an amusing coincidence..."
Scene 5: Rachel at the Shredding
(Rachel is crazy great. Dresses in silly costumes. Is still too young for this shit even after trying out for one million times. Will be wearing no doubt some kind of insane costume and then tons of little people will come flooding out, Nutcracker-style, at a crucial moment, from beneath 67 levels of taffeta. Or will sing some kind of '90s Jewel or Sarah McLachlan, or both. Tiny little Canadians, oozing. Building one fuck of a mystery.)
(Starts with jewels on her face, and a giant cape. Sheds the cape the second the song starts, crosses her arms over her head. Is the idea, or thinks she is, of Siobhan plus porn. Is not doing a bad job of either. Love this girl. In theatre you have two kinds of girls: The disingenuous Melissa Leo bullshit drama kind, and the secretly horny ones that know what they are doing. The former move to NYC and either become crazy or Broadway stars, the latter move to NYC and eventually date only boys with beards and long hair down to grizzly here.)
(Still don't know what song. Going to the Lambert place? ...Oh, it's Fiona Apple. An unrecognizable cover of a Fiona Apple song. Pretty much everything I've ever said about Rachel Zevita, right here. Both at once. Can't even be surprised; I Ender Wiggin her so hard that my love gives me the hate to figure out all her secrets. Also, she very nearly kicks its ass. Not totally, but well done. A- for effort, C+ for TCB.)
(She's kind of the -- and I hate to say this -- kind of the Jordan here. Ambition like Lambert + Siobhan, but duffed her first try because she is an infant. Still, Siobhan was a total amateur the whole time and still got it done. It's not like she's fucking Robbie Rosen or anything. Sucks that my favorite girl came in such a sucky part of the night; at least there's still Lauren Alaina, whose daughter actually gave birth to Rachel Zevita just before this was taped.)
Tyler: "I did not care for the style with which you very creatively re-arranged the song. I haven't seen this show before so I'm not aware of how important the whole Blake Lewis-Brooke White-David Cook lineage of arrangement actually is. I'm just riffin'; and besides, I wouldn't know Fiona Apple if I fucked her, so that song is double-confusing. Despite being one of the smartest rewrites this song has had in the last three years since that became the thing for smart contestants to do."
Rachel: "Whatever?"
Tyler: "Well, fuck you."
Lopez: "Remember how I like you so much and that's the only thing that's interesting about you? Do more of that."
Jackson: "That sucked."
America: "We suck more!"
Jackson: "I wanted you to do it more like a cover song."
Rachel: "...What?"
Seacrest: "Did you have fun on stage?"
Rachel: "That is the only thing that will save me, so: Yes. So much fun on stage, America."
Edward James Olmos, holding an origami unicorn: "IT'S TOO BAD SHE WON'T LIVE!"
Seacrest: "BUT THEN AGAIN, WHO DOES? We'll miss you, Rachel. Jacob, I'm sorry about the hour and ten of this show now that your girl has sucked air."
Team Seacrest: "I knew she'd fuck it up. The part of me that cares about this kind of thing died right around Stevie. Which was like ten years ago. My heart will somehow go on. Leslie Hunt did a great album after she got bounced. Rachel Zevita will... Find her niche, whatever it is, by the time she hits her teens."
Scene 6: The Star-Spanglish Banner
(Remember when Jennifer Lopez was Selena? Sure, we all do. But have you ever wondered what that would be like as portrayed by a tiny child who sometimes is also an elderly woman? Let's meet Karen Rodriguez, who is beyond time and space and randomly shows us herself from any old age at all, while singing songs that J. Lo would probably try to sing, such as Mimi's "Hero." Or as we say in Momspañol, "Sustantivo." Hits not great notes, but also hits great notes; every language, back and forth. And is totally cute no matter how old or young she has chosen to be tonight, but if we're counting I would say she's shooting for about 32, or 28 in a business setting.)
Lopez: "I love how you kept going back and forth from English to Spanish."
Jackson: "I liked it better in Spanish."
Everybody: "Everything sounds better in Spanish. That is a known thing. There is a linguistic reason having to do with your mouth, the actual physiology of people's mouths, that I don't feel like getting into right now. Mostly it has to do with Spanish being an actual language, vs. how English is almost entirely the worst sounds from every other language locked in a room and forced to fight each other for food. Cellar door."
Jackson: "Some say, Jennifer, some say that Spanish is the language of love."
Team Seacrest: "No, they actually don't. But I see how you got there."
Lopez: "Um, let's talk about the song some more."
Jackson: "I thought we were. What's going on, Tyler?"
Tyler: "It's always been my dream to see you 'duet' with a black man, such as Jacob Lusk."
Karen: "He's gay. And I'm not your wife."
(Beat.)
Seacrest: "...Oh SNAP! Just got that."
Karen: "Heck yeah, I got sass. Or rheumatism, depending on how old I am today."
Scene 7: Johnny, Are You Weir?
Seacrest: "I can't wait for Jennifer's new single, '3.1 Philip Lim's Pedigree Minus Prudence ft. Jimmy Choo Shoeware with a special appearance by Wayfarers, produced by Sunkist.' Her video has multiple endings! All of which are a comeback bid where she's on different reality shows! The internet! Is involved!"
(The ancient Lauren person reminded J. Lo of a young Bette Midler, meaning middle-aged. Then she sings a mom song in a mom dress while J. Lo hates her from the sidelines. The song is about Spanx and desperation. Let's all drink Cosmos and wear knockoff shoes. That look like moon boots. And take our Boniva.)
Backup Singers: "We haven't done this much of the heavy lifting since Carrie Underwood!"
Old Lauren: (One loud dumb note.)
2002: "This American Idol show might really have something going on."
Jackson: "That was amazing! I love things that are fresh and interesting and new! But also what you did."
Tyler: "That was like Old Lauren meets Old Lauren! Upstairs!"
(...What?)
Old Lauren: "...What?"
Lopez: "The sad thing is, you have a beautiful voice. And yet menopause."
Old Lauren: "I do have a personality. Just you wait, America!"
America: (Won't.)
Scene 8: Angela's Ashthon
(Explain this movie where Jake Gyllenhaal is in the source code. The ads can't explain it. Jake can't explain it. Space and time can't explain it. I Am Number Four was the worst piece of shit I've seen in a while and still the thing I remember most and stupidest is seeing this preview for the first time. Even Inception you could explain in one sentence, and that movie was actually good. Are you saying this movie is better than that movie? Then tell me what this dumb-looking movie is about, in one sentence. As always, you have eight seconds.)
(Look, it's Durbin getting unearned camera time. Annoying Ryan, which is bad. Looking at James Durbin, always good. Equals wash.)
(Ashthon's insane hair is back. Her voice, however, has left the building. Points at places to illustrate the various locations and adverbs of the song, which blocking sucks by itself, in which she's got love quote "all over [her]," followed by the most unsavory possible use of "you know what I'm talking about." Nothing says "current and fresh" like a denim corset. With "love" all over it.)
(You know what I'm talking about.)
Tyler: "You've got the confidence of a queen and go places with your voice that few have seen."
Lopez: "He's right!"
(He's not right. It was dumb.)
Jackson: "Why are you kissing J. Lo's ass right now?"
Ashthon: "I am at a loss, basically."
Lopez: "It wasn't as funny as you think it is."
Ashthon: "I'm just going to keep talking, like an idiot."
Lopez: "Me too!"
Seacrest: "Okay, it's Ryan Time now. Stop trying to be cute."
Ashthon: "Nope. Check out my Nermal impression! Give me a hug! Sex eyes into the camera! I am the worst!"
(Ashthon is mailed to Abu Dhabi.)
Scene 9: Julie Z
(Looks like a princess in her princess prom dress; looks like something they would wear on Passions right before somebody's wheelchair goes down a stairwell or somebody eats poisoned guacamole. She's picking mushrooms to destroy goodness! As Julie Z's my favorite, I feel like I should be looking for the goodness in this performance. But she has picked mushrooms to destroy it, you see. Plus many squats. Also, singing "Breakaway" as though it is a real song is offensive both to music and to Kelly Clarkson. That song is bullshit, I'm sorry.)
Lopez: "Listen."
Julie Z: "I know."
Lopez: "Break away. From sucking. Okay?"
Jackson: "I believe that song is a real song."
That song: (Is not.)
Jackson, for the second time tonight: (Calls Steven Tyler "Baby.")
Seacrest: "Let's move things along, shall we?"
Scene 10: Haley All Of Your Guns At Once & Explode Into Face
("Falling." Bleep-bloop.)
Scene 11: Thia Navoidable Lightness of Being
(No bigger than Ryan Seacrest's thumb, he keeps her in the petal of a pink tulip at full flower; she sups on dew drops. Sings a song, with no melody and no accompaniment, about being alone. Medium meets message. Fake faces about connecting with the song; kind of like watching Iraheta's days in the upholstery store. It's all very pointlessly pretty, but again: Is this 2003? Are we all Jacob Lusk now? Will this shit fly?)
Tyler: "Your pitch was so perfect [it was not] that I am amazed [he is not] and I think that America will find this difficult [it won't] but it's not hard for me [for once]."
Lopez: "You haven't had a hard-on since 1999."
(I mean come on.)
Jackson: "It's been said, and it's definitely true..." (bleep-bloop) "...You remind me of Michael Jackson."
Thia: "I'm a fifteen-year-old girl! Oh, I see what you're saying."
Scene 12: Baby Lauren
(Lauren Alaina gives birth to America backwards.)
Lauren's Clothing: "I can't wait to make more terrible decisions but there isn't any more room on this body for bad decisions!"
(Lauren Alaina sings some kind of bullshit like Faith Hill going "rock." Ah, this is Reba. I've seen this video, actually, somebody sent it to me as a joke because I was obsessed for a long time with this sequence of her videos from the '80s where David Wallace from The Office was her beau and partner in making very many bad decisions. But in this video, there is no David Wallace. Just Reba tying up this cute guy and then doing an aged dancery for him, in like a warehouse. It's basically every gay porn ever, minus the balaclava and tattoos, but plus Reba. And now, Lauren Alaina.)
Tyler: "You must keep your voice in that juicy ass."
Lauren Alaina: (Is still fifteen at this time.)
Lopez: "I love how you can sing every kind of music! But refuse to sing any music but this one kind!"
Jackson: "Remember Kelly Clarkson? I'm still talking about her from before the break. The little plastic castle is a surprise every time."
Lopez: "Exactly!"
Tyler: "Sing less, but sing more. You're not Kelly Clarkson, because I don't know who that is." (Blue Steel face.)
Seacrest: "Lauren Alaina, you bug me."
Lauren: "I call Ryan Peaches!"
Jackson: "I love that! I want to call you Peaches too!"
(Silence.)
Jackson: "Please be my friend!"
Scene 13: Pia Your Own Pet
(There is only one Peaches, and by some cruel twist of fate it is the only man I love more on this earth besides Ryan Seacrest, General David "Peaches" Petraeus, and if you don't understand why those are my two favorite men on earth by this point, you clearly have not been paying attention for the last ten years. I am a simple man.)
(Former makeup artist and future makeup artist, the very pretty and unable-to-form-a-sentence Pia sings "I'll Stand By You," the song that never ends but only gets more and more whiskey-voiced and desperate. By the end of the song, generally but most especially at this time, she's offering to fill his car up with gas, prepay his phone card, make a run for the border, whatever it takes so he won't leave her. Couched as though she is the strong one: How can I stand by you if you keep walking away from me?) I am here to tell you that boys do not fall for that trick. It also is called "stalking."
America: "I have heard that song before! And you yelled the last note!"
(Standing ovation.)
Jackson: "That was our first standing 'o' of the season! That's my industry jargon for applause while standing!"
(No. Also, it was like the third.)
Tyler, verbatim: "You know, after Monday and Tuesday, even a week says WTF."
Jackson: "...What?"
Lopez: "Wed, Thu, Fri: WTF."
Jackson: "No, I know, but why did he just say it?"
Lopez: "Because he's old and dorky. He's been saving it up all night. Bitch has a feather hanging from his head. At the age of 197. Cut him a break."
Jackson: "I'm totally going to use that. WTF. That is funny."
Scene 14: After January Through June, Even The Year Says JASON.
(Good one.)
Seacrest: "You guys are going to have a pickle of a time figuring out who to vote for! Because 'nobody' is not a person!"
(Ta-Tunisia squatting out declarations of solipsism that would make a Baby Boomer proud; Naima killing it dead and then cooking it up in some multicultural fashion; "Kendra" "Chantelle" making it "impossible"; Rachel Z being the doomed awesome one for the twelfth year running; Karen being que tan buena as usual; Old Lauren taking time off her busy schedule of running a company full-time and designing handbags on the side and having monumental amounts of children; Ashthon singing about bukkake just openly on TV and even winking so you know what she means; Julie Z unable to find her inner Black Swan; Haley squirting voices out of her face; Thia's beautiful Lunesta butterfly settling on your heart and squeezing the joy out of it; Lauren Alaina still not quite getting it but doing a pretty good job regardless; Pia screaming.)
(Tonight: Seems as though we might be getting our Top Ten -- please do save me some Rachel Zevita -- and then a Wild Card of either gender.*)
(Exeunt.)
*Or maybe just Brett, which would do it.