One thing that the Top Three have in common is that they are all sort of awkward and weird, like those kids on the Mountain Dew ad that are so excited to be video blogging they've forgotten to shower. They all three of them just duck their heads and smile uncertainly no matter what Ryan is saying to them. It's uncomfortable... Ew! Colin Hanks. That face!
Ryan's ramping up his skin tone for bikini weather and we've reached that stage where his hair and his face are sort of the same color, like a homeless person. Apparently I've just got nothing nice to say about anybody tonight. And you know what they say, "If you don't have anything nice to say about anybody, probably Idol is nearing the end of the season."
"Okay, It's All Right By Me," says the filthy matted dipshitty hairdo we call Casey. What is that? A song. Why does he love it? Because it's like he could have written it. Which I am sure is true, and cannot wait to hear... Yep: You know how like Jack Johnson or Jason Mraz? Or that thing of like Ben Folds? Team Ben Folds how there are guitars, borrow Carmen Sassafrass's jiggledy-piggledy vocal stylings, and you've got this ridiculously pointless carbon copy of a song. Casey's face looks real gross tonight, like I feel sorry for him in a way I never have before. Like, Maroulis things have happened. And stupid Casey being like, "This song is the most perfect possible expression of myself as 'an artist'," and he says those words like he's never heard them until this show. I'm sure that's true about a lot of words. Get off my TV, I'm begging you. You and Jackson take what should merely be a chore and turn it into a labor.
Ah well. I'm sure he gets a lot of tail somehow. Jackson: "That was just 'all right' with me too," like it's so ironic and clever; Ellen searches for something interesting to say too, fails at great length; Kara hates him for picking a totally boring song... The bottom line is that they wonder why he's not even fucking trying, and he purses his creepy lips and fake-smiles like he's on a Bicycle playing card, which is his version of being bitchy. Simon goes, "This is arguably the most important night of your life," and goes on to list in detail how he fucked it up, which is: He fucked it up real good.
Basically, stupid annoying song choice, and the fact that he sounded moderately good doesn't really apply to this situation. Ryan reminds them that Casey's doing two numbers tonight, they're all doing two songs tonight, but it's hard to figure out who cares less about that, the Judgery or the Casey. I think the season is just maybe two weeks too long, of this show. I think Casey is just demonstrating the soulless hollowed-out ennui that we're all feeling on our insides, but on his outsides. Also through song.
This could be the same exact thing as Casey's thing, because it is also about the simple pleasures of being retarded, and yet a voter. But the difference is that he filled it with feelings and with reality, instead of avocado hairs. When Lee sings about how dumb and full of America he is, I believe it. When Casey does that, I feel greased up all over my body, like I'm about to be dropped into a swimming hole. Congratulations on being legitimately trashy, Lee. You are the second-place Clay, I feel it in my heart.
And the Judgery agree. Not to put too fine a point on it, but basically that's what all of them say. "You're trashy like a dirty baby lamb or impala, or jaguar, but... Not gross like Casey. Which is the best thing that can happen this season, in the Trailer Park Apocalypse." When Kara says, thanks to dynamics and other musical words, that Round One goes to Lee? I could almost agree, except that Crystal also rocked. And when Simon asks why that song, and he says, "because I am real and I am American and everything Crystal and Siobhan ever self-righteously said" and Simon not only agrees but says he crushed it.... I can't say he's wrong.
Because there's being awesome, which Crystal was and Lee nearly-except-for-Crystal is, and there's being awesome at this show, which Crystal is NOT and Lee is, more and more every second that goes by. Like, Ryan asks what his wave to the camera was all about, and he says his hometown. Whore? Or just the down-home country-boy real-talk Sarah-Palin-Channing-Tatum-Amanda-Seyfried-Dear John-on-BluRay monster we can't admit is America 2010? You be the judge.
And I mean that literally: You, my friend, will be the judge. Lesbian crunchy-crusty Portland trash or... Other trash? What kind of trash describes us this year? You get to be the judge! It's up to you, America!
Okay, time for Judges' Choice. Let's see Casey visit Texas. Specifically the stripmall where Texas's worst have collected themselves. Why did Randy and Kara choose "Daughters" by John Mayer? Because it's the creepiest most condescending song of all time?
...Yes. Or as Kara says: "Your audience is women and girls! ...So give it to them!" Thanks, Kara. This is exactly the song I would love if A) I hated my daughter or felt weird about her breasts, B) I were the daughter of a man who was intensely weird about my body, or C) Were in sexual obsession situation with a stripper and couldn't quite reconcile that with the fact that she was somebody's daughter, and had decided to save her instead of fixing my own weird shit. It's nondescript, the song is even more boring with him singing it, and Casey is going the fuck home.
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