So the opening sequence is a very meaningful thing with the lights and the backlit people talking, as though this were a movie. Which is a great idea, I guess, except none of these people including Jamie Foxx has anything in particular to say, so it's like Million Dollar Baby, but with singing. They should have done it in the style of Powder or something, and had some football players horsing around. Like in the rain. Remember when Taylor Swift sang in the rain, but onstage? Did she ever do that on this show, or just on the YouTube? That was great. Or maybe it was Justin Bieber that did that. It's all the same, I guess. I am so not looking forward to any of this.
Remember when Carrie Underwood came out like the Sugarplum Fairy and all those little boys came running out from under her skirts? With like a fiddle. That was great! Maybe that was last week, maybe a hundred years ago. Now instead it's the triple threat of Bon Jovi, Fantasia and DAUGHTRY. Which is sort of like Peter & The Wolf. The part of Randy Jackson will be played by the bassoon. Here he comes lurching now.
First is international star and Rihanna haircut-having Fantasia. She seems very subdued tonight and she has Cabaret eyelashes, in a charming lamé jacket that just screams Boca Raton. Her song is about thinking about things, particularly but not limited to "you," meaning us. Or her lover. I can't quit with the eyelashes, man, they are a visual feast. Fantasia is also wearing brass knuckles that say HATE, and has learned the word "bittersweet." Other than that, it's a song much like many songs you may have heard before this point in your life, so I'm not sure what to say. It's nice to listen to, but also a hundred years long. That's sweet, but it is also bitter.
Oh, a talking breakdown about a situation. I wonder what Fantasia is saying. Part of her is missing you (bitter), another part is looking back fondly at your time together (sweet), and part of her is letting go, other parts not so much, and just basically what is happening is that there are lots of parts of her, pairs of which lie in just this same diametric opposition. Then, once she has been fully mapped into these various bitter and sweet areas, Fantasia and Ryan chatter at each other in cartoon voices. I understand -- this has been, historically, an ongoing issue -- very little of what Fantasia says.
It surprises me every time there's no Aaron Kelly in the Top Four. I guess last week is when my brain finally stopped. The kids do a commercial in places all over the world that look like Koreatown and Little Italy but are meant -- you can tell by the indigenous clothing they all end up wearing -- to represent real places. And as has been the case recently the most distinctive, not to say horrible, part of all of this is Casey's intensely awkward attempts to seem enthused. The cocked knees, the arms thrown wide with elbows tucked in, the rocker face, the shivering hair: Life is just one long Spring Break photo pose for old Casey. It's like his body, and the world, are just painted-on plywood scenarios, with a cutout face-hole, mugging away with increasing desperation: Look, America! I'm a circus strongman! I'm a gorilla! I'm an American Idol! Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson!
Ah, memories: Kris Allen went home. Carrie and Bo went home. Danny Gokey is a fuckface. Elliot Yamin. Taylor Hicks may or may not have existed. Literally every Top Three of this or any other TV franchise, endless footage of people going home and meeting their mayor and being adored for perhaps the last time in their lives, then crying, and all the while Coldplay coldplays it up. Remember how Danny Gokey used to make that fuckin' heart symbol with his hands, so you would remember the time his wife dropped dead? Good times.
Mike, if you make Top Three, what will you be excited about? Puppies. The beach. Whatever stupid shit he likes. Crystal wants to play a gig with her bass player, Blind Gums Rotunda. Lee just wants to be Top Three. That is his home now. Then he talks some more, about nothing whatsoever. Why can't Ryan ever stop him when this happens? Maybe he's just fond of him, like we all are. Casey, you? Smelling Texas air. Also "puppydogs." I hate Casey, for one, because he makes even Mike Lynche seem vibrant and committed. Dim those lights, Ryan.
Mike and Casey, you were both terrible when you sang your duet of that horrible gay song about whether or not you have loved a woman -- really, really ever loved a woman -- to the best of your woman-loving ability. Who picked it? Come on, you know it was Mike. It spoke to who they were, he explains, "as men": Men who really, really, really ever loved a woman. Really. Woman. Loved. Ever really woman. Lovers. As men. Complex thoughts for two complicated men.
Lee and Crystal, you've loved many women. And yet you skipped the song about that, and sang a song instead by two people who barely have genitals, and yet you rocked the shit out of this place. Why? Crystal explains that the movie Once, from which, is about singer-songwriters, and sewing machines, and vacuum cleaners, and someday she would like to take a lover who combines the best aspects of all these. Lee, do you have anything to say also? I mean, something relevant to the question you were just asked? Absolutely not.
Casey, you are safe. Ain't that a motherfucker. So it's gotta be Mike, right? Only Mike can go home now? Why not say that the obvious ones are safe, kill some time? The fact that Ryan didn't think this through makes me wonder if in fact it is that simple. Man, if Mike stays over the other two, I will just... Do something drastic. I don't know what it is yet, but dang it's going to be, I mean, it will be so totally, but yeah like it is going to be really something, in some way. Just you wait.
But then also it would just make sense for Mike to go, because Lee and Crystal and Casey are all kind of the same guy. They're all too good for this show, and yet really bad at this show. Do you know what I mean? Like, Bo-Carrie or Taylor-Elliot-DAUGHTRY or... HOLD up. That's what we're looking at. Season Five.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to think this, but it's so rare I even attempt to remember or figure anything out about this show that I'm honestly quite proud of myself right now. Haven't we said that Lee is DAUGHTRY all along, all bagpipes and "Lightning Crashes"? And doesn't Crystal have diabetes and a pure sweet talent? And isn't Casey a spazztastic national disappointment?
Because the genius of this, you see, is that it makes Big Mike the Katharine McPhee, which... Isn't he, though? Isn't that precisely right? I think I'm onto something. I'm not saying the finale will be Mike vs. Casey, because I would kill myself if that happened, but the people in play, that's exactly what's going on.
Oh, while I was being brilliant I guess DAUGHTRY sang a song. It sounded kind of like I think most of his songs sound, which is with a very simple droning chorus that is most of the song, and then some verses that basically bite off most of the chords of the aforementioned droning chorus in an attempt to simulate a musical thought. Who needs that? Not me, sailor. Also his band look like idiots. All of them. One of them looks like the Colonel of Chicken, but they're all clearly d-bags. DAUGHTRY is, if anything, twitchier and more squeaky-voiced than I remember him, but he babbles as boringly as DeWyze could ever hope to do.Ryan asks Ellen to explain DAUGHTRY and the difference between him and the 2010 Idols -- which t-shirts they deserve, you might say -- and she's like, "There is none." Randy concurs, but says that the difference is that he has slightly more money now. DAUGHTRY's advice: "Stay hungry, and do not compromise the music that you love. If what you feel in your heart is overproduced U2 pussy-rock and the whiskey tango sounds of Three Doors Down and Nickelback, you don't let anybody take that away from you."
Even the unbelievably shitty LA bands you only hear on The Hills, they have a dream. Don't tell me Red Jumpsuit Apparatus didn't have it going on well before that old mogul Audrina Patridge hitched her wagon to that star. People laughed at Paramore once, too! And now Carly Smithson is in a sub-Evanescence band getting the shit autotuned out of her ugly face. Never stop dreaming.
Big Mike, you sang a song about a half-black, half-white killer whale that loved little boys, written my Michael Jackson. What were you thinking? Nothing. What was Kara thinking? "When you sang the Maxwell cover of the Kate Bush song, it made me understand what Andrew Garcia was woefully untalented enough to ever pull off. So basically, more Kate Bush would have been good. This was just lame and hard to deal with." Big Mike's like, "But 'lame and hard to stomach' is like my whole thing! I think of it as being uplifting."
"Kiss From A Rose," Lee. How come? Please, open up your mouth and say some more words. "I agree that it was karaoke, but I am better than karaoke singers generally, so don't go thinking you can get this shit for free."
Crystal, once again you have your finger on the pulse of young America, singing a Kenny Loggins song from a racist 1980 movie about golf caddies. Thank you for that. Why, Simon, was this at all acceptable? "Well Ryan, because the last two weeks she sucked balls, and at least this time it was fun to listen to."
So, you three. Mike? You stay right there. Lee? You are safe. And you cut a fine figure in that suit. You're well on your way to a silk purse if you keep this up, I mean it. You look just great, really satisfactory. Which leaves us with Mike and Crystal. Who on Earth will still be here once Bon Jovi hauls their ancient asses up onstage to sing some song that will be no doubt indistinguishable from the DAUGHTRY number a minute ago?
There's the one that marries everybody, and Jon looking as hot as he always has, and they are singing about Superman. Jon looks actually better than he has; for awhile he was not looking at all as hot as he always has, but it's over now and he's back. You know, Jon Bon Jovi looks kind of like Buffalo Bill. Like Buffalo Bill's hot brother.
The song, I have no opinion about it. I like some of their songs, for basically the reasons you might like this song. But the problem is that I have heard those other songs, and I remember those other songs, so it's not that exciting to hear it now. It's like, Taco Bell has maybe five ingredients total, but their menu has about a billion things on it, and this is because it's essentially the same Food Object, just in different shapes and different ratios. Which is sort of futuristic, when it comes to food, but kind of sad when it comes to songs.
Ryan applies the lotion to Bon Jovi's collective basket, and we move on.
Okay, it's time. We talked about all the songs and handed out the lies, and Casey is safe and so is Lee. How do they feel about it? Let's ask Lee and Casey to share some thoughts, shall we? Nope. We shan't.
Will Big Mike finally be set free to roam the seas with his pod? Yes, he will. Consider that willy freed. Crystal cries and hugs her dumb boyfriend, and for once Mike's wife is not bouncing around in her seat like a child's toy, and Mike talks about how he wasn't even supposed to be here, but for the POV, and isn't that ironic that they used it on him right around the time Siobhan started sucking rocks, and then we revisit his child's entire unending journey out of his wife's womb and into the world and onto our TV screens. As much as we don't care about these usually, I gotta say a montage of that damn baby crossed with Big Mike invading people's boundaries and picking them up without asking? Not compelling television. Stop picking people up and carrying them around, because it's just a metaphor for what you've been doing to us, and guess what, we hate you for it. And so do they. This is why there is a Splash Zone.
week: The kids head home, Mike takes his drag act on the road, and we fill up two hours with just three small things, somehow. But until then just you picture him, limned against the setting sun, in a triumphant muscular arc, as the children clap and cheer for him. Soaked, joyous, blinded by a rainbow lens flare. And just when he reaches the apex, the acme of that arc -- bulk hanging, transfixed, against an impossible sky -- feel your heart stop for just a moment, waiting for gravity to take hold, for the inevitable torrential splashdown: Freeze frame. Until time.
Find out how Idol reject Alex Lambert is campaigning against Crystal Bowersox.
Read our Q&A with Aaron Kelly.
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