Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Kellie Pickler are all either trying to sell lots of Coca-Cola subliminally, or else they're part of a David Lynch dream sequence. Either way, the red is blinding. Last night, Mandisa and Katharine were amazing, everyone else was one degree of meh or another, and Barry Manilow knew exactly what was wrong with all of them. This week's pimpmercial isn't quite as brain-bleedingly funny as last week's Mushrooms Roasting on an Open Campfire extravaganza, but they're all at the beach and moving like they're in a flip-book and Kevin gets buried under a studly sand sculpture and Taylor gets a giant beach ball right in his ugly face. "We Got The Beat" could have gone worse, I suppose. Barry is a wordy motherfucker when he shows up and chats with Ryan. He sings "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing," which I didn't know was an actual song instead of one of those old-timey sayings that don't make sense anymore, like "Clean For Gene" or "Only You Can Stop Forest Fires." Bobby Bennett is there and he freaks shit appropriately. The elimination sequence offers nothing in the way of surprises. All the usual suspects -- Ace, Mandisa, Elliott, Chris, Paris, Katharine, Taylor -- are safe. Kellie is also safe, and she pushes the ignorant hick thing one step too far ("what's a 'ballsy'?"), past the point of no return into the realm of "diminished capacity," and Ryan is so very over it, indeed. Kevin, Lisa, and Bucky are sent to the seal as this week's bottom three. So far, according to plan. But then Lisa, the odds-on favorite for a booting, gets sent back to the seats, as Bucky and Kevin are the bottom two. Blinkiest bottom two ever! But it looks like Simon's reverse hex of faint praise actually worked, because Kevin is the one sent home. Good thing, too, because if it wasn't this week, it wouldn't have been for a long while. His singoff gets cut short before we get a chance to see Paris cry her eyes out, but I am confident that's exactly what she was doing.
TuesdayRyan emerges from the automatic doors looking quite put together and formal indeed. His tie is either purple or ice blue, which you wouldn't think would make a difference, except being an usher at Prince's wedding and being an usher at Cinderella's wedding would probably be two very different experiences. He is once again upbraiding the audience at home for their failure to vote -- the sin this time being allowing Ace to fall into the bottom three -- and as he says this, Simon turns his head around towards the audience in an unrelated maneuver which nonetheless gives the impression of "Yeah. What he said." Ryan says the eleven remaining contestants are "at [our] mercy," and if only, dude. Those eleven remaining hopefuls parade across our TV screens like the needy little attention monsters they are. They all try to pageant wave without exactly pageant waving, and no one does too well at it. Well, Elliott manages to wave like a child at Sesame Street on Ice, so I guess that's…something. Taylor, for the record, is dressed like Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber, when they try on the tuxedos. Looks like I'll be sticking with the hating of him, then. Good to know some things will remain constant. We meet the judges (as if for the first time!), and Simon does that thing where he just stares at Paula's shoulder, totally not paying attention, and then slowly turns toward Ryan like he just remembered he's on TV. You know, as affected as any of these contestants get, it's good to know none of them will ever be more affected than Simon. Of course, Ryan has to be a huge dork and try to organize a "thumbs down" movement in the audience, directed at Simon. This is such a children's show sometimes, I swear.
Ryan brings up this week's theme, music from the 1950s, and Randy says it won't be as challenging as Stevie Wonder songs (as the entire decade of the '50s begins writing angry letters), but he still thinks there will be a challenge. Paula gets super-cagey about "what I heard" and "who I heard worked with" the contestants, and I guess I have to remind her that Barry Manilow is not a spoiler! Her whole spiel has the black bars over it. Speaking of black bars, Ryan asks Simon about blabbing to the media about three contestants (Ryan will not say who, because he respects the Idolmerta code of silence) who he predicts will make it to the end. He said Taylor, Chris, and Kellie, okay? ["Okay, but don't ask me where the rat under your pillow came from. Fuckin' snitch." -- Jacob] And he said that because, for one thing, he knows what the vote totals have been like. Just like with Carrie last season. He's not going to risk making himself look stupid by going out on a limb for Katharine or Ace or Elliott when their support has been erratic. Shit, I don't have access to the vote totals and I'll still tell you Taylor and Kellie will be around near the end. But Ryan, because he is the nice one who wants fairness and truth and most of all wants to make Simon look bad, thinks it's too early to be penciling contestants into the finals. Really, Ryan? Weren't Clay and Carrie already slam dunks at this point in their seasons? I understand his desire to keep the other lambs from feeling like they're being led to the slaughter, but making Simon seem like an asshole for speaking what is essentially the truth…is how it's been going down for five seasons now. I'll shut up now. Ryan tells us we're headed back in time, to fifty years ago, in fact. And this week, the contestants got to learn at the feet of "a very special musical guest." The video package introduces us to the rat-like mug of Barry Manilow, he of "Mandy" and "Looks Like We Made It" fame. Barry was not, in fact, popular in the 1950s. ["But to be fair, he was finishing graduate school and didn't have a lot of time to socialize." -- Jacob] However, his latest album is called The Greatest Songs of the Fifties, and you're mad old if you're a fan of his anyway, so it works out fine. Also, okay, there's really no other way to say this, but Barry Manilow looks like a drag king. He just does. And it's fitting, of course, considering the company he's historically kept. Ryan keeps going on and on about the platinum albums and such before arriving at the most important point: aside from being responsible for the best punch lines of a generation, Barry is an accomplished composer and arranger of music, and it is in this capacity that he will prove useful to our young Idols. They flew the final eleven to Vegas, where Barry is performing his "musical showcase," Music and Passion. Okay, this show has lost the right to put down anyone as "a bit cabaret" for the foreseeable future. I understand that Barry is supposed to be teaching them "fundamentals" or whatever, but what kind of message are we sending to these prospective "pop stars"? Simon's gotta be super-pissed at this development. Barry's words of wisdom? Being original means "finding your own take on the songs that you choose." Fucking really? That's insightful. It's cool, though; Barry really loves helping these kids get better at what they do, and he says as much, and we'll see all evening that he's pretty good at it. He's also pretty good at telling us what sucks about a given arrangement, so strap in for that all evening.
Bucky's gotten over his "TRESemmé! Ooh la la!" moment from last week and is back to looking like his usual self. Which means exactly what you think it means to a wide variety of people. He'll be singing Buddy Holly's "Oh Boy!" which Bucky deems very rock-and-roll and right up his alley. Barry's big problem with the song is that it sounds "repetitive" and "long." So, musical svengali that he is, Barry waves his magic fingers, throws in a key change, fixes Bucky's Langolier teeth, and all of a sudden the "joyful" magic that is "Oh Boy!" comes to life in the person of Bucky Covington. Barry reminds us, in his interview, that "Oh Boy!" is indeed from the '50s. Was that necessary to say? Does it sound more contemporary than it is? Bucky comes running onto the stage to start things off, because he is exciting and we were worried he might not show up. His hair is way dirty and not in the ponytail that I approve of. He's also covered in denim, which didn't work for Melissa McGhee and isn't working for Bucky. The singing is unremarkable, so what you wind up noticing in the performance is how Bucky keeps tossing the mic from one hand to the like it's a hot potato. It's very distracting. The singing is distracting in a different way; his voice doesn't sound the same from one line to the . Sometimes he's singing with the growly Bucky voice, but then the song goes really low and his voice almost disappears entirely. Then he throws in some twangy stuff, just to throw us further off track. He smiles at the end, which is just not what he should be doing, ever. He's not an unattractive man, but tight-lipped is how he's best presented. Randy says he was a fan of the "hot mic" stuff, because he's a huge dork and there isn't much else to say about that performance. He also likes that the "old Bucky hair" is back, and I'm horrified to say that I am, too. That "blond Constantine" shit just wasn't going to fly. Randy says that it wasn't Bucky's best vocal, but the song choice was perfect. And considering the '50s really limits someone like Bucky more than others, I suppose I agree, but if it was such a perfect choice, why was it such a non-event? ["Because it's a fast song with five notes. They never learn with those." -- Sars] Paula asks Bucky what working with Manilow was like. Bucky says it was cool, because sometimes you meet celebrities and they're not so nice, and then he goggles right at Simon and immediately breaks off into a "just kidding" laugh. It's not so outrageous a thing to do, because it's very clear that Bucky doesn't mean anything by it. What makes it gross is how much Paula and Randy lap it up. Also Bucky's gigantic smile, which: see above. Simon's leaning in towards Paula and saying something very serious and not laughing at all, and I really wish we could hear it, because I don't think he's actually pissed at Bucky, and Paula doesn't indicate that he's pissed at her, so I have no idea what that's about. It's almost like he didn't even hear what Bucky said and was asking Paula if she saw where he set down his cigarette lighter. Weird. He offers Bucky a "reality check," saying that the performance was "pointless karaoke." I will not argue with that. The crowd boos, because this show is taped in front of a live studio audience and they have about as much free will, reaction-wise, as a three-camera sitcom audience does. Simon's actually trying to be nice here, telling Bucky that if someone tuned in this week and hadn't seen anything else Bucky had done, they'd say "so what?" The clear implication is that he thinks Bucky can do better.
Okay, here we go. Quick cut to the audience first reveals Paris's huge and semi-famous family. The cut reveals a googly pair of eyes and a seemingly impenetrable wall of over-styled hair. I'm trying to do the mental math necessary to deduce how Constantine Maroulis and Ryan Cabrera would up sitting to each other at the Idol show, but that just leads to a bunch of back alleys I have no intention of walking down. Did anyone else read about Constantine pitching a fit at the Cingular store in Defamer this week? All your worst fears confirmed! Anyway, Cabrera is his usual cute-but-dim self, giving it up for Paris, and also…yawning a little? Heh. His hair does have that "hundred-year slumber" look to it. Then you have gross-ass Constantine, eyes inside your living room at all times, never letting you forget for a second that yes, he is THE Constantine, and you might remember him from the time he gave your remote control VD. Then he looks at Cabrera like he might want to give him VD right there in the audience, and if he followed through on that, I think Jacob may have hopped into a time machine and whooped some Greek ass back in the last week. ["Touch Ryan Cabrera, Maroulis, and you're going all. The way. Down." -- Jacob]Paris is super-smiley about the standing ovation she's getting. Randy notes an iffy beginning to the song, but soon enough he was taken back to the "Take Five" audition performance and by the end, Paris "blew it out the box." I'll definitely agree, Paris came on strong at the end there. Paula says she forgot Paris was seventeen "with some of those moves," which is odd because, again, I didn't find it sexy. Good, but not sexy. Paris is such a little kid to me, I think if she went for "sexy" it would all end so horribly badly. Like in a John Waters film where Traci Lords is virginal and Ricki Lake is bad-ass and Patty Hearst plays against type to one extreme or another, and you're so very uncomfortable with how nobody is behaving as they should be. Paula calls the vocals "impeccable," and of course that comment means nothing from Paula because her mental Rolodex just spins and spins and where it stops, nobody ever knows, so "impeccable," "magical," "shine-tastic," and "you showed us your heart" are all equally likely to come out of her mouth at any time. Simon says this is what Paris does best, and that is most definitely true. It's playing dress-up and it's anachronistic as hell, but it's where Paris most easily fits on the stylistic map, to the point where singing along to a Gloria Estefan Latin rhythm comes across like Rita Moreno or Carmen Miranda when it's Paris singing. And like I said, I almost always dig it, so I'm not complaining, but not every night is going to be 1950s night, and she may have to Daughtry herself a damn specific song to keep getting raves like these. She and Ryan chat for awhile, Paris unable, as always, to sound like she's having a spontaneous conversation, but she refrains from singing into his face, which I am beyond thankful for. She loved being "in the fifties," which: duh. Still: well effing done, girl.
Back from the break, Ryan is teaching this adorable little girl how to download Idol ring tones to her phone. I'm sure her parents are thrilled about that. "'Father Figure'? No, really. Thanks, Ryan." This is not a good camera angle for him. It's about forty-five degrees below him, and it gives his upper lip a distinctly "Barbara Hershey" appearance. Young Sammy does a good job putting up with her plasticine co-host, and she gets to kick in a little shout-out to Ace Young before Ryan sends it to Chris. Wow, awkward. Though certainly no worse than when they tried to convince Heather Locklear's kid that she loved A-Fed. Chris, as you may have suspected, has a problem this week. He can't really sing anything from the 1950s. He can't really sing anything that hasn't appeared on "Now! That's What I Call Post-Grunge Alt Rock." I like Chris a lot, and I can admit this. But in his very limited style, he's quite good, so when he says here that he intends to sing Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" with a little "something different," I'm actually relieved. Better than seeing him try to sing it in Cash's actual style and mangle it, you know? By the way, while describing the song, Chris talks about how the lyrics have great relevance for him personally, because Cash wrote it for his "wife at the time" about how he was going to be true to her on the road. And look how well that worked out! On the bright side, maybe Mrs. Daughtry has been too busy raising her kids alone while Chris has been in Hollywood to have actually seen Walk the Line. Because hearing your husband tell all of America that he thinks of you as the Ginnifer Goodwin and not the Reese Witherspoon in his life? Ouch.
Anyway, when Chris on-camera informs Barry that he'll be singing "I Walk the Line," he and about half the band hastily tell Barry that it will be a "very different version." No, they don't specify that it will be Live's version, but I think the likelihood is greater that, as with last week, it's the show that's doing the mythmaking here, not Chris. Barry's in on it, too, of course, and Chris calls him "a real genuine guy." "Genuine," in this case, is rocker speak for "super-duper fake, but he's helping me, so whatever." The one area where Chris annoys me is where he says Barry helped arrange the song in a way where Chris could "bring the best out of a song we wouldn't normally do." So the song isn't up to your one-note standards, Chris? Again, I love the guy, but phrase that shit better. Though I do think it's cool, and telling, that Chris is using the "we" pronoun all over the place, because he needs to be in this with a band. Barry says -- and this is telling, too -- that out of all the contestants, Chris has the best handle on "who he is and what are his strengths." That's it exactly. The show plays it up as this act of pure integrity, a failure to compromise. That's obviously not it, but I don't think Chris is going for cred here. I think Chris knows exactly where his strengths are and he's fighting tooth and nail to not have to stray from them. Because straying means sucking ass and it maybe means going home, and if Chris's big sin is that he's in this to win it hard, then I'm cool with him.
All that being said, it's kind of a shitty rendition anyway. When you're doing the Live version, you're taking on all that overwrought Live affectation. It's the kind of thing that works on "Hemorrhage" and "Broken" (and "Lightning Crashes," for that matter), because those songs seriously are overwrought. Johnny Cash doesn't lend himself so easily to that kind of overt angst. Just because Cash covered Nine Inch Nails doesn't mean Nine Inch Nails should be covering Cash, you know? It doesn't always go both ways. Tori Amos gets to cover "Smells Like Teen Spirit" because she and Cobain were the same kind of feel-too-much word manglers. As a thesis on genres of music and who gets to cover what, this kind of falls apart, I realize, but I'm trying to explain how excruciating Chris looks clenching his way through this song. Hands behind his back, sexy as hell (natch), he's putting what he clearly thinks is "soul" into a tune he should know already has lots. But he doesn't know it, because he has genre tunnel vision. Also, the pulsating lights are ridiculously dumb and distracting and far too obvious. Rocker loves his light show, yeah! Again, it's the show that's doing the selling here, but Chris can do nothing but suffer in my estimation for it. That's what happens when you're manipulated. Bullshit aside, his voice is as gorgeous as ever, and it carries the performance. It's good enough that I start to think maybe he could go off-genre for a week, take a ballad or something else very simple, and not get dinged too hard for it. I mean, he ultimately is the one-trick pony, and when the judges do turn on Chris, it will be for being one-dimensional, so he might as well give it a shot, right? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. This week, Chris is singing an ill-advised Rock Star: Nickelback rendition (thanks, Daniel), and as long as he can drag it out of the bottom of his range, he does pretty well.The crowd freaks, of course, because who doesn't love a light show? And Paula rodeos it up like the freak she is. Oh, here's where I'm going to mention that Randy's blue-rimmed glasses match his midnight blue shirt. File that one away for future reference. He says, wait for it, that it wasn't the best vocal Chris has done on the show, but…
Oh, I'm sorry. You want me to go on? Does it matter? Randy certainly doesn't think it does. "It wasn't your best vocal, but that doesn't matter because nothing that actually happens on the show matters, because by now you're all pre-sold to your various psycho fan bases, and we're just treading water 'til the finale anyway." That's the upshot of this constant "Well, that was kind of shitty, but who cares?" treatment that the judges -- Randy and Paula especially -- have been so eager to hand out this season. All three judges praise Chris for not veering from the rut he's dug for himself. It's amazing, really, the praise they pile on for what is essentially flouting the show-imposed "theme night" restrictions. Hey, more power to Chris that he managed to swing such a sweet deal out of this show, because the genre monster has toppled many before him. Simon actually spells out the "refuse to compromise" tag line that the show will now tattoo on Chris's head like it's GoldenPalace.com, saying Chris is the first in the show's history to do so. Okay, except that when Carrie "compromised" it was because you made her sing "MacArthur Park" and she sucked at it. And it was actually Bo who did refuse to compromise that same week by singing "Vehicle," which started him on his own road to becoming Jenny from the Southern Rock. This will probably turn out to be way worse than Bo's never-ending quest for the cred, actually, because Chris's chosen niche is far less cred-centered than Bo's. I didn't really ever want to bring this up, but in the Kid Rock / Scott Stapp sex tape scenario, whenever it's brought up, Stapp always gets played as the douchier of the two, because he makes douchey music. Kid Rock makes shitty music, sure, but he does so with flags and 40s. Cred, baby. I'm thinking one week of not taking himself quite so seriously would do Chris a world of good. Ryan directs Chris's attention to Cabrera and Constantine in the audience. One plays it cool while the other mugs ceaselessly. Just fucking guess. Constantine is even more touchy-feely with Ryan this time around, and I start to wonder whose career would actually get the bigger career bump if they decided to Ellen-and-Anne this shit. ["Joe, I'm not kidding this time. But actually, I just wanted to say that I feel really sorry for Chris, because he's getting majorly burned by this bullshit and looking like a pussy when all he wanted to do was sing the one song he can sing." -- Jacob]
After the commercials, Lisa and Ryan are sitting on the bar stools, and she's in cute mode, for sure. He asks her about being bottom three last week, and she says all she can do is her best. So she's taking Randy's advice, then? Ryan asks after Lisa's familiarity with the Manilow, and "of course" Lisa knows "Mandy." She's seen Can't Hardly Wait about a dozen times! In her video, Lisa tells us that as soon as she heard it was '50s week, she knew she wanted to sing "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" It really is such a Lisa song. She probably helped write it two incarnations ago, in between stints at the Brill Building. It would certainly explain a lot to Barry, who says by all rights Lisa shouldn't know the song as well as she does. His tinkering results in a less "polite" opening -- I get the feeling Barry isn't so much a fan of subtle -- and something more fitting her "powerhouse" voice. And she does have a powerhouse voice. She keeps using it in service of these talent-show exhibition songs, is the thing. I think she's absolutely fantastic as a sixteen-year-old with almost unbelievable poise, but who in America is going to pay to hear anyone sing "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" You can't exactly be "current" during '50s week, but you can be exciting, and Lisa refuses to do so. Dynamite voice, though. Aggressively attractive family. Yes, still.
Randy knows he can be negative about Lisa, since she's probably going, so he tells her the song choice was youthful, but the performance wasn't that spectacular. Paula parrots the "youthful" thing, and tells Lisa she looks beautiful (kiss of death) and says this week is her favorite week of performances yet. I have to say, I did not think I'd have enjoyed as many '50s performances as I have so far. Simon's still bitchy from before, and asks Paula if he should judge the singing or the dancing. He says Lisa was all right, but it was one of several times this week where he's felt like he was "trapped inside a high school musical." Sorry, Lisa, but that's more true than it's not. You can tell Lisa is supposed to go home this week because the "Boo!" sign doesn't even light up, leaving the audience to aimlessly graze and bump into each other for lack of precise directives. Ryan at least reminds us that if we like Lisa, we really should consider voting for her doomed ass. Lisa shouts out her big brother who turns twenty-one today. He may have been the newest hottie addition to the Fine-Ass Tucker Clan that we just saw.
What else can we say about Kevin Covais at this point? Cool kid, in way over his head, not an awful singer, in way over his head, made out to be the doggie in the window by this show again and again and again. This week we can be thankful that Barry Manilow neither pinches his cheeks nor calls him a sex symbol. Gross. He does rather hilariously say that Kevin picked the "perfect song for his age." That song is "When I Fall in Love." Well, sure. What kid born in 1990 wouldn't be a nut for that Sleepless in Seattle brand of snoozy retro cool? What Barry means is that the lyrics in the song -- "I don't know what love is, but it sounds pretty cool, and I plan to fall in love one day, completely and thoroughly." -- are pretty age-appropriate for Kev, who says as much in his interview. He is such a little kid. And a square little kid, to boot. He's adorable. Barry the Tinkerer doesn't think Kevin's being vulnerable enough in the rehearsals. He wants soft! He wants teddy bear! He wants sitting on the steps to open the song! Ooh, that's an A-Fed move, right there. Speaking of which, has Kevin ganked Fedorov's old glasses? Something's different there. Anyway, it's super-self-conscious, this sitting-down thing, but Kevin's so distracting when he sings anyway -- between the blinking and the not-even-a-little-casual hands in the pockets thing -- that it's really just a drop in the bucket. I never seem to have an issue with Kevin's voice. It's a little boy's voice, but it's remarkably strong and clear, and on slow croony songs like this, I prefer it immensely to more overt Rat Pack face-biters like Radford. Unfortunately, we're well past the point where the Radfords of the world should have fallen by the wayside. It's time for the players to play, and Kevin is just out of place in this environment. Speaking of lasting well beyond their talent level, check it out! It's Jasmine Trias! Does that flower actually grow out of her scalp?Randy starts us off by saying that "When I Fall in Love" is one of "the Dawg's" favorite songs. Is that true? Really? I'm in no position to shit on anyone's musical taste, but damn, Jackson. That makes me sad. He notes pitch problems, but he likes Kevin. He sees a lot of himself in Kevin. Why am I suddenly thinking about this week's South Park episode? Ew, sorry. It's more of the same treatment Kevin's been getting from Randy and Paula every week -- he's still their favorite practical joke to play on Simon -- and Kevin rolls with it, as he always does. Paula says he has "moxie," and that's probably as much truth as she's ever said to Kevin. He does have moxie, and I bet old people and film noir femme fatales have been telling him that all his life. Simon, God bless him, goes for something different this week. He starts out with, "Kevin, I like you." Kevin: "I like you, too, Simon." He is kind of a little shit with Simon, I will readily admit that. But think about it for a second. You're Kevin, and all that that implies. You've had your cheeks pinched, you've been compared to cartoon chickens, and you're realizing more and more that they're laughing at you and not with you. The girls all think you're an actual doll. You want to look up to the guys in an older brother way, but Ace is always looking into a mirror, Bucky's busy mixing crystal meth in his basement, Chris is looking up whether Staind has ever covered a Buddy Holly song, Taylor reminds you of your creepy molester uncle a bit, and Elliott's five senses are deteriorating at such an alarming rate that he can no longer see or hear you. So who's left as a role model but Seacrest, who thinks that nothing makes you look quite as cool as busting on Simon. I'm just saying, it's no wonder the kid feels free to be a little bit of a snot from time to time.
Back from the break, Ryan's in his control booth perch among his only true friends, TV monitors and zoom controls. He kicks us to Kellie's adventures in Previously Vegas, which include another installment of What Kellie Knows and Does Not Know. What Kellie knows: Patsy Cline. What Kellie does not know: That Patsy Cline was from the '50s. What Kellie may or may not know: her ass from a hole in the ground. She got the idea to sing Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight," from her grandpappy, and she thought it was a fine idea. Then, ladies and gentlemen, we get this from Barry Manilow: "I didn't know this Patsy Cline song that Kellie Pickler has chosen, this 'Walkin' After Midnight.' You know, I come from Brooklyn, what do I know from country music?" Hee! That better have fucking been on purpose, because it's the funniest thing we've seen all week. It might have been better if he'd said that to her face, but knowing Kellie he probably tried it and she screwed it up by being dumb. ["Am I the only one weirded out by the idea that it's true -- that he'd never heard of this song? It's not exactly obscure Patsy back-catalog. It's on all the compilations and in every bar jukebox from Carmel to Canarsie -- is he kidding with that? Sorry, that bugged me." -- Sars] Barry interviews that he needed to remind Kellie of what the song is actually saying, that the singer is "desperate" after being left by her fella. Kellie gets it in her interview: "You're lonely. Your husband or boyfriend has just kicked you to the curb, cheatin' on ya." She's a little like Dolly Parton where she always sounds one degree of adorable or another as she says this kind of thing. I'm sorry. I'll be meaner to her in a second, but for now I just find her vaguely cute. To wit: Barry compliments her voice, and Kellie returns back with, "You're so sweet!" And then, to the vocal coach, "I like him!" I've really backed down from the Kellie-as-evil-genius theory lately. I think this is all just conditioning. Kellie's gotten by on being cute, and has gotten positive feedback all her life because of it. It could be fake, I guess, but my point is I don't think there's even a difference anymore. This is Kellie, because this has been what's worked for Kellie all her life. For the downside of this tendency, check back in a paragraph or two.Oh, this is interesting. You may or may not know this, but Marcel Marceau turned 83 this week ["On my birthday! And Sars's birthday! Somebody made me a cake! It was awesome!" -- Jacob], and to celebrate, it seems that Idol has invited him to take their stage and give a performance of some kind. Random, but a nice nod to the history of…okay, hold on. It's not Marcel Marceau at all, actually. It's Kellie Pickler with a metric ton of pancake, rouge, and other assorted pigments more traditionally left to the province of the embalmer's table on her face. She's dressed for Cabaret, at least from the neck up. She can barely keep her eyes open under the crushing weight of her mascara, the result of which is an Abdul-esque sense of intoxication. It's all rather fortunate for Kellie, because it distracts from her frequent and reliable flat notes. She takes it for a walk, because everything from the words to the beat of this song says you absolutely have to, but there's just nothing behind the kabuki mask this week. Things improve some as she hits the platform, where she really puts some muscle behind the twang in her voice. She flirts with the judges ineptly, though Paula eats it up. She pulls her feet out of the fire at the end with some growl in her voice, but it's definitely not my favorite Pickler performance. She does something to her mic at the end there, because as she gets up from her knees (not a good trademark, I don't think), we can hear it being jostled around, and when Kellie nervously stutter-steps in place, it sounds like the asteroids have finally come to finish us off. Randy liked the "country-pop" song choice and performance, and praises the Simon-flirting. You can't hear her because of the mic problems, but Kellie says, "The mink is back!" She's taken it right to the edge there. Best tread lightly. She tries out the hand-held mic to see if that will work, but the gods want her to shut up as much as Simon does, so that doesn't work. My theory involved static interference from the entire Covergirl bottling plant residing on her face.
The performance itself is yet another Acey performance in a long line of them. He looks very handsome, and his eyebrows are pleading with you not to change the channel, and the voice is whiny, but not to the point where it hurts to listen to it, and his shirt is tucked in the front, but not in the back, which gives the illusion of his pants falling down, which is exactly what he was going for. Everything he needs to be doing right now, he is doing. Everything else, like the part about being a great singer, is purely incidental. Maybe one week he'll blow us all away and we'll be so freaked out that we'll forget to vote and that's when I'll be rid of him. Until then, melt as his eyes burn holes through your television screen. His mouth is off-kilter, like Milo Ventimiglia. Has it always been like that? As he ends with the falsetto, he stretches out his arms like Jesus or perhaps the "Hang in There, Baby" kitten poster. The camera swirls around him with considerable effort made to make you feel dizzy and drunk on the wonder that is Ace. Silly show. That boy is a virgin daiquiri if I ever saw one.
Randy dawgs about how "Ace is back tonight." Paula gets very intense about the "thirty-four signs" in the audience asking for Ace's hand in marriage. Ace is a huge dork, so his response is, "I love 'em! I love every single one!" There is just nothing to this guy, is there? She calls the performance the "sexiest, sultriest" performance he's given yet. I don't know how you can distinguish, considering they're all pretty much the same performance. I mean, "Do I Do" was the hilarious exception, but everything else has been the exact same unless you count the wild fluctuations in the singing, which you shouldn't because that doesn't matter. Simon thinks it kind of does, because he starts off saying there were maybe five vocals better than Ace's tonight. The crowd boos, of course, but Simon's being complimentary and says he was miles and miles better than last week's foolishness. He guarantees that Ace will be out of the bottom three this week. Ryan and Ace commiserate on the subject of Ace's near-barfy moment last week, and the plea for votes could not get any puppier than that. Vote for Ace so he never feels sad again!Review! Mandisa from forever ago, being all va-va-va-voom. Bucky's mic fervently trying to escape his grip. Paris being from several generations past. Chris getting all angsty up in his angst. Katherine sounding quite different -- if no less amazing -- in the dress rehearsal. Taylor with the vertebrae problems. Lisa reminding me a lot of a Muppet Babies version of Vonzell. Kevin with his junior department polo shirt, collar blessedly un-popped. Elliott blowing minds everywhere but here. Kellie and her tribal war mask. And Ace making his ugly falsetto face. Taylor won't stop twitching as Ryan sends us off to our local news and/or syndicated programming. As frigging usual.
Wednesday
Everyone but Elliott, Katharine, and Lisa is smiling like a lobotomy post-operative as Ryan informs us that one of them will be going home tonight. And it's because of your votes. You monsters. Kimberly Caldwell is in the house! Woo! Kellie's red top is blaring at us at all times. She's like that brick wall in Do the Right Thing. I keep thinking she's supposed to symbolize something deeper. Like lead poisoning. Is Ryan trying to make a cute pun by saying, "The gig is up for one of our finalists"? Because performers have gigs? Or does he also call up Bo Bice on the phone and ask him when his jig is? I'm now curious. Thirty-five million votes were cast Tuesday night. Abstract numbers like that mean nothing to me, except when I think that if even one tenth of those people who called in donated a dollar to the Recappers' Relocation Fund, I could be sitting on a beach somewhere instead of keeping the temperature just above 30 degrees by sheer force of will.
Down at the judges' table, we see Randy and Paula have also jumped upon the whore red express. What's the deal here? It's such a loud color, I refuse to think it's just by accident that three of these people have arrived at it independent of each other. Also, remember how I said yesterday Randy's blue shirt matches his glasses frames? Tonight it's a red shirt and red frames. Not so hard out there for a pimp when you can color coordinate, eh dawg? Ryan makes a big deal about the bickering last night, which is dumb because that shit wasn't anything compared to the shenanigans that have gone on earlier this season. Everybody stayed in their assigned seats, for example.
Metatextual clues to be found in the video recap package of Tuesday nights performances include: Chris's "I Walk the Line" is grouped with Kellie's "Walkin' After Midnight," under the banner "country standards," which is more lies, but once again it's the show that's lying. Simon's criticisms of Bucky and Taylor are polished with a "Simon hates rockabilly" veneer. Kevin's performance gets compared favorably to Lisa's. Katharine is credited with "getting things back on track." Ace gets the pimp spot and a rehash of his great love of cardboard marriage proposals. This week's pimpmercial is for Ford motor vehicles. I know! The new Mustang convertible parks its grill right in front of us, as the Idol kids pile out for a day at the beach. They're dressed like Abercrombie kids with the sex drained right out of them. They're also moving in this hyper-speed almost-stop-motion style that I could not put my finger on for the longest time. Some Pink video, I think. Though they're also getting right up in our faces like, as Jacob mentioned to me, that one Kylie Minogue video where it was love at first sight. ["Hee. Old lady! Get out of my personal space! Why are you even at this rave?" -- Jacob] The song is "We Got the Beat," by the Go-Gos, by the way. Mandisa sets down her blanket, only to see it trampled. I think the theme here is "Why, you rotten kids!" To wit: Elliott (not Taylor as I had earlier thought/hoped) gets a huge beach ball thrown in his face by Paris. It's all way too manic. The whole thing. Ace is smiling so large that it makes me think he knows something he shouldn't. Chris and Katharine hold on to their cool with both hands. Kevin is wearing a sleeveless tee that says "Love Machine." Sigh. Only a few more minutes, kid. No more indignities after that. He gets buried in the sand by…Paris and Kellie? They sculpt the sand to look like a muscular torso. They're all dressed in horrible Technicolor, like The Wizard of Oz or Godspell. I feel like I just snorted a whole box of pixie sticks.
Back onstage, Kevin gets mad love for being such a good sport. Ryan says they have "transformed that boy's life." And I hope you're all proud of yourselves. Ryan then welcomes Barry Manilow to the stage. He's dressed very much like a Seacrest, actually. Ryan's gotta be freaking out inside, like how watching that episode of Nip/Tuck with the obese lady on the couch makes you never want to eat anything ever again. This is your future, Ryan! Why are you not running? He doesn't, though, because he's a professional. He not-so-subtly drops that Barry's record debuted at number one on the pop charts. It…did? I don't know quite how to feel about that. Barry talks up the contestants, and then Ryan sets to making Barry look even more like the best teacher ever by mentioning how he flew in from Vegas on Monday to make sure everything was okay. On his own dime! He does seem like a nice guy, though. Even if he does look like some sort of mongoose. Barry babbles for a hundred hours about how this week's theme was the '50s and his album is all songs from the '50s, and the song he's about to sing is also, coincidentally, from the '50s. Maybe a good portion of his fans are in the Alzheimer's set, so he's gotten used to the repetition? Ryan tells us Barry will be singing "Love is a Many Splendored Thing." Hee. Barry wants to talk some more, about how these days everyone's like "Love rocks!" and "Love sucks!" and "Love is a half-pipe ring-tone latch-key kid on E!" These kids today don't have time for "Love is a Many Splendored Thing."
It is such an old-fashioned song, though. All about April roses and morning mists. The audience has taken to swaying their arms in the air from side to side, like Kingdom Bound or a Naughty By Nature video. Bobby Bennett is in the audience, as he fucking should be, and is the only person for miles around who is standing up and swaying. I don't get it, but I'm certainly glad for him. Lisa Tucker and Kevin Covais are both way too nervous to even begin to get into this. Lisa golf-claps and is preoccupied, while Kevin nervously tries to tell Katharine something. Probably that they may never see each other again, and he would like a kiss to remember her by. Paula is a big ol' tard and sways like crazy. Katharine is laughing at, I think, her mom in the audience, who we don't see, but let's assume she's a swayer as well. Mandisa's laughing at someone, too. My hope is that the "Fanilows" gave all the finalists an excuse to relax and have a good giggle amid this crazy pressure. By the time Barry finishes, Bobby Bennett has made it up onstage and has a Kat McPhee level freak-out, accompanied by Katharine herself, which was super cool to see. He smothers Barry when Ryan introduces them, and I'm pretty sure he says, "I'm coming to see you in Vegas the 12th." Awesome. Clear your calendar, Barry. Bobby's coming! Onstage, everybody's happy for Bobby, which is adorable. Even Taylor, who manages to score a small point with me for that.
Ryan gets a little serious. He wants to make sure Kevin knows they will honestly miss him. No bullshit. No cheek-pinching. They really liked him. Good on Ryan. Kevin's parting words thank America and his fans, and he urges America to choose one of the ten lovely and talented finalists as their American Idol. They kind of have to, dude. Though maybe Kimberly Caldwell is in her seat all, "Damn! I was told there would be a wild card!" I will miss Kevin, I think. Not that I'm not glad he's gone, because I am. He was in above his depth, and it got more and more painful to watch. Still, that is a cool kid right there. Even if his sing-out gets cut very, very short. He barely has time to sit down and stand up again.
week, Ryan tells us, the theme will be songs from the 21st century. That could be fun. I'll be back with recappy goodness, before Jacob returns for what we can only hope will be Corporate Rock Week.