Two full hours, two full hours. They keep saying it and it keeps not sinking in. I get the "two hours" part but the "full" part seems almost heartbreakingly earnest. Speaking of: 164 hopefuls made it to Hollywood. 166, if you include you and me.
I live for this part, you know I do. It's the one part of this process that makes sense to me, and I love also the way that the little groups get so weird and frisky with each other, because it's the one part of the competition that's not competitive: if we all work together we'll all get through this. And none of them ever figure this very simple thing out, and start with the backbiting and drinking and going crazy immediately. It's like if you and your friend went to jail for a drunk and disorderly, and within fifteen minutes started making out like you were on Oz -- and then made bail like an hour later, and just kind of had to deal with that for the rest of your life. I love it.
Shockingly, this is the most talented group of contestants ever, so they're changing the rules in some strange way where nobody gets cut and everybody goes twice, so maybe this is what the two full hours is for and we'll just see the same things twice. See: Brooke White (Philadelphia), who doesn't watch R-rated movies. She tells us that her biggest obstacle is confidence, or the lack of having it, especially now that she's seen how talented everybody else is. They wheel out a big keyboard (Two! Full! Hours!) so she can accompany herself singing "Beautiful," a song I don't recognize about getting up in the AM with a smile on your face and love in your heart. Gross me out, a little bit. But she goes to town on the piano part and her hair is very wild and attractive. Simon compares her to Carly Simon and upgrades to Carole King, and all three judges love her. She's quite smiley. Apparently she's going through to the final day of Hollywood and doesn't have to freak out for awhile.
Lorena (Miami) is showy and "uncomfortable" per Simon like your drunk mom. Amy Flynn (Charleston) looks kind of hellish in her shiny fuchsia dress, with a crazy fish mouth and a stupid Mikalah Gordon act that fools nobody, especially not Simon. Joe R's boyfriend Leo (Omaha) sings the Robin Hood song and is still...confusing in some ways, not to mention how he's singing the Robin Hood song. His hair looks just about perfect, which makes the werewolf ears and frightful teeth really stand out a lot more. However, I can see why he's loveable, and I am on that train. Am I believing that everything he does, he does it for me? Not exactly. I am willing to concede that possibly he does most things for cookies, or for a hug from his social worker, but I remain unconvinced that I, personally, figure into his plans. Possibly everything he does, he does for Joe R. I can believe that because there is no limit to the ways that I personally would inconvenience myself on Joe's behalf, because I love him very much, and so Leo's devotion to him does not even flick my bullshit radar; nevertheless I am driven by the performance to maintain the belief that Leo remains intransigently so-so about me personally. Simon offers the position that everything Leo does, he does it to get on Simon's nerves. Leo runs offstage to cry, and we talk to dumb old Amy Flynn some more. Everything I do, I do it over Amy Flynn's head.
David (San Diego) is "anxious/nervous/excited," and yet hasn't managed to make himself interesting. Perhaps another synonym or two. Onstage, thankfully without an instrument in hand, he...totally rocks a slow-sexy version of "If You Cannot Be With The One You Love Then Go Ahead And Be With The One You Are With." We watch the whole performance, because it's awesome, and puts so very much of that missing spark back into the eyes of the judges. We can hope that this raises the bar for the day and this episode; it's kind of like watching that show American Idol for a sec. Just a second, though, because then it's back to the hell.
Several people get dumped on in a montage, and several more get the pass to the end of the week, including Chikezie Eze, who is charming and freaked out, but then here comes horrid freaking awful fucking Amanda (Atlanta), who is not only Jacob's Perfect Storm of all hate in this world, which is not her fault, but had a huge car accident last week -- also not her fault -- but remains a walking, talking anti-advertisement for that Rock Star mess, which is totally her fault. Her quasi-Aretha phrasing, her bottle-of-whiskey/two-packs-of-Chesterfields/thousand-blowjob voice, her ridiculously ugly hair: all of these are her fault. What if Bo Bice and Janis Joplin had a creepy, disgusting baby? In high school? That couldn't read or write but nervously inserted a "chile" into every dependent clause? You'd have Amanda, whom Simon immediately calls her "Light My Fire" performance as the way all of her songs forever are going to sound. You know what America likes? Amanda, attitude, gross stuff like Amanda, American Gladiator, To Catch A Predator, The Bad Girls' Club. She's going to be around forever, I can feel it like an oncoming case of gonorrhea. ["And I...kind of like her. Man, we're so breaking up." -- Joe R]
Speaking of Bo, his inbred blonde cousin wanders the stage mumbling forgetting the words and being disgusting, under the name of Buck (Kingsland GA). This after Simon begged them not to forget the words, which means you're not happy to see anybody in this segment, but luckily everybody sucks as far as we know. But then! Then my girl Cardin (Nashville) messes up the words to some song so bad I don't even know what it is. NO! Cardin! I love you! This show, man. up is Natashia (29, Ft. Collins CO) who also forgets the words of course, and just nods her head to the beat of the accompaniment for about twenty bars, then sucks when she finally remembers three words, ringing out a gorgeous "Kill me now!" at the end. Heh.
Ghaleb (Miami) is a hugger and a kisser and has a thick accent, and last night in rehearsals, went all over singing to the ladies. I think ... Did he escape from some kind of SNL-alum movie I've never seen? Because that means we gotta find Jeff Daniels and put him back before something happens to the space-time continuum, because I've seen how this story ends. Chris Kattan is still out on the loose somewhere, and that's just plain bad for the world. He interviews impenetrably about how sexy he is, and then onstage...what he does to the Robin Hood song, while forceful and kind of deranged to look at, is not really "romantic" in the sense that the song did not explicitly ask to have this done to it, and thus could easily press charges if it so desired. Paula's mind is blown that he's even here; everybody's mind is blown that he is even here. I don't even care to find out how this happened, because honestly how this happened is that somebody got this guy through the cracks, either as an act of malice against us all, or in some misguided attempt to...I don't even know. I cannot surmise. Joe? Joe, did you do this? ["You know me; I'm blaming Seacrest." -- Joe R]
All in all, fifty-four people didn't get the three-day pass to the round; the ones who did are very excited to be sitting by the pool and things of this nature. Day Two: eighty more people looking for the Thursday pass (TWO! FULL! HOURS!), including lots of people who need to be reminded about the instruments and everything, the whole Express Pass thing Ryan keeps explaining, now both directly to us and to us via them, one hundred times.
One of these is the sweet and emotional Josiah (Atlanta), who likes to go "wherever the wind blows" and stuff like that. I can't imagine the wind blowing him across the street without a grownup! Oh wait, is this the kid that the wind blew him into living in his car? Yeah, I remember now. And the wind made him sing in a weird fake-British accent. I remember really wondering what he was like, when I read about him. He's very earnest and very determined, though, and seems to be awesome. He plays the piano and sings Mika's "Grace Kelly" in a way that reminds me of Something Corporate or Boys Like Girls -- maybe only because they're two of my favorites, but I doubt it -- with a whiny-emo likeable delivery and a completely free-range approach to singing. What if Josiah is the best thing in the world? At presstime, I can't find anything to deny it. What a great kid! Standing O from the gallery, and Randy and Paula just about want to squeeze him to death while babbling at him -- and Simon calls it the most memorable audition of the whole week, sight unseen, and gives him a flying yes, which I don't even know what that means, but I also want to give him a flying yes. I am so excited by this kid.
KYLE! Kyle is all over those ladies, finding a woman in his hotel room when he checks in, which causes him to giggle and say "gosh" a lot. He is so, so funny, and all the girls find him so weird and adorable that he pretty much can't stop giggling. His performance of "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" is...everything I do, I do it to figure out how to put this. There's some junior high drama club in there, and some cruise ship cabaret, and a whole lot of hustle, lots of moving around and snapping his fingers and generally acting deranged, and...I don't know! I sure do love Kyle, but right now if you told me Danny Noriega was secretly a wizard and was possessing Kyle's body, I could not refute this theory to any amount of reasonable doubt. Kyle, you need to flame down and keep your eyes on the prize, because what this is, is super freaky. Paula -- because this is a wicked Paula song for sure -- dances around, and everybody claps for him because he is wonderful as a person. Simon almost cries and the judges are amazed by the total corniness and scariness of the performance, and Paula tells him somebody probably liked it or something, and Simon calls it abysmal. Which is the word. Paula stumbles trying to find a way to be nice about his "amazing spirit," to the point that Simon deserts the judging table and then...leaves the auditorium completely.
Ryan says that this is all very dramatic, but we don't see any of the drama, and then comes the big first cut. Which Ryan explains will be totally vicious and fucked up, because the talent this year is so very strong and Two! Full! Hours! 48 total have gotten the Thursday Pass, most of whom we recognize. But 116 others got the pre-cut non-cut, including one girl who can't believe that Simon keeps interrupting her totally rude interrupting of him, and is driven to tears by the injustice. Now, a line of contestants, boys and girls both, will step forward and sing a few lines a capella, and then they'll get cut or not. Simon explains that they're looking for Top Ten-worthy people. This is so tight!
...Except we don't see much of it, which sucks, because we have to look at some single parents, including that dude whose wife died mysteriously -- oh, that's Perrie -- have boring backstory. Suzanne, one of them, sings some "Summertime" while Pia looks on, and it goes on for awhile, and then Perrie babbles and then sings poorly with a lot of those "huh" interjections Whitney started doing a while back. And that's all we see! Damn it. Two guys make it through, I dunno who, and Perrie talks about how this inspires violence in him. Gross me out.
Abstinence idiot Amy Flynn and her voice coach (Angel Kay LeTourneau! Why do we know these things?!) do some boring practicing in a parking garage, and there's a whole bunch of that creepy in loco parentis stuff. I'm so glad Angel continues to have students and/or victims, I just wish her students were better at singing. Then she does more of that awful stuff she does, to "Love Will Bring You Back," covered up in fake feelings and eyebrows and the constant breathing, and that's all we see of this group. She steps forward, a giant man steps forward...and go home. The entire rest of the row, which is like eight people, get through. Thank goodness.
group: a whole bunch of people I don't recognize, and they all go home. Then the back half of another group we don't even see. Why aren't we seeing this stuff? Ryan's like, of the 40 people that have done this new kind of cut that we don't even get to freaking see, four have gotten through. This is bizarre. We don't know who these people are and we don't know who's getting through or even what they sing like, and...I mean, what is the point? People crying, people you've never seen before, or saw for a few seconds and probably don't remember, and then more crying. This Hollywood round I've been waiting a year for! Is like this now! It's like, take the crap that is American Idol and then find a way to crap on it.
End of Day Three, and a bunch of "vicious" cuts we didn't see or care about. There's a montage of the judges saying names and people stepping forward. For about ten minutes. Hey, there's a cute girl! Who is she? We'll never see her again. I like that guy's shirt! That's all we'll ever know. Up in the balcony Ryan's like, "Trust me, this is totally intense." Except...it isn't, and it's a whole lot like looking at somebody's yearbook that you didn't go to school with, only everybody's crying until they barf.
I could try to cross-reference them with the shows and recaps and whatever, but since the show doesn't care, I don't see why we should. KKKristy Lee Cook decides to sing "Amazing Grace" again, and is just as boring and skinny this time around; the boy half of those two creepy fat black twins was irritating and huge and gay all over the place some more and irritated everybody but failed to get through in the first round, and his sister was cut earlier today. But what will happen to him? He sings some song about food, maybe it's that Frim-Fram Sauce that always blows my mind; whatever it is, it's five times as awful as this dude usually is. "I vaguely remember two of these people," whispers Ryan to the camera.