The good news is, no will.i.am. The bad news is the double-shot of gross that is the ghoulish corpse of Iggy Pop -- and the even ghoulisher, demonic visage of Constantine Maroulis -- will be happening. Kind of a wash, really, except who thought, You know, Paul McDonald isn't scary and gross enough each week, let's reach into the bottom of the garbage disposal and find some unidentifiable stuff with our bare fingers?
Plan of attack: I feel a mild pleasantness toward all these kids, besides Lusk and McDonald. Like you might feel if you saw a rerun of Suddenly Susan was showing on, like, TBS right now. You might not choose to watch it, but it's not like you would throw your bowl of soup at the wall. They're not serial killers. It's not like you're watching Two & A Half Men or an interview with Patricia Heaton or something that would actually make you feel bad about life.
J. Lo is wearing a red satin shirt and trousers and a knob on her head not unlike what Pia wore at some point, possibly last night but definitely in real life. Constantine is here, so that'll cut a good five minutes, and we'll be working very quickly through Iggy Pop , so this shouldn't take too long.
Wow, no wonder Ryan didn't tell us last night -- despite the horrific five minutes we actually went over -- who it was that was going to be visiting. "Come back tomorrow night at 8/7c for Constantine Maroulis, won't you?"
LOVE IN THE HOUSE OF SPIES
The group number is a medley of songs that have nothing to do with each other, of course. Haley's drag queen voice gets taken out for its usual walk at this time, eventually becoming something special, while Lauren's wearing a blowsy Chico's romper that keeps making my BFF the Defender Of The Public ask, "Who's Kirstie Alley over there?" Her own grandmother; don't ask.
What I think happened is, whatever Stefano did to piss off Iovine and will.i.am is what Lauren did to piss off Gwen Stefani, and that's why she's dressed like her granddaughter-mother's free-spirited Patricia Clarkson sister.
Pia is in fine voice, breasts going more nuts tonight than they've ever gone before, and of course yes, the shrieking inability of anybody to harmonize with anybody else is battling the constant whiteboy pointing at everyone and everything as to which is more annoying. The song is "I Love Rock & Roll," a song I remember hating as far back as preschool, so it's mostly girls here at the start. Then they switch over to "The Letter," where you've got Haley and Casey being total professionals while Paul and Scotty almost injure themselves trying to upstage each other and get their dumb faces on camera.
Pia -- dressed like a one-armed Morticia Addams -- and Stefano do some solos, being the most endangered people based on last night, and then it all switches into "Sweet Home Alabama," the most annoying song of all regional rockouts, but it's worth it mostly for Lusk doing his usual embarrassing gay-toddler dancing. He has accessorized his outrageous fupa tonight with a bright green straining-at-the-seams cardigan that wouldn't be out of place on Cee-Lo, or in the "Hey Ya" video of yore. Because what you really want to do, with a topography like Jacob's, is outline every part of the landscape with tight-fitting yards of fabric. Casey's the most adorable one, in a simple wool cap and sweater, but Stefano is wearing suspenders incorrectly and Haley has a bunch of like raccoon tails hanging off herself like the bicycle of a 1950s neighborhood bully.
Haley's skanky dancing is rather awesome as they head into a mashup of both "Sweet Home Alabama" and "I Love Rock & Roll," while Durbin rocks out and Lusk screams and dances around like a crazy person, and it comes to pass that the whole thing has been a GVSB thing where the boys were singing about Alabama and the girls were singing Joan Jett, and it didn't make sense until just now because there are so few girls it looks less like "all the girls" and more like "here is a shot of three people." Or maybe I'm just like so evolved.
At the end, as they come to rest wherever they've found themselves, you can actually see this moment where everybody at once realizes exactly to whom and what they've sold their soul.
The Ford commercial is about spying, to the tune of some song called "Love Gun" which seems like maybe a metaphor I don't want to unpack. Pia plays a superspy who helps Paul McDonald break into a tech company where Casey is a janitor to perpetrate some corporate espionage, but then they get rumbled by the rest of the people and then it's a triple cross and some things happen. The only thing I liked was how the license plate of the dumb-looking getaway car was painted the same color as the car, so it was like murdered out, but in bright red. Very cool.
During this commercial and immediately after it, Durbin twitches his wildest twitches yet, but neither Haley nor Pia, nor their several breasts, seem worried. That's when Russell Brand comes walking down the bleep-bloop
THE FIRST SIGN OF THE LIP-LICKING POP-&-LOCKALYPSE
Down to the stage come Lauren, Casey and Stefano. Stefano's the only one in danger, I think, but Casey does that thing to me that the Bene Gesserit were trying to breed out, so this year when I try to see the future it's just this big upright bass wearing a sweater. No powers at all.
If you didn't vote for Casey, it's because you have never seen the rain. And because you are terrible. Per Randy Jackson, the expert of Coolness, Casey made bass cool somehow. Kelly Clarkson has a crush on him, apparently, because why would you not.
If you didn't vote for Stefano, it's because you have no idea what it is to love a woman. Stefano loved a woman, like men often do, and Ryan breaks ranks with his heteronormative brothers-in-arms; fully wondering aloud if the Judgery were kidding last night when they said they liked it. They evade the question; Randy answers a different question entirely, having to do with his like mission in life.
Jackson: "I just want to help, and nurture, and inspire."
Trans: "Please watch America's Best Dance Crew, which manages to be even lamer than Paula Abdul's show that nobody can even understand what it's about."
Ryan: "Stefano, is the reason Jimmy Iovine picks on you because you threaten his masculinity with your childlike broad shoulders, or is it something more intense and creepy?"
Stefano: "Ryan, it's not like Jimmy Iovine is picking on me. He just straight hates me. Don't ask me where it's coming from."
Jackson: (Interrupting the entire time for no reason.)
Ryan: "Stefano, please get to the point."
Stefano: "...I want to be helped and nurtured and inspired or whatever."
If you didn't vote for Lauren, it's because you secretly worry that you are not naturally a woman. You are uncomfortable with your gender bona fides. If you did vote for Lauren, it's because either you are a childfucker like Steven Tyler, or because you are convinced that the differences between you and Lauren Alaina are surmountable and negligible at best, and the truth is that you are right: Who watches this show is Lauren Alaina.
Jackson: "The thing is, all kinds of way better singers have sung that song, including American Idols, right here on this stage and all over the globe. You're going to be compared to them."
Lauren: "I am a tiny child. I had never heard this song until last Tuesday."
Ryan: "Lauren, obviously you are safe. You are the Lee DeWyze of this season. Everybody that watches this show pretends they are you."
Lauren: "Right up until Steven Tyler corners me in a broom closet."
Stefano is B3; Casey is safe. Even without Simon here to execute it, somehow we've swung the apathy vote in Casey's favor.
TWO CATS FUCKING IN A CAT NURSING HOME
Up we have the first Idol rocker, Constantine Maroulis: The one that set the bar for Idol rockers to come such as Lee DeWyze, DAUGHTRY, David Cook, that Gina person, the Irish girl, the Australian guy, and probably some other jerkoffs I can't think of right now. (Durbin comes from Lambert, who does not come from Constantine, so we're okay there.)
He will be singing "Unchained Melody," because relevance is his stock in trade, but we won't be watching that performance, because I will be goddamned. But his hair is grown out, long -- super long, Captain Hook long -- and there's this exchange:
Ryan: "Why do you suck so bad? Seriously, no offense."
Constantine: "None taken! It's because I have always sucked, and now I have a baby."
Ryan: "Did you name it something dumb and trashy?"
Constantine: "I'm going to be rocking out in Des Moines in the coming weeks."
Ryan: "Not what I asked, but nobody cares anyway."
Ryan, obligatorily: "Is it weird to be back on this stage?"
Constantine: "Yeah. I keep feeling, like, Am I going to be judged?"
Ryan: "I'd say that is a foregone conclusion."
HI, I'M GWEN! HAVE I DEVOURED & SHIT OUT YOUR CULTURE YET? I WILL!
Gwen Stefani: "Who am I to pretend to be a stylist?"
(Valid, Gwen Stefani.)
Gwen: "Lauren, you would never fit into anything from L.A.M.B. But you couldn't afford it anyway. Here, take some of my old used outfits and we can sew them together like a circus tent containing surprise whores."
ibid.: "Pia, I'm jealous of your talents and ability to exist without fifty pounds of makeup on your face. Wear this monster outfit that makes you look like you're a Big Mac away from fusing with your toilet and maybe you'll get eliminated."
ibid.: "Haley, you remind me of Ke$ha, so I'm going to dress you like Claude Hooper Buchowski in the road company of Hair."
(They all come out looking like the robot hookers from Cherry 2000.)
ibid.: "I haven't felt this good about dressing young women up in ludicrous costumes for my own perverse enjoyment than when I bought those kawaii little Harajuku girls from the international flesh trade."
I'M JUST A GIRL IN A HIDEOUS HAREM-LEG PANTSUIT
Paul, Scotty and Pia come down, but surely they are all fine. I've given up hoping for Paul to go home, and if Scotty or Pia leave I will start to feel crazy because this show will have stopped making sense. The entire point of this show is Scotty and Pia, and if that changes it will become Scotty and Lauren, and we already had Carrie and Bo that one year. Do we really need another Inside Your Heaven's Gate massacre?
If you didn't vote for Paul, it's because you know Satan's works when you see them or because you assume his zombie body will fall apart onstage into a pile of wriggling insects and black ichor well before Top Three.
Ryan: "Paul, why are you like this?"
Paul: "It's easy! It's easy as pie to be like this! It's Easy Street! I'm Eezy-E!"
Ryan: "Uh huh."
If you didn't vote for Pia, it's because you were either too high or not deep enough.
Ryan: "Pia, people jerk off when they think about you, per Steven Tyler."
Pia: (Hollow, haunted laughter.)
Ryan: "Do you have the confidence to stop acting like a dumb robot?"
Pia: "It's a weekly challenge, but I am trying."
Ryan: "You know that song wasn't really about singing, right? It was just like a yelling song? So that's the one time you really should have dressed in a sensual or attractive way?"
Pia: "Awwwww ladylumps."
If you didn't vote for Scotty, it's because you are not all right, momma.
Ryan: "Scotty, Steven wishes girls would scream for him like they do for you. Tell us some Boomhauer swamp person story where I won't understand one single word."
Scotty: (Presumably does; is safe.)
Paul and Pia laugh about their dumb luck, because one of them is B3. Ryan reminds us how close we came to getting rid of Paul, and then he's safe again. Meaning Pia! Is in the Bottom Three! What the fuck?
Everybody in the crowd curses with swears for a long time. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, as the Canadian Janet Jackson memorably penned way back before Woodstock. What I think is, I think nobody really likes Pia, but everybody assumes everybody else likes her. The old "Somebody must like Bit O' Honeys or else they wouldn't make them" Halloween debate, writ large on our national canvas.
THE PART WHERE THEY GO TO THE TMZ OFFICES
They go to the TMZ offices.
THE FOOLISH CONSISTENCY OF LITTLE HOBGOBLIN MINDS
If you didn't vote Durbin, it's because you're emotionally unavailable to stringed instruments and/or random public crying jags. If you didn't vote for Haley, it's because you don't have enough heart to give another piece of your heart. If you didn't vote Lusk, it's because you were afraid of the man in the mirror. Or possibly the giant, hip-swirling monster-man on stage. Anyway, Jacob Lusk is in the Bottom Three. Which normally would be worth some fanfare -- especially up against Durbin and Haley, who are both just lovely -- but in this case the chase to which we cut is: JACOB LUSK CAN SUCK IT.
IGGY POP LOOKS ON THE OUTSIDES LIKE PAUL MCDONALD LOOKS ON THE INSIDES
The leathery, rippling woman that Iggy Pop has stretched over his bones, we never get tired of her, do we? Stuck down there in her well with only Iggy Pop's pet bichon frise for company while he sends down the bucket and lotion every night, until finally she's just about ready to cash in her chips and then he hauls her up, skins her alive, tucks his dick between his legs and begins his transformation.
Steven Tyler: "Nothing sad about this, America! Am I right, guys? Golden Gods never die, they just get more and more like old withered nasty stinking banshee women from the sewer. Somebody better give Iggy Pop a handjob! How else will he know he exists?"
Other sad things: He's singing "Wild One," the song that is first playing in the bar when Vivian goes looking for Kit at the beginning of Pretty Woman. This is sad only because secondly, there's a part in the middle where Iggy has to sit down on stage and catch his breath.
Hint of side-boob, and then Tyler and Jackson have to haul J. Lo out of her seat to applaud for the pathetic mess of Iggy Pop before he collapses. This is why Viagra will always be sadder than however hilarious the commercials try to be: Because a man trying to hold onto something he could easily have let go gracefully is going to be sad no matter how you dress it up.
Tyler: "Right, guys? Raw rock power, you know what I'm saying?"
It's not exactly like the Housewives, it's not exactly like Botox and stretched faces, because of the way we treat each other: A sad attempt to recapture youth means something very different if you're a woman v. if you're a man.
If you're a woman, you should be ashamed of yourself either way. Ignore the impossible standard of beauty at your peril, because that's offensive and you're not playing the game. Actually play the game, and you're a creepy old shallow slut.
But if you're a man, no matter how you try to hang on, everybody else on earth will move mountains to make sure you don't feel like less of a man. Because if you lose for one second the Dumbo's Feather idea of yourself as this powerful virile individual around whom the universe rotates, the rest of us would just fall apart. If you've been trained your whole life to listen to old men tell you what to do, the idea that nobody's driving the bus can be so terrifying that you'll keep listening just so you don't have to worry about it.
Tyler: "Wasn't that great? I can't wait to get onstage and really show everybody how it's done."
Lauren: "In the meantime could you stop hitting on me? I'm fifteen."
Tyler: "I never learned the difference. I just know my masculinity is contingent on a lot of sketchy shit and I am hanging by a thread, and I'll drag the whole dining room table down with me, napkin rings and all, when I go. So if that means ogling your underage tits, I just know I need an audience to see me ogle them, if it's going to count."
America: "We validate you!"
Ryan: "Iggy Pop's nasty P!nk body has convinced me to stop eating carbs!"
As if.
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE LOSE IT
Ryan: "Jacob, you said this was happening because we suck. America hated you enough to put you in the Bottom Three, but you're the only black contestant left, so even though you're gay, you're safe."
A moment later, Stefano is safe and Pia is going home, and the entire place goes insane.
Jackson: (Screaming swears.)
Stefano: (Poised to repeat Casey's vomiting palpitations from before.)
Casey: (Staring, boggled.)
Lauren: (Finding it harder than usual to squeeze out her usual single tear.)
The Crowd: (Pants-shitting rage.)
Ryan: "Personally I am shocked. Also, Pia are you okay?"
Pia: "I am fucking fine, Ryan."
Lopez: "I am NOT FINE. I have NO IDEA WHAT JUST HAPPENED HERE."
Jackson: "I have never in my life been SO FUCKING DISGUSTED WITH AMERICA."
Durbin: (Twitches like a little bunny.)
Jackson, still processing: "I'm like, What? I'm like, What is going on?"
Lopez: (Cartoon freakout sweat drops flying sideways from her head, which is about to explode, like she's watching Inception stoned.)
Tyler: "You know what, America? Fuck America. More like Amerika!"
Ryan: (Shivering with how out of control they are getting.)
Tyler: "When she sings she's a bird! A BIRD! FUCK AMERICA!"
Jackson: "In the FACE!"
Even Pia is a bit taken aback by this nonsense. Even Casey is like Oh Missy try to maintain about the Judgery meltdown. Even her dead grandfather is like, "Y'all, it's just a game show." Down at the desk, Randy pulls J. Lo onto his lap and she just collapses into his arms like a toddler up past her bedtime, hot tears streaming down her face. Steven Tyler pulls out an American flag and sets fire to it, screaming Pia's name.
Ryan produces emigration papers and all three judges become Canadian nationals right then and there; he realizes once again he's kept us on track too well and there's time to vamp.
Please, please for the love of God and Wonderwall, please do not let the children dance onstage again. Last night is something I'm never going to be able to unsee. It is burnt onto the inside of my eyelids like tattooed chola eyebrows.
Ryan: "Well, this unholy mess is not how I'm going to leave things. Fuck it. Pia, do you want to sing a song?"
Pia: "Whatever. This bizarre display is tasteless anyway, I see what you're saying."
Ryan: "Randy -- stop crying, Randy -- Randy, what song should she sing?"
Jackson: "I d-d-don't care! I-I-I-I she can sing whatever she w-w-wants, it doesn't matter anyway. This is stupid! Pia is stupid! Just leave me alone!"
Ryan: "Other Judges, do you have a..."
Pia, grabbing the mic: "-- Oh, for fuck's... 'I'll Stand By You.'"
And that is, awesomely, how we leave things: J. Lo having her J. Lo version of feelings, Lauren sucking it up finally after getting that one tear safely onto her cheek, Stefano losing it in Durbin's arms, a standing ovation, Steven Tyler looking like boobs were just outlawed, Scotty the first ballsy enough one to lead the rest of them out onstage to surround her, carefully and hesitant at first like a haunted house, Ryan grabbing her roughly as she screams her last note and collapses onto him, J. Lo fully losing it with her head in her hands like What is going on in the world, Tyler's flag catches the Judges' desk on fire and everybody is screaming and running and the place is filling up with smoke and a catwalk comes crashing down onto the stage narrowly missing Stefano and there's a broken water pipe somewhere and the sirens are going off and a child has been separated from its mother and then slowly, sloooooowly Ryan turns, surrounded by wreckage, Pia's lifeless body in his arms, as the lightning crashes and the place comes down around their ears, like the last thirty seconds of Do The Right Thing Ryan Seacrest turns slowly and directly to the camera -- face as serious as the sins they used to feed Paul, back in Appalachia -- to stare into your home and your soul, straight out the camera, at you.
At you, and what you have done.
Check out what Pia Toscano had to say about her surprise elimination.
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