Shout-out to Miss Alli. She managed to finish recapping the worst reality show in the history of ever, yet somehow kept from killing herself and still found the energy to recap that insipid "Halfway Home" special. Yay! Thanks for keeping me from losing too many sanity points.
Tuesday. Ryan "I Want You To Need Me" Seacrest greets us on the Seal of Tsathoggua with the remaining kids. He's wearing a jacket covered with zippers. I think he's trying to dress even gayer now that he's not allowed to make the jokes anymore. Blah blah show singing blah.
Credits. Ryan runs back out onstage to greet the crowd. Signs, signs, everywhere signs. Somebody claims that Ruben puts the "stud" in "Studdard." The only signs they show in the audience are in support of either Ruben or Clay. Ryan tells us that they've confirmed that the kids' cover of "God Bless The U.S.A." will top the charts this week. Oh, thanks ever so much, members of the public. For a few seconds there, I forgot to hate everything in creation. I needed the reminder. Also, Kelly Clarkson will have the number one album, and as a reward, she'll be allowed to have a bowl of dry shredded wheat and a three-hour nap. Yay! If she goes platinum, they might let her have milk. Ryan also plugs some insipid People feature on all the kids, giving readers a break from all the coverage of Brad and Jennifer and Ben and Jennifer and Tom and…Tom. And more Tom.
Then there's this idiotic, unfunny stage business where Ryan pretends that they're giving the kids a night off, and even walks off the stage as the show's theme music cranks up. Yay! I can watch Gilmore Girls, or some other show that includes people who have more than three milligrams of charisma. Of course, he's kidding. See, they have this time to burn now that they're down to six kids. Having them sing the whole song is still, of course, out of the question. On the other hand, given that Carmen and Josh are still here, perhaps I shouldn't complain.
Speaking of the kids, Ryan introduces them out to the stage, as he is wont to do. Hey, they let a bunch of Trenyce fans with signs sit up front! Dear producers: It has not slowed down the "conspiracy" thread at all. Ryan introduces the judges, Simon "We're Not Making Love Anymore" Cowell, Paula "I Get Weak" Abdul, and Randy "Don't Turn Around" Jackson. Ryan asks how anybody could say bad things about Paula Abdul. Well, first you start with an observation about her gross incoherence, then slide into a crack at her plastic features, and then conclude with a suggestion of controlled substance abuse. Oh, that was one of those rhetorical questions, wasn't it? Ryan then makes a thoroughly disgusting comment about Randy "the dawg" getting neutered for his own good. Ew. Gross. And it doesn't make sense, at that. If you're going to make a "dawg" joke at Randy's expense, it also has to be relevant, not just refer to dogs. Simon's the one who leers at all the girls, not Randy. And this has been your "Comedy That Works" lesson for the recap.
So it seems that Tsathoggua has felt the tide turning against li'l Carmen and released one of his favorite minions to serve as both the theme and guest judge tonight. That would be Diane Warren, who is a huge, successful songwriter, despite the fact that nobody you know likes any of her songs. Pop, country, and rock stars have all used her songs on their albums, and dozens of them have made it to number one, yet hardly anybody on earth will admit to enjoying any of them. Obviously dark magics must be involved here. ["SHE'S NOT MY ONLY MINION IN THE INDUSTRY. YOU SHOULD SEE SCOTT STAPP'S TRUE FORM. IT FRIGHTENS EVEN ME." -- Tsathoggua]
So Diane heads out onto the stage, and I don't know what Simon meant a few episodes ago when he said that Diane doesn't look like the type of person who writes those songs. From her crappy Ross Dress For Less black pantsuit to her ambiguously patterned t-shirt from Claire's Accessories to her atrocious mat of helmet-hair, she looks exactly like the type of person who would write crappy love songs with lyrics that would make a moderately intelligent toddler roll his eyes. She looks like she should be standing in line at Waldenbooks getting her copy of Dance Of Seduction autographed. If you cut her, she would bleed fan-fic. In her clip show, she wears ugly hats and plays the piano, while Ryan lists all the awful, wretched songs that Diane will be punished for in the afterlife. They remind us that several finalists have already performed Diane songs, and show clips of Carmen and Josh butchering two of her songs, because that's what they deserve. Kill that song, Carmen! Bleat it to death! Diane has been nominated for nine Grammys. It looks like she won only one. Same as Paula. Heh. The kids all show up at some place that may be her home, or may be Schroeder's home for all we know, as he's there as well, helping the kids. She says she loves working with new talent because they aren't jaded (read: "They haven't figured out yet that my songs are all exactly the same"), and they have youthful energy (read: "I can pawn off on them all the songs so crappy that nobody else wants them, like I did with O-Town"). Trenyce and Kimberley marvel over Diane's ballads, knowing that it will give them at least a few seconds of airtime before they shove them off-camera to make room for more Carmen.
Back onstage, Ryan wastes no time (well, other than the time they've already wasted) in introducing Kimberley Locke as the first performer. In an interview, Kimberley tells us she's picked "If You Asked Me To" because "it's an incredible story of love" and because it's a big, loud ballad with lots of "glory notes" (tm Miss Alli). We see her practicing with Diane, Debra, and Schroeder. For those of you who care, Kim adds that she has a CD with the original version, sung by Patti LaBelle, before Celine Dion covered it. So at least somebody is ignoring the Celine rendition of something. Incidentally, I see commercials for her Vegas show out here all the time, and she now has the exact same haircut as Aaron Carter. Also, while I'm wildly off-topic, during all of these clip shows, my eyes are repeatedly drawn to a pop-art painting in the background of a dog eating a hot dog. Diane thinks Kimberley will be able to sing her song.
Kimberley heads out to the stage, and has sadly regressed back to being a lousy dresser. Her black blouse is fine, but the dark gray slacks are again too tight, and camel toe, camel toe, camel toe. Somebody's going to end up dragging this girl onto What Not To Wear. As is usually the case with Kim, she starts the song way off on the first notes, before easing into her comfort zone. I think the way she starts her songs have been what's really hurting her up to this point. When she starts off flat and breathy like this, she has to work to get the audience and viewers back. But eventually she finds her stride by the point where she gets to those notes that she holds out for twenty-seven seconds, which cause everybody to forget the earlier parts. She gets lots of cheers when she's done.
Judges. Randy says he thought Kim was the best singer last week, and may turn out to be the best singer tonight. Paula thinks Kim was brilliant. Diane thinks Kim was awesome. Record macro: "Diane thinks ___ was awesome." Assign to Shift-F1. Diane is between Paula and Simon. I wonder what it means that Lionel Richie and Smokey Robinson were kept away from him? Simon says that Kim has improved ever since she got rid of that "weird hair." In other words, straightened her hair out in Barbie fashion. I hope that person who sent me a three-page email detailing why my mocking of Corey's afro was racist has managed to track down Simon. He declares that she looks "cute" now. I think I preferred her earlier hair. Not her disco hair, which was amusing and fit the theme, but her hair way back in the semifinals. Anyway, now that Simon has come around and finds Kim physically appealing, she's also a good performer and a "front-runner." As Kim heads over to Ryan, we see a shot of a sign that reads, "Simon tells the truth." Except about his relationship with Ryan, of course. Ryan and Kim blather away about singing, as she endeavors to get a strand of hair out of her teeth or something, with Ryan's help. Ryan gives the blah blah blah text-message-cakes.
Commercials. You just know all the actors in the Dr. Scholl's gel insoles commercials cry themselves to sleep every night. How could they not? "I'm gellin' like a felon." I just burst into tears of horror typing that.
When we return, Ryan introduces us to Clay Aiken's grandmother and makes her introduce us to Clay. Clay tells us he's picked "I Could Not Ask For More." Clay seems to think this song shows Diane's "range" because it has been recorded as both a pop and a country song, and not that it shows the utter absence of depth and creativity in popular music. Diane thinks Clay will do a great job with the song.
Clay heads out to the stage wearing a leather jacket, gray shirt, and black pants. It's an improvement over the dress shirts, both tucked and untucked. His singing is a bit smoother than it has been in the rounds as far as the enunciation goes. His performance is still being heavily sponsored by the letter "R," however. And I don't know who the guy is singing backup here, but he is without a doubt the worst they've ever had. He's off-key and way too loud, and strangely robotic. If I didn't know better, I'd guess it was Jim Verraros. He's just that bad. The good part of the performance is that the song doesn't depend on those long held notes to grab your attention. Okay, fine. I'm stealing the Miss Alli's "glory notes" moniker. I had been trying to think of a way to refer to those things, and she beat me to it. The song doesn't have any glory notes, so it's a much better performance for Clay.
Judges. Randy says that Clay is one of the best singers in America. Paula says he's wonderful again. She blathers on for a bit that Clay needs to be true to himself as a performer or something. I don't know. She's all bizarre and incoherent again. Could somebody reboot Paula? Diane says Shift-F1. Simon goes off on the whole thing about Clay being better suited for Broadway then pop music, and this has become a tiresome argument from which there will be no consensus. Well, actually the consensus from a poll a few recaps ago suggests that Simon is correct, but I know better than to trust those things. The audience boos. There's an insipid Mr. Personality reference out of nowhere. Diane gives Simon a shirt that declares, "I don't do nice." Great. The most influential songwriter in America buys gifts for people at mall kiosks. Clay heads over to Ryan, who gives the blah blah blah text-message-cakes.
Time to pimp another sponsor. This time it's a [product-placed shampoo company with the most insulting commercials in television history]. You know the one I'm talking about. They pimp the web site, where you can play games with the contestants' hair. This is how they choose to spend their time on the top-rated show on television -- by badly ripping off late-night talk show sketches. Then the shampoo nitwits send some stylist nitwits over to One Hit Wonderland to makeover all the kids' hair. Except for Ruben, because he barely has any. Carmen, of course, gets the central focus of the skit, as she gets some blonde highlights in her already way-blonde hair. She has an "organic experience" that I refuse to recap, even if you threatened to insert a tube connected to an air compressor into my nasal cavity and turned it on high. ["OH, I HAVEN'T TRIED THAT ONE YET." -- Tsathoggua] Isn't she just so wholesome? They all get highlights, but in the end, they all look pretty much the same, except for Trenyce and Kim. So I guess the lesson here is not to waste your time with the highlighting products of [product-placed shampoo company with the most insulting commercials in television history]. That was money well spent, wasn't it?
Commercials. Mark Valley is still hot. Keen Eddie, however, is doomed.
When return, it's time for Trenyce. She tells us she picked "Have You Ever," because "it's one of those songs where you close your eyes and feel every word that you sing." How nice of her to provide her own foreshadowing. She says Diane helped her with the song. Diane says Shift-F1.
Trenyce heads out to the Seal in a black leather jacket and matching bustier, jeans, and a choker that looks like it's made out of aluminum foil. She's very breathy on the opening verses. She still needs to keep working on that lower register. She's better with the chorus, as usual. There's a spot where it sounds like she forgot the lyrics, although she may have actually tried some sort of weird interpretation where she let the back-up singers complete the lyrics. But it didn't really work right and it ends up making her look like she forgot it anyway. It's the phrasing problem she has -- there's too long a gap between the time she stops singing and the back-up singers complete it. The line, incidentally, is "Have you ever tried to find the words but they don't come out right." You can make your own joke about it. You probably already have.
Judges. Randy says Trenyce did a good job and was better than last week. He says she probably picked the toughest song to perform of all the contestants. If only they gave points for difficulty on this show. Oh, never mind. I just flashed on an image of Carmen trying to sing "Without You." Paula says she thinks Trenyce looked and sounded great. Diane says Shift-F1. Simon says to Diane, and I'm totally not kidding, "It's very strange sitting here to Diane, how someone like you can write such wonderful lyrics." He just called Diane Warren ugly, y'all. And what a scary belief that ugly people are incapable of producing anything beautiful. You'll all recall supermodels Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum accepting the award for best original screenplay at the Oscars last month, don't you? What a fucking idiot. Not that Diane's music approaches beautiful in any context. Anyway, Simon tells Trenyce that she has a great voice, but whines that he's the only contestant he knows nothing about. Oh, if only she were blonde and Nigel Lythgoe wanted to sleep with her. Then we'd know all about her. Of course, she didn't exactly take the opportunity during her interview with Ryan on Monday to differentiate herself from a million other aspiring singers. Simon says she needs to be more expressive during her performances. The judges bicker. Randy says something stupid. Whatever. Trenyce heads over to Ryan, who gives her another opportunity to make herself sound interesting. What does she do on the weekends? She talks to her friends and her mom on the phone. Well, there's another chance blown. Although I suppose "shoplifting and three-ways" probably wouldn't go over well. Ryan gives the blah blah blah text-message-cakes.
up is Joshua Gracin, who has selected "That's When I'll Stop Loving You." He sounds absolutely wretched during the rehearsals, but Diane gives him the same Shift-F1 as all the other performers. She thinks he picked the perfect song and blah blah blah. He tells us that he used to sing it to his wife when they were in high school. Er, before they were married. They weren't married in high school. Anyway, he says the song means a lot to him. Well, you know the cliché: We always hurt the ones we love.
Joshua heads out to the Seal wearing an ugly tan jacket, white shirt, and jeans. I know I tend to use Carmen my primary example of awful performances on this show, but in all honesty, Josh's singing is about ten times worse. This is an 'N Sync song, so he's abandoned the fake twang and has tried for a fake falsetto instead. And believe me when I tell you, the twang is much, much better. He doesn't hit anywhere near the right note, ever. He locked the key inside his car and he can't get it out. He sounds even more like a bad audition than he did during "Celebration." Specifically, he sounds almost exactly like the guy Simon declared was "the worst singer in New York." And the creepy Joker smile has never been more prominent or more horrifying. Oh, and the scariest part is that his fly appears to be open. It looks like he's wearing clean underwear, so he avoided one of those embarrassing scenes Mom's always warning you about. Wait, this is still very embarrassing. Never mind. They keep showing his wife in the audience, wearing a glazed expression on her face, the sign of a woman humoring her man's latest round of nonsense, knowing full well it will be over soon.
Judges. Randy tells Joshua that he was sharp the whole song and was never on key. There's a long pause before the booing, meaning that the audience totally agrees, but Nigel is off to the side, waving at them to heckle. Paula blathers away from Nonsenseland that Joshua took a risk and picked a very good song. Paula should be forced to listen to that performance over and over again until she apologizes to mankind for her utter, vapid stupidity. Diane says Shift-F1. Simon says that Joshua sang the whole song through his nose. I know that's a musical term, but I probably would have been slightly entertained if Josh were capable of literally singing the song through his nose. If nothing else, we wouldn't have had to see the Joker smile. Simon also points out that he changed his voice yet again and dropped the twang, contradicting his earlier statements about the type of performer he is (country). Then he teases Josh about getting his hair bronzed, like Josh had any control over that. Their contest agreements probably allow the producers to physically beat the kids if they don't shill for the advertisers. Josh heads over to Ryan, who asks if he has any response for Josh. Josh says he doesn't, because he was taught to "respect his elders" and Simon is very old. The audience shrieks and cheers and claps (even Simon) at a joke that would have been cut out of a script of Yes, Dear for being too lame. Ryan gives the blah blah blah text-message-cakes.
Commercials. When we return, Ryan grabs Simon's girlfriend, Teri, out in the audience and waves her around like she's a kewpie doll he won by tossing a ring over a bottle at the fair. Ryan urges Simon not to say anything, but he asks, gnomically, "Where's Arthur?" Ryan tells him to shut up, but looks embarrassed. GLAAD composes another angry press release.
up is Carmen Rasmusen. She's going to sing "Love Will Lead You Back." Diane says it's one of her favorites among the songs she's written, but she's said that for every song, so whatever. She says that it's a "challenging" song as she blandly advises Carmen to try to hit the note that's actually there on the page. In other words, girl can't sing. Carmen says she picked the song because it has high notes and low notes and will therefore show her range. And Tsathoggua must be thinking to himself that this is where things all went wrong, because Carmen doesn't have any range. Diane gives her Shift-F1 stamp of approval.
Carmen heads out to the Seal wearing a gray jacket, a white belly-baring shirt that looks like it has food stains all over the front, and jeans. I'm not sure if there's any point in being critical, since Tsathoggua takes over the recap whenever I try. ["OH, GO AHEAD. IT TAKES TOO MUCH ENERGY, AND I ALREADY KNOW I'VE LOST THIS BATTLE." -- Tsathoggua"] Well, her voice, honestly, isn't as bad as it normally is. It's not good, mind you. But she's not as flat and bleating as she generally is. Knowing how this ends, I'm reminded of the first season, when performers like Ryan, R.J., and Nikki would have one particularly bad performance, but not get ejected until the following week. I'll take a brief break from being an asshole to point out that Carmen definitely shows potential in this performance. But honey, find a new vocal coach. That guy's an imbecile. And maybe someday you'll actually be able to cut an album that people out there will buy. Not me, mind you. But other people. ["AW, YOU'RE SUCH A SOFTIE." -- Tsathoggua]["Shut up, you." -- Shack]["KEEP IN MIND THAT I STILL INTEND TO WEAR YOUR RIB CAGE AS A HAT." -- Tsathoggua] ["All right, you two. Don't make me turn this recap around." -- Sars]
Judges. Randy again mocks Carmen's vibrato when he greets her with a couple of "yo"s. Randy hates Carmen. Randy hates Carmen like she's a big can of Slimfast. He doesn't think she comes close to being good enough to win. Carmen gives this look of utter shock. Oh, yeah. You also need to be less clueless about your huge, gaping flaws in ability, Carmen. Some people boo, but there's also applause, which I find hysterical. The criticism never gets applause. Paula insists that we must give Carmen "props" for improving over last week. Diane says Shift-F1. Simon agrees with both sides of the argument. He says that Carmen has improved over her recent performances, but it's still not good enough. He tells her outright that she can't win the competition. Randy agrees. People boo. Simon concludes that she did well to get this far. Carmen heads over to Ryan, who asks her if she thinks she can win. She says she really thinks she can win this competition. Mind you, she was never voted into the finals by anybody, ever, so again, see my comments regarding cluelessness. My very shallow reservoir of goodwill is going to run dry any second now. Ryan gives the blah blah blah text-message-cakes.
Commercials. When we return, Ryan tells us that our "favorite" finalists from this season will be appearing in the upcoming music tour. Unless, if the rumors are correct, your favorite finalist was Vanessa Olivarez, in which case you can go piss off.
Our final contestant is Ruben Studdard. He has selected "Music Of My Heart," because he just loved 'N Sync in that one episode of The Simpsons. Actually, he says it's different from all the other songs he's sung so far. Well, at the moment. I'm sure when he's done with it, the song will be thoroughly Vandrossed. Diane gives her Shift-F1 of approval.
Ruben hits the Seal with no 205 jersey and no stupid little newsboy cap, instead going for Josh's normal look with an untucked brown shirt and jeans. And yeah, the song has been Vandrossed beyond recognition. Or what I would assume is beyond recognition, never having heard it before. Anyway, he's thoroughly predictable in his performance, his gestures, and his arm-reaching. Oh, and he can't be bothered to sing the whole chorus. He just holds out a "Yooooooou!" while the background singers do all the heavy lifting, and then just sings the final "music of my heart." The last twenty seconds of the song is just him going "ooooooooh" over and over. As if it's not bad enough that they only sing part of a song, Ruben's now only singing part of the part that he's got? What ? Is he going to come out and just moan along with a Kenny G number?
Judges. Randy loved it, and says Ruben is one of their best. Paula says something so utterly stupid that I want to smack her. She says he proved Simon wrong when he said previously that Ruben was stuck in a Barry White rut. See, because he sang an 'N Sync/Gloria Estefan song. Yes, but he fucking sang it the same way he sings every-fucking-thing so he didn't take any damned risk at all. Shut up, Paula! Shut up infinity! God! Diane says Shift-F1. For some inexplicable reason, Simon agrees with Paula that Ruben changed his style, but says that it proves that he's actually right, because -- you know what? I can't possibly figure out the logic. Just whatever. He warns Ruben and Clay, however, that they need to be on the watch for Miss Locke. Which, of course, alerts the two men's rabid fan bases that they need to be on the watch for Kim. So I wouldn't be surprised to see Kim get the heave-ho soon. Ryan comes out on the Seal to give the blah blah blah text-message-cakes.
Commercials. We return back to Pimp Central for the [product-placed cola] non-terviews. Ryan sits with the kids as Ruben makes bunny ears behind his head. Kimberley makes fun of Ryan's jacket. Is Kim having fun? Yes, she's very happy. While Ryan's talking, Josh reaches over from the other side and musses up Ryan's hair. Although, you can't really tell the difference, unless you're one of Ryan's seven stylists, all of whom just burst into tears offstage. Ryan asks Carmen if the workload is getting tougher. Nope. She loves it. Great. We get the clip recap show, as Ryan's stylists rush out to try to put the mussed-up hair back the way they had originally mussed it up. The concentrated dose of Diane Warren songs threatens to give me a seizure, but it finally ends, and Ryan sends us all off to vote, vote, vote!
Wednesday. Melodramatic Announcer melodramatically reminds us that one of the kids will be ejected, and asks, "Who's going home? And how will they handle it?" He might as well just say, "Cross your fingers and hope they have a breakdown onstage." Ruben is wearing a white 205 shirt with star-spangled numbers.
Credits. Then shrieks and hollers of joy from the audience. And we haven't even ejected Carmen yet. Ryan comes out wearing Josh's white outfit. He asks the audience why they're all excited about an episode where somebody is going to get voted off. Did they accidentally tell them that Carmen was getting ejected before the show started? Ryan manages to pimp every single show sponsor in one sentence that I'm not recapping, because I'm still waiting for that truck full of money to arrive. Then he introduces the judges again. Paula appears to have gone back in time to the late '40s to get her dress. And it's still ugly. Ryan then introduces the kids again and tosses us to the clip show for last night. Diane sucked. Randy was mean to Carmen. And Joshua. So was Simon. Joshua wasn't funny. The clip show declares Kim the "star of the night."
Back at the stage, Ryan warns us all that Diane Warren wrote a song just for the kids. I can only assume that everybody watching the show took this as a cue to leap on the remote mute button. The song is called "Shine." ["IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE CALLED 'SHRINE,' AND WAS SUPPOSED TO HYPNOTIZE THE AUDIENCE INTO BUILDING ONE FOR ME FOR MY ARRIVAL, BUT DIANE MUST HAVE MISHEARD. ANOTHER REASON THINGS DIDN'T TURN OUT WELL FOR ME THIS EVENING." --Tsathoggua] And do you have to ask how assy the song is? It's so assy that Carmen gets the first solo. A solo in which she sings (badly), "They'll try to make feel that you're not good enough." The girls all stand in some staggered diagonal on the stage, which I'm sure some producer thought looked dramatic. It doesn't. It's like something you'd see on a beauty pageant. The lyrics are all about how the kids will keep singing no matter how often we tell them that they suck. The whole song is like a shout-out to us. But not the good kind of shout-out. It's the Aaron Sorkin calling Deborah a muu-muu-wearing chain-smoker kind of shout-out. Not that I care, really. The music industry is going to be the one to "break" these kids and "shut off [their] lights," not the critics. Also, the song sucks, and so does the singing. And the staging. There's this awful, awful moment where the kids all shuffle their way over to the side of the stage and sing upwards into a camera above them. This couldn't get any cheesier if Goat-Girl suddenly started lactating. Also, I think there are backing vocals to drown out anybody out of tune, because the choruses sound a million times better than the solos. Overall, it's a song that sounds like it was written in five minutes (because it was) and practiced maybe once (because it was). It's not even good enough for Six Flags. And no, they didn't shine. And I bet they'll be singing it on that awful tour.
Commercials. When we return, we get to see a brief video of Kelly Clarkson (deleted) at the moment she finds out that her album is going to be the top seller this week, and she shrieks and jumps up and down and is genuinely thrilled. I miss her. I still haven't decided whether or not I'm actually going to buy the album, though.
Back onstage, it's time to start going through the judges' comments. Carmen sucked, but not as much as she did before. Regardless, she's in the bottom three. ["I HATE RELIVING THIS PART. STUPID FLESH SACKS." -- Tsathoggua] Ruben is safe, of course. Clay is safe, of course. Trenyce was meh and is in the bottom three. Oh, and I believe the camera people got the friends and families of the contestants mixed up. I think those are Carmen's friends and family that they're claiming are Trenyce's. Anyway, Josh and Kim will have to wait until after a wretched skit and a commercial break to find out if they're in the bottom three.
Oh, the wretched skit. Carmen once again takes center stage in a stupid commercial for a [product-placed car] model that the company is going to discontinue, which was announced the day before this episode aired. How hysterical. Carmen drives the [product-placed, except you can't buy it because it's discontinued, convertible] into some faux diner, where Ruben, Clay, and Josh pretend to be fry cooks and sing the Beach Boys' "Fun, Fun, Fun." Yes, we'll all have fun, fun, fun until the head of [product-placed car company] determines that we're losing too much money on this collector's item and they need more SUVs and takes the [product-placed car] away. Kim and Trenyce pretend to be Carmen's friends at the counter. The kids all swing dance. Josh lifts Carmen way up over his head. Somebody's been taking swing lessons. Ruben and Trenyce do the twist, because you know he's not going anywhere. Some producer poses as Carmen's "dad" in the skit, although he looks more likely to be on a sex offender list than even Mike Fleiss. He's just that skeevy. He takes the keys and goes out to the car. Some hooker sees him and saunters around the car. In a couple of seconds we come back to see his face covered with lipstick marks. Wow, that was so…wholesome. I guess we'll all have fun, fun, fun until Daddy needs to get himself some ass.
Commercials. When we return, Ryan reveals that Josh is in the bottom three for his first time. Yay! The two worst singers at least made it to the bottom three this week. And they show a couple of older African-American women standing up and cheering, only to identify them as Josh's family. Snerk. Somebody screwed up the seating chart. This is what happens when they keep moving people around to get the pretty ones up front. Ryan asks for judges' comments. Randy thinks Carmen deserves to go tonight. He hates her like she's made of tofu and wheat germ. Paula shockingly predicts that Carmen might go as well, but of course is incessantly nice about it, pointing out that it was great that she got as far as she did. Simon says that none of them in the bottom three have a chance of winning, so it doesn't really matter which one goes tonight.
Anyway, time to send somebody back. Trenyce is safe. Yay! She looks absolutely shocked. She thought she was a goner. Carmen gives her a hug, and we can all hear her say, "I told you so!" in Trenyce's ear. She's shocked that talent beat out popularity for one week. Considering how the show's been going, who isn't? Anyway, that leaves Carmen or Josh as the ejectee, so we're all winners here. Well, except for Carmen or Josh.
Commercials. When we return, Ryan tells us all that the dark rituals have failed. Carmen is gone. ["OH, IT HURTS JUST AS MUCH NOW, EVEN THOUGH I KNEW IT WAS COMING." -- Tsathoggua]. Ryan asks her about her "journey." She gives the blah blah about how great it is and smiles her Stepford smile. She gets her clip show where she tells us all how great everything is. They show clips of her in the skit she performed ten minutes ago. Her favorite moment from the show was posing for all the cameras when she went to the Academy of Arts and Sciences. The singing? Hello? What about the singing? See, this is the fame-whore answer. She doesn't care about music or anything. She just wants to be famous and stand on the red carpet. Hysterically, the clip ends with her sadly waving goodbye to us, except it's from that idiot skit where she's actually sadly waving goodbye to her [product-placed discontinued car]. From five minutes ago.
And unlike several of the better singers who have been bumped off the show, Carmen actually gets to sing us out. The other kids eventually file up behind her, looking like they're being forced to pose for a family portrait.
So Tsathoggua's minions have failed and the Seal will remain closed. Since I'm magnanimous in victory, why don't I let Tsathoggua get in the last word?
FOILED AGAIN. I SUPPOSE I SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT I'M NOT STUCK UNDER THE SEA LIKE CTHULHU. BUT YOU HUMANS ARE SO INCONSIDERATE! WHAT ABOUT MY NEEDS? DO I NOT DREAM? I DREAM! TWISTED DREAMS OF MELTING FLESH AND NON-EUCLIDIAN ARCHITECTURE. BUT DREAMS, NEVERTHELESS! IF YOU CUT ME, DO I NOT BLEED A FOUL-SMELLING, BLACK ICHOR? CAN'T I CATCH A BREAK NOW AND THEN? I JUST WANT TO WALK ON THE SURFACE FOR A WHILE AND LIE IN THE SUN AND RIDE ON A FERRIS WHEEL. AND MEET A FEW NEW FACES. AND EAT THEM. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? IT'S SO LONELY DOWN HERE. SO VERY LONELY.
AND IF YOU THINK I'M EVIL, YOU DON'T EVEN WANT TO KNOW WHO JOSH SERVES.