This is my 75th recap for Television Without Pity. Huzzah! I can't believe how much crap and tripe and utter dreck I've described. I hope you've enjoyed it.
Tuesday. Ryan "Soak Up The Sun" greets us from the Substitute Seal of Tsathoggua in what will be his last ugly outfit of the season. He has frilly Prince shirt cuffs, another homeless man's jacket, and his best five o'clock shadow. The audience counts down again as Ryan reminds us that 70,000 auditioned and blah blah blah. If you don't know what's going on at this point, then Paula wants you to tell your alien overlords she said hi.
Credits. The androgynous mascot is particularly disappointed that Clay didn't win, for obvious reasons.
Ryan heads back out onto the stage he was just on seconds ago to greet the cheering crowd. The stage looks slightly bigger for the new location, but not much. The audience is a lot larger, but somehow it's not very impressive. The [Product-Placed Camera Company] Theater from the first-season finale looked much more impressive. It was all the balconies or something. This just looks like the old studio, but bigger. I'm sure there's some sort of comment about the finals just being far less impressive this year, but I can't seem to find it. Oh, wait -- there it was, right there.
Ryan blathers on at length and uses more annoying sports analogies as he explains to us yet again that this is the final round and somebody's going to win, blah blah blah. He reminds us that last week there was only a two percent vote difference between Ruben and Clay. And they're extending the voting time for an hour, for those of you take a long time to get tired of hearing a busy signal. He then introduces Clay and Ruben out to the stage. Clay looks like a waiter at a chain Italian restaurant in his white shirt and black pants. Ruben is wearing a puffy black jacket with square patterns on it that looks like a car seat. In the audience, a public relations representative for Nabisco waves a sign that says, "Ruben is our chocolate Teddy Graham." Now there's a brilliant advertising strategy that slipped right by the producers. Maybe season they'll pick audience members based on whether or not they'll hold up signs promoting various products: "I love Ryan, but not as much as I love my plasma television!" Clay and Ruben both pretend to be shocked by the size of the crowd. They blather for a bit with Ryan about nothing, and then Ryan sends them back off stage to prepare for their songs.
After they're gone, Ryan introduces us to the judges, Simon "Jaded" Cowell, Paula "Mad Season" Abdul, and Randy "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of" Jackson. The judges are in the same place they usually are. See, they had that cool balcony box last season, like Statler and Waldorf on the The Muppet Show. Randy's wearing a stupid hat that looks like it should have a big card in the band that says "Press."
Ryan tells us that the two finalists will be performing three songs each tonight, before introducing Ruben "The Rising" Studdard back to the stage. But first, they show the same clip biography of Ruben they showed Monday night. I think it's the same. I'm so tired of the repetition that I'm not going to go check. The information is the same anyway. Ruben = Birmingham = velvet teddy bear = the judges' favorite.
Ryan introduces Ruben out to the Substitute Seal to sing Burt Bacharach's "A House Is Not A Home." Well, I never really liked Tamyra Gray's rendition of this song, and since I like Tamyra a thousand times more than I like Ruben, you can imagine what I think about his rendition. There's a lot warbling and unnecessary melisma (a New York Times reporter recently wrote a piece about the overwarbling of the contestants on American Idol and pretty much said everything I have to say on the subject, except better). But he sounds a lot smoother tonight in this number than he has in weeks. Anyway, it's a pretty good performance, but he's no more "into" this song than Clay is into any of his. As we pan across the audience, we can see that Simon is totally ignoring the performance and staring off into the audience.
Judges. Yo, yo, yo! Thing was done. Chills, dawg. Y'all. Man. Dude. You can guess whose responses those were. "Home is where the heart is, and ours is right here with you." You can guess whose responses those were. Simon says it's good, but not the best he's heard from Ruben. He's booed, of course. Ryan heads over to Ruben to blather that we can't vote yet, and to remind us that Clay is coming up. And to be on camera for a few more seconds. Mmmm…delicious screen time.
Commercials. Okay, there's a new "reality" show coming called Paradise Hotel. I was waiting for somebody to just finally rip all the pretensions off of reality television and just put together a show based entirely on pretty people wanting to be on camera for no discernable reason or purpose. And here we are. I mean, even Are You Hot? had some sort of fake contest excuse of trying to find the most attractive people. Paradise Hotel appears to have even less substance, if that's at all possible.
When we return, Ryan hangs out in the crowd and talks to a "celebrity" by the name of James Worthy. From my research, I can tell you that James Worthy is a pro basketball star who played a Klingon in an episode of Star Trek: The Generation. Jeez, that's the level of fame we're getting tonight? I remember last year when they had folks from Angel, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Mad TV all over the place. Of course, that was when the show was on during the summer and wasn't destroying everybody during sweeps. I'm betting these television stars are a lot less excited about the success of American Idol this season. James likes Ruben, if you care. You don't care. Nobody cares.
up is Clay "Don't Turn Off The Lights" Aiken, who has added a black jacket and shiny silver tie to his ensemble, so he doesn't look so much like a waiter anymore. They replay his clip show. Clay = special ed teacher = geeky = wild card = Simon hates him so very much. Interestingly, they pick his cheesiest song ("Grease") to show in his clips, which I'm sure doesn't feed any conspiracies at all.
Ryan introduces Clay out to the stage to sing an original song called "This Is The Night." It occurs to me that I don't think Clay or Ruben picked any of the songs they had to sing this week. Nobody says anything about it, and there's no explanation of how they were selected. So by original, Ryan meant "full of the same vapid lyrics, overwrought strings, and mawkish, undeserved sentimentality that hack songwriters like Diane Warren toss into all of their worthless pop ballads that somehow dominate the charts even though everybody hates them." The song has lyrics about kisses you can't take back and you have to seize the moment and carpe diem and blah blah blah. This is the song where the protagonist of any Disney cartoon discovers his or her inner strength. You know the one I'm talking about. And then they play it again over the closing credits. Each line in the chorus has three whole words, all the better to glory note the last one for about five seconds. There are lyrics about being in heaven and waiting for this night. Essentially, take all the lyrics from "A Moment Like This" and cut them up like magnetic poetry and rearrange. Do the same with the music. And that's how they made "This Is The Night." And of course, Clay melodramatically oversings every line. Oh, and this will be Clay's first single, so if you can stand listening to it, more power to you.
Judges. Randy says Clay blew his brains out. Amazingly, he means that in a good way. Amusingly, he says that he hates that song and hopes it isn't Clay's first single. He'll probably get his paycheck docked for that comment. Anyway, he thought Clay did a great job with an awful song. Paula says that Clay has the power to "transport us into [his] world" and "finds the matrix to a song." Matrix to a song? Paula, honey, they already filmed the third Matrix movie. You can kiss their asses all you want, but it's too late to snag yourself a cameo. Simon, in an effort to keep from having to praise Clay's singing or anything, says that it's astonishing how much better-looking he is now than when he first auditioned for the show. Simon spits out his Tourette's "I'm not being rude" comment before telling Clay that he used to be really ugly. Yeah, okay, Mr. Manboobs With '80s Hair. Nobody parts down the center anymore. Anyway, Simon thinks the song sounded like "American Idol: The Musical." You mean like that movie your corporate masters are producing to be released in the theaters in a month? The one that's a musical? You great big idiot? The audience boos, of course. Ryan heads out onstage to blather some more and get some more camera time. He warns us that Ruben and Clay will be performing songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. This was the point where I started looking for my cyanide capsules. As you can see, I never found them.
Commercials. How can they make The Fast And The Furious even more homoerotic? Replace Vin Diesel with a male supermodel in the sequel. Hysterical. Pretty, pretty drag racers.
When we return, Ryan blathers for a few minutes more before reintroducing Ruben out to sing John Lennon's "Imagine," a "haunting" song about rejecting organized religion, violence, and capitalism. So I guess I can understand why nobody involved with this show or FOX understood what it was about. They probably heard only "Imagine all the people…" and then dollar signs appeared in their eyes and their brains started going, "Ka-ching! Ka-ching!" and they didn't hear the rest.
Anyway, for the extra-cheesy treatment, Ruben is dressed all in white onstage, surrounded by a string quartet, while a guitar player accompanies him off to the side. Ruben gets a spotlight, while the quartet plays in the dark. It's an object lesson in How To Make Your Song Seem Really, Really Important And Reverent If You Aren't Capable Of Singing It That Way. Ruben warbles every single note, which cuts the emotional urgency out of the song and replaces it with shallow ornamentation. It just sounds like a bunch of words. A bunch of words set to melancholy music. At the end, the audience cheers Ruben. The string quartet stands and takes a bow. The audience ignores them and shouts, "Ruuuuuuube!" Yes, you're all rubes. Applaud away and then go out and buy a zillion albums.
Judges. Randy thought it sounded great, like a different type of performance from Ruben. Paula works the fucking song title into her compliment of Ruben, and I'm not recapping that shit. Again. Still. Hate her so much. So much. Simon says the song was "risky," but Ruben pulled it off. Not that Ruben probably had much choice in the matter anyway. Ryan comes out onstage and bumps hips with Ruben and nearly takes his hand in his own before thinking better of it. Secret lovers! That's what they are. Trying hard to hide the way they feel. Or not. He tells us to watch the commercials, because they cost an arm and a leg. Well, I'm not sure as hell not getting a cent from the commercials, so hello, fast-forward button.
Yeah, whatever, Pirates of the Caribbean. Call me when they make a movie about "The Enchanted Tiki Room." In the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki room! [Cough.] Sorry.
When we return, Ryan introduces Clay to sing The Beatles's "Here, There, and Everywhere." It's not one of their more famous numbers, so at least I don't have to cry (again) over another musical standard getting butchered. Clay gets a harpist off to the side. He also gets the worst stage lighting in the history of ever. It's yellow lighting that's hitting him directly from above, making his hair glow, yet not illuminating the rest of him. It makes him look like an evil imp in a really bad horror movie. ["THAT'S THE KIND OF LIGHTING I'M ORDERING IF I EVER GET OUT FROM UNDER HERE." -- Tsathoggua] He sits on The Stool Of Romance to sing this so very, very serious love song. You know that it's serious by the way Clay sings unblinkingly directly into the camera. Trying to bore his way into our souls. Or perhaps one of the other definitions of "bore"? Possibly. Anyway, the good thing about this performance is that he holds some of the notes steady without getting all fancy. But it's a pretty forgettable performance. And in the musical that defines Clay's performances, this is the song early in act one where the protagonist swoons over the female lead, but is too afraid (or has some other plot-necessitated barrier) to act on his feelings.
Judges. Randy declares that it was a "very safe song," but still thinks that Clay is "da bomb." Paula declares the performance "haunting." I think she was referring to the scary lighting. Clay gives Simon a "Well?" look, prompting Simon to toss up his hands in a "What?" gesture. Simon says it was pretty, but he wasn't "blown away." He thinks that both Clay and Ruben are saving their best for the final round. Oh, if only. Ryan comes out and tells us all that they're doing a poll of favorite crappy [product-placed car] commercials, and rerunning the winner tomorrow night. You won't get any complaints from me. That's sixty seconds I won't have to recap. Viewers are asked to choose from the stupid diner skit, the stupid pimp skit, or the stupid Ryan-likes-girls skit.
Commercials. We return to the final round. Yay! Final round! Ryan introduces Ruben out to sing what will be his first single, "Flying Without Wings." This is a song that was originally sung by Westlife, that boy band Simon started that none of us have heard of. Way to spend those truckloads of money y'all are making. Maybe they'll save even more money for hookers and blow by having Ruben's first album consist of only songs that are only in the public domain. You'll just love his rendition of "That Old Gray Mare"!
So Ruben heads out to the Substitute Seal in an outfit that looks almost exactly like the outfit he wore in the last round, except in black. In this is yet another vapid, meaningless, Successories poster of a song about finding love and seizing the moment and whatever. You can find love in the faces of your loved ones or by sharing or being happy or dancing on clouds and dreaming about rainbows. It's awful. You'll be happy when you find something that you love! Thanks for the newsflash, but I'm not stupid. There's a moment where the camera goes behind Ruben and I think I can see Ryan getting his make-up retouched in front of the stage. Then, suddenly, there's a gospel chorus on stage, trying to give this song far more weight than it actually deserves. Ruben warbles every single note. We see the judges, joining the audience in that stupid slow wave they do for ballads. Simon looks utterly bored. He looks like a teenage boy humoring his six-year-old little sister as he lets Paula wave his arm back and forth. Oh God, the insipidness of the lyrics: "You’re my special thing. I'm flying without wings." "Special thing"? Thing? Thing? Jesus.
Judges. Randy and Paula give Ruben a standing ovation. Paula calls the performance a "religious experience" and makes some comment about the "Church of Ruben." That's a cult, dear. Clay's got one, too. They're scary. Simon says it was fantastic, and that Ruben saved the best for last. Accolades all around for the insipid suck song that I have no intention of listening to voluntarily again, ever. Ryan comes out and points out that Ruben is sweating all over the place. Ryan is rather happy about Ruben's sweat. I don't want to know. Ryan gives Ruben's blah blah blah text-message-cakes, finally.
We don't get a commercial break before Clay's final performance, which sort of surprises me. There's been one between every single performance tonight. Ryan introduces Clay back out to the stage to sing "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Excuse me for a moment. I have to go choke back the bile. I knew that I was going to hate this performance before I ever even saw it, but I decided that I would give it a chance. Sure, the song needs a very subtle touch to keep from becoming overwrought and sentimental, instead of melancholy, yet uplifting. And sure, Clay all but brought The Frying Pan Of Talent with him out onstage. But there's a chance it could work. Couldn't it? Couldn't it?
No, it couldn't. First of all, the arrangement is terrible. It's all full of brass and strings and is loud and intrusive. There are some truly cringe-inducing brass riffs between verses that would sound tacky in a Vegas show. And the gospel choir is still out there. They're singing some fake verse and snapping their fingers as Clay heads out to the microphone. It looks like I'm watching a fucking televangelist right now. Clay heads out to the Substitute Seal in a Ryan-esque striped shirt with an oversized collar. I guess he didn't have enough time to button his cuffs when he changed. Everybody snaps and sways their way through the song. Clay's rendition is a very smarmy Buck Up, Little Camper rendition, as opposed to the Please Don't Kill Yourself, Because I'll Help You Through This version it used to be. Congratulations, folks. You turned "Bridge Over Troubled Water" into "Climb Every Mountain" from The Sound of Music. I couldn't be more pained by this rendition if Clay actually did climb through the television set and literally hit me in the face with a frying pan. I never want to hear Clay sing this song ever again. Ever. Never. Mind you, I don't hate Clay or his singing. Just as with Ruben, I don't give a flying fig about him anymore. I just hate this rendition of this song. Bring me the head of the person who arranged this backing orchestration and vocals. Right now. Just the head. I want to know that this will never happen again. The sheet music for this number needs to be burned, and then buried. And then salt the earth there so that nothing ever grows. And then pave the earth above it. And then build a Hardee's on top so nobody will even set foot there. The last note is like the king of glory notes. It adds nothing to the song at all other than "Look how high I can sing!" Hate it so much. Hate. A tiny piece of my soul just died.
Of course, I'm in the vast minority. The audience shrieks and applauds. Randy and Paula give him another standing ovation. Randy says he didn't know Clay could hit that note. See, all they notice is the fucking glory note. That's exactly why the contestants sing it. The glory note must be stopped! Paula declares that Clay is a "true artist" because he took a classic song and made us feel like we were hearing it for the first time. No, he took a classic song and made me feel like he was kicking it to death onstage. Look, it's over there in the corner, whimpering. It's saying, "Please don't let that waxy, melodramatic boy record me. It hurts so much." Simon pulls out a gun and shoots Clay in the head to make certain Ruben wins. Oh, he does not. I bet he wants to, though. Simon says that Clay has been a little off this evening. The audience boos. Simon adds a big "however" that this performance could win Clay the contest. Ryan heads out onstage and gives Clay's blah blah blah text-message-cakes.
Commercials. I just can't wait to never hear from that obnoxious text-messaging girl ever again. Also, [product-placed car] drivers are so stupid that they don't know the difference between a parking lot and a football stadium.
When we return, Ryan heads back downstage for those pointless [product-placed cola] non-terviews. Are they more nervous tonight? Clay says they're not. He says it's in God's hands now. I'm assuming God has a better long-distance provider than all the other voters, then. I guess he would have to. I can't imagine even a benevolent, all-powerful deity trying to deal with Verizon without losing his temper. And I just realized why I don't have the power to smite people. I was fine with Clay's comment until he kept going on and on about how it was God's decision who wins. I just picked up a pen on my table, tossed it up in the air, and put it back down. Did God decide I was going to do that? It's called free will. Sometimes God allows us to decide what happens. Many religions believe in it, including many Christian ones, if I understand correctly. Otherwise, we wouldn't have anything to repent and there wouldn't be any sin. Anyway, now that I've guaranteed myself a hundred angry emails that I will simply delete without a response, back to the show. They recap all the performances from tonight.
Oh, but we're not done yet. I totally forgot about this. After the clip show, Ryan is back on the stage. He introduces Paul Anka out on the stage to sing "My Way," but with the lyrics altered to fit the show. Another Las Vegas performer desperate to resurrect faded glory. Paul's head is made of plastic now. No wonder they don't really do any close-ups of him. As he sings stupid altered lyrics (which are, nevertheless, better than the lyrics to both "This Is The Night" and "Flying Without Wings"), they show clips of Clay and Ruben in their stupid [product-placed car] skits. There's an amusing outtake we haven't seen before of Ruben beating up Clay. Coincidence or foreshadowing? Then Paul sings about the judges. There is a funny verse about Simon: "We see / judge number three. / And most agree, / who there's no pleasin'. / They say he pries, / the wings off flies. / That's what he does / in the off-season." Hee. Those are good lyrics. He even rips off a good glory note of his own at the end to point out that being able to sing a note really loud and really long is not actually much of an indicator of talent. When he's done, Ryan, Clay, and Ruben head back to the Substitute Seal to tell us all that the lines are open. And then they're immediately shut down again when 200 million people all try to cast votes at the same time. Oops.
Two hours to go.
Wednesday. Hi, I'm Ryan Seacrest with a bunch of screaming young women. We've discovered that we get really high ratings with anything we air with the words American Idol in front of it, so we're going to run for two hours for the finale, even though we actually only have thirty minutes of performances to fill up the time before we reveal the winner. We're going to milk this American Idol thing for all it's worth. season, you can expect to see American Idol Presents: Bernie Mac and The American Idol Festival Of Unaired Episodes Of Shows We Previously Cancelled. It's our gift from us to…us, we hope, once the numbers come in.
Credits. Ryan greets us outside the auditorium, in front of the aforementioned gathering of screaming, pretty young people. Wooooo! We get to be on television because we're attractive! Wooooo! Ryan blathers and reminds us that there are two left and the votes were close and blah blah blah clip show segue. They take clips from the lengthy clip show they threw together called "The Best Of The Worst" or "The Best And The Worst" (I don't think they ever settled on the title) and clip them for us to clip through again. Clip. Yes, I have lost my mind. Thanks for noticing. There's Dino again. Some guy singing "I'm So Excited" in leather pants. A girl shrieking. One of those guys who can't sing "The Star Spangled Banner." Clips. More clips of comments that the judges made during a clip show. CLIPS! Now in ranch flavor! Would you like some fish and clips? All lunch specials come with your choice of egg salad, pasta salad, or clips. Help me -- I can't stop saying "clip." That girl with vibrato sings. That stupid guy sings "Baby Got Back," which reminds me that I have to go kill whoever it was who greenlit using that song in that Apple music downloading commercial. Clips. Cliiiiiips. Clips! Nate! Mariah Scary! Edgar, Enrique's very special cousin!
But why stick to just clips from the American version of the show? Let's show some clips of bad auditions in other countries! Clips! A painfully white British boy directs traffic as he sings "La Vida Loca." A girl wearing plastic sheeting (really) and waving a magic wand (really) sings "O, Cwistmas Twee [sic]." The German version of Stoned Silent Night Guy mutters his way through "Dust In The Wind" with his eyes closed. Another painfully white guy dances badly. A German guy in a ridiculous mismatched suit plays up to the cameras to be on television. A girl in Lebanon sings…not that badly. I mean, it's a song I've never heard in another language, but she's no worse than half of our finalists this season. Some other boy really is bad, no matter what language he's singing in. Some guy in France sings aggro-punk-rap and honestly isn't that bad. He's in the wrong venue, of course, but if he were American, he could probably make a name for himself. The same could not be said for the giant from Agent Cooper's dreams in Twin Peaks, who also auditioned in France. There's also a dancing guy with scary, scary eyes, who I think must be the French version of Edgar. The clips conclude with our favorite "Like A Virgin" Keith, who they crown "Worst Singer In The World." They even Photoshop in a really badly drawn crown and first-place ribbon. They appear to have been drawn by a third grader who is missing a couple of fingers. What are they spending all this money on? I've really got to know.
As the bumper to the commercial break, several people declare that Ruben is going to win. On the bumper back, several people declare that Clay is the winner. Some of these people have hair that isn't terribly frightening.
Right after some people praise Clay, we cut to a picture of Elton John hanging in a hallway. Hee! I loved that editing. Okay, it was a little mean, but I loved it anyway. Ryan wanders down the hallway and into the frame. I see we're following the rule of threes here. Ryan cracks a sex joke about getting searched by security. He's wearing all black, incidentally. It's very Johnny Cash, if Johnny Cash were a preening, plastic, manorexic, sex-addicted closet case. He's heading over to visit the finalists in their dressing rooms. They did the exact same thing with Kelly (deleted) and Justin last season. It reminds me of The Bachelor, which does the exact same thing every season in the same order, but acts as though it's inventing the wheel with each iteration. Ryan heads first into Ruben's dressing room, which is painted an awful combo of purple and red. Those two colors are supposed to go together, but since they're used in equal amounts, they just look too bold together. Oh, this isn't a Trading Spaces recap, is it? Then I'd be telling Ty to shut up instead of Ryan. Anyway. Ruben is sprawled out on a chair to a monitor. He's wearing all white. Ryan plops down to him and asks him if he's nervous. Nope. At all? Nope. Does he think he'll win? We'll see. Okay, then. Since Ruben has used up his ten-word quota, Ryan throws us over to the monitor, where we get to visit the big 205: Birmingham. FOX Affiliate Clone 221 greets us all at some rally at a church, where people hold signs and show support for Ruben. FOX Affiliate Clone 221 interviews Ruben's uncle and voice coach. In a shocking twist, they both support Ruben and hope he wins. Ah ha -- Ruben's high school colors are green and orange, which explains that one especially ugly 205 shirt. Ruben wiggles around in his chair. He looks particularly large in this segment. I mean, he normally looks kind of big. But it's not so obvious when he's singing. And in a bit of bad "comedy" that makes me wish death, or at least crabs, on some unidentified writer, Ryan reveals that Ruben has "taken" the state of Alabama. You know, like in a presidential election? Live in the now, people! I know that all your judges and songs are past the sell-by date, but you could at least make your jokes current.
Ryan wishes Ruben luck, then heads across the hall to see Clay, who is apparently being kept on the old set of Laugh-In. It's all purple and pink with flowery psychedelic patterns. Ryan "jokes" that it looks like his place. Clay is also all in white. Is Clay as calm as Ruben? Yes. He is. He's looking forward to the results. Bleah. Of course, there's a monitor so they can view the folks hanging out at a stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina. They talk to FOX Affiliate Clone 39, who sounds like Fred Schneider of the B-52s, but five hundred times more annoying. And he's about as incomprehensible as Paula: "This is Claymania like nobody's business tonight." I suddenly feel like I'm watching a parody of a remote feed on The Daily Show. Clay's ninth-grade music teacher is there. She says she's sick of the way he oversings everything. No. No, she's not. She loves her Clay and hopes that he wins. Clay's best friend, Amanda? Also supports Clay. She misses him and hopes he'll come home soon. Oh, Amanda, honey. You'll never see Clay, ever again. He's heading to 19 Entertainment/RCA music mines, where he'll be driven like a slave fifteen hours a day to churn out crappy pop ballads. Then Ryan reveals that Clay has "taken" the state of North Carolina. Clay hams it up and pretends to be excited, rather than reaching over and ripping off one of Ryan's eyebrows, which is what I would have done.
As a bumper to the commercial, one woman details at length that she's going to be upset no matter who loses. That's so very sad.
Skin: It's Romeo and Juliet, but with porn! Just the way it was always meant to be.
Wanda Sykes thinks Ruben will win. Brooke Burke -- who, as a million people emailed me, hosts Wild On, not Dog Eat Dog, as I previously reported -- casts her vote for Clay. Regis and Kelly like Ruben. Eric Close likes Clay. Quentin Tarantino likes Ruben. Tarantino's been out of the loop so long, they feel the need to identify him as a screenwriter/director in his captions, just in case we didn't know.
Ryan wanders into the judges' dressing room, which actually looks like the lobby at a fairly nice hotel. Simon is still participating in I Love The '80s by wearing a tie-less suit with the shirt open halfway down his chest. Paula's wearing a sleeveless red cocktail gown that looks rather classically stylish for her. The earrings are a bit too flashy, but that's really the worst I can say about her look tonight. Randy is wearing a boring suit, but has an orange tie. Ryan plops down between them on a sofa and asks if they're all excited and stuff. Simon looks dreadfully bored, as usual. He's not having sex or rolling in big piles of money, and really, what else is there to be excited about? Paula's happy, of course. Simon blathers away sarcastically about "giving back to the community." The only reason Ryan's even in here is so that they can show the [product-placed cola] refrigerator positioned prominently in the background. Simon and Ryan have a big fake hug over the whole fake "giving back to the community" thing.
And to prove that there are no depths to which a FOX show won't sink to humiliate others in order to create "good television," and nor are there any depths to which fame whores will not sink in order to get another few seconds in the spotlight, American Idol has brought back several of the bad singers (voluntarily, I assume) to butcher "Sing (Sing A Song)." For us to laugh at, of course. Even if the show "tricked" these kids into participating, they have nobody but themselves to blame. They've been watching the show. They had to know that they've been openly mocked, sometimes five or six times. But no, they're desperate fame whores who aren't going to let a little thing like shame or self-respect prevent them from another few seconds of media attention. They film the kids singing in various different locations -- badly, of course. Edgar's there, the creepy naïve twins and the creepy blonde twins are there, Cedric the pimp is there in his hot banana suit, the creepy boy with phony falsetto is there, Si-NOT-ra is there, the guy who sang the national anthem through his nose is there, Mariah Scary is there, and the girl with the jackhammer vibrato is there. Oh, Patrick Lake is there, too. Mind you, he very nearly made it into the final twelve, but here he is, participating. And even if they tricked him, Mr. "Rocker" agreed to sing some cheesy little song just to get back on television for a few seconds. Because he's a big phony.
Interestingly, neither Keith nor Nate participates. The creepy blonde twins are wearing bikinis and playing around near the edge of the ocean. They still creep me out. Edgar shrieks from a rooftop. Mariah Scary sings to the photo of herself and her idol, an experiment in cloning gone seriously awry. There's some guy I swear I've never seen before, muttering the lyrics on a Ferris wheel. It also goes on way, way too long. This goes on longer than any of the actual songs the actual finalists ever sang. Edgar needs a cue for some of the lyrics -- the part that goes, "La la la la la. La la la la la la. La la la la la la laaaaah." He asks the camera when the auditions are. The end. We hope you enjoyed tonight's episode of When Fame Whores Attack Your Eardrums.
Back behind the scenes, Ryan finally works his way out onto the stage to show us all the screaming fans. The fans cooperate by screaming. He blathers on that the vote is really close, then sends us out to commercials yet again.
"This is how it's done in Orange County!" Oh, my God. That commercial for The OC. I just don't have words. Anybody who writes for film or television in Southern California should be required to live somewhere else in the country for one out of every five years. I can't imagine how anybody who has ever actually lived in the world could write something like, "This is how it's done in Orange County!" without tipping over laughing afterward. And somebody needs to have his ass kicked for using Coldplay's "Trouble" in that promo.
We return to the stage, where Ryan blathers on some more about the voting. We still have ninety minutes left. Sigh. Ryan brings Clay and Ruben out onto the stage. People cheer. comes The Great Math Scandal. Ryan reveals that the winner received 50.28 percent of the vote, while the loser has 49.72 percent of the vote. Out of 24 million votes, only 13,000 votes separate the two of them. The actual number is somewhere around 130,000 votes, but math is for silly people like business managers. I was amused by the number of folks in the media who clutched to this mistake like it was some sort of indication of anything. It was a misplaced decimal point.
Gah! I had totally ignored this whole segment on first viewing. Clay and Ruben ham it up behind Ryan, pretending to fight. This segues into a segment by Sugar Ray Leonard, who gives us the "stats" on our two contenders. We get stupid weight and height and age figures. Ruben's weight is "a lot." Oh, this is just a clip show for last night's performances. That's why I ignored it. It just has this stupid boxing gimmick. They sang. You watched. Sugar Ray Leonard paid his rent. There's nothing left for me to say about it. There's a shot of Ruben and Clay staring face-to-face. Clay pretends that he's scared.
Back onstage, a single spotlight shines down on a performer onstage. By the opening notes, I believe that it's Pat Benatar singing just hours after receiving a tracheotomy. Oh, my mistake. It's Kelly Clarkson (deleted), last year's winner. It's really, really not good. It's some song called "One Voice," another one of those crap-ass "Up With People" everybody is wonderful and we should all love each other and not get road rage just because some asshole cuts us off on the highway while talking on his cell phone type of songs. It's wretched. Kelly (deleted) sings a verse. She's also dressed in white. Clay and Ruben then join her onstage and they sing together, their voices blending together like vinegar, vodka, and fabric softener. Suddenly the other finalists (sans Corey and Josh) come out and join them. They're all in white as well. The Mysterious Gospel Chorus Of Mystery joins them also. The chorus is in blue robes, just because. Nobody blends with anybody, which is amusing considering the whole "One Voice" thing. It's really, really bad. Everyone sounds like he or she is singing a totally different song. To put it in Simon parlance, it's like The Tower Of Babel: The Musical. Kelly (deleted) hits one note terribly sharp, and I've never, ever heard her make a mistake that bad, no matter how sick she was during the first season. It's amazingly wretched. Kelly actually shrieks her way to the end of it. The audience shrieks in support anyway.
Commercials. When we return, Ryan is standing to Michael Chiklis from The Shield. He looks like just the daddy that Ryan is looking for. Michael flexes a bicep for us. Ryan asks him what he would do if Simon talked to him the way he talks to the contestants. Michael says he'd reenact some scene from The Shield where he beat up some guy with a phone book. The audience doesn't respond, because they've never watched the show. Nobody watches The Shield except for critics and Emmy voters. I'm sure it's a wonderful show, given all the praise, but nobody watches it. Well, perhaps I shouldn't assume that it deserves the praise after hearing everybody go ga-ga over that poorly written Boomtown tripe. Who does Michael think is going to win? He doesn't know.
But back to Kelly (deleted) on stage, performing her first single from her album, "Miss Independent." Again. Okay, I want to know exactly why, when Kelly (deleted) won the first season because of her amazing vocal range and musical interpretation, they have her first single as a song that's practically half spoken-word and half screaming. Because this song is awful. And Kelly (deleted) sounds awful "singing" it. She's wearing a leather jacket and has dumped the back-up dancers this time. But her singing is just…yuck. I'm sure it will be a big hit. ["As of this performance, I'm afraid I'm severing my connections with Kelly entirely. I'm going to hang out in a small, provincial town in the south of France with the Gyllenhaals until the big thing comes around. And by that, I don't mean Ruben." -- The (Eeeeeee!)]
After she's done, Ryan wanders over to Kelly to tell her that they're going to do something they didn't practice in rehearsals, so we can all be sure that he'll fuck it up somehow. Clive Davis is here with some sort of special presentation. Ryan tells us he's worked with all sorts of famous singers and groups, some of whom are actually talented. Ryan says that he's the only non-performer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but that's so very, very not true. He's the chairman and CEO of RCA. Blah blah blah. It's Clive! Clive lurches out onto the stage, the souls of all the performers he's signed struggling to escape from the confines of his Navy Blue Blazer Of Evil. ["THE MAN IS AMAZING. THE TALE OF HOW THAT GHOUL ESCAPED THE BONEYARDS OF THE DREAMLANDS AND TOOK ON HUMAN FORM, EVENTUALLY BECOMING A GOD AMONG MEN, IS THE KIND OF UPLIFTING STORY THAT MOVES ME TO TEARS." -- Tsathoggua] Clive blathers on and on and tells us that they just finished recording Justin's album. They've already started recording Clay and Ruben. He pretty much tells us that it doesn't matter who wins, because they're both going to get good deals. After some more blather, he tells us that Kelly's album has just gone platinum. He very nearly smacks her in the face by accident when he gestures to her. Heh. Clay and Ruben bring out the framed platinum album and present it to Kelly, who pretends that she didn't know.
Oh God, no. Don't make me recap this part. I'll re-recap that Paula Abdul medley from last season if you don't make me recap this skit. Please? Pretty please? Fine.
SimonandPaulapretendtobeloverstheykissSimonwakesupwithRandy.
Oh, fine. I hate you all. Paula and Simon are having a romantic dinner while the extra-orgasmic version of "Love To Love You Baby" plays in the background. Gather your kids around the television, parents! This here's some all-ages entertainment! Simon pops a cork and pours wine. Paula makes orgasm faces. I crush a bowling ball with my bare hands. Paula licks her lips. Shack is getting angry. You don't want to make Shack angry. Simon feeds Paula a strawberry. Grrrr. Shack getting really angry at all the awful! Paula licks whipped cream off Simon's finger. Graaaaah! Shack smash things! Simon and Paula kiss in slow motion, their mouths open wide enough swallow billiard balls. Grrrragggh! Destroy things! Must destroy city! The music screeches, and Simon suddenly wakes up in bed, fully clothed. He declares, "What a horrible nightmare!" Suddenly, Randy, also dressed, throws over the covers to him and declares, "Yo, dawg! You're supposed to be sleeping!" Both men scream at the camera. Shack destroy all life! All life on Earth! Graaaaaagh!
You should have just let me skip that part. Look what you did! You destroyed all life on Earth! I hope you're happy.
Commercials. One hour left, people!
They show the opening credits again, just in case all the God talk and the choir and the really bad singing had caused you to think you were watching the Christian Broadcasting Network instead. Ryan greets us on the Substitute Seal with some more blather. Now his shirt is white. Either he changed it, or my eyes were bleeding so much that I thought it was black earlier. He gives another blathering intro speech. They did this last year, too. Why are they trying to treat this like it's two shows? It's so stupid. Knock it off. He asks audience members whom they support. People scream. Whatever. Ryan asks if there are any Jim Verraros fans in the audience. Three girls who are still in denial (and reportedly, Jim Verraros himself) scream and applaud. Ryan reminds us of everything he said in the first hour. And last night. And every single week since the dawn of famewhorism.
Ryan reintroduces the judges for us, then points out that many of the guest judges from over the season are there in the crowd. R.J. Helton is out there in the audience, too, if anybody cares. He's still got that robotic smile on his face. I think Verdine brought his boyfriend with him. Awesome! No, it's not R.J.
And to recognize all the hard work of the judges who really did nothing but give the kids bland praise, the finalists (again, sans Corey and Josh) are brought back together to sing a medley of songs by the guest judges. Oh, I see -- the show is punishing the guest judges for being so boring. Ryan also warns us that this is the level of performance we'll be seeing if we go to any of the shows on the tour. The kids all head out to the Substitute Seal dressed like boring Gap models with blue tops and khakis. They start with Earth Wind and Fire's "Let's Groove" for Verdine. They dance with the well-known "we don't have time to teach these kids to actually dance" shuffle and hip swivel. Rickey falsettos his way through a solo. Trenyce gets a solo of "Paybee Love" -- er, I mean, "Baby Love" for Lamont. She sounds absolutely perfect tonight. I mean, y'all know she's my favorite so I'm not the most objective, but she doesn't have any of the breathiness or lower-register problems that normally plague her. Very solid. Ruben gets a solo of Smokey Robinson's "Tears Of A Clown," and I like it. You know, I realized that I prefer Ruben singing up-tempo songs. They feel less like he's mimicking Vandross. Incidentally, I think Kimberley Locke may be an even worse dancer than Clay. Kimberley gets the lead for "Midnight Train to Georgia," with Ruben, Charles, and Rickey playing her Pips. Charles is getting a little too excited with the back-up dancing. Anyway, like Trenyce, Kimberley is really on tonight. Gladys Knight claps and sings along in the audience.
The four boys sing "Words" from the Bee Gees, and they sound dull. They do harmonize well, though. Falling into the category of "completely embarrassing" is the rendition of "Physical" by Carmen, Julia, and Kim Caldwell. Carmen writhes around with a solo about how much she wants to have sex. What happened to our sweet, sweet virgin jailbait? ["DON'T FORGET, SHE LOST HER VIRGINITY TO A BOTTLE OF SHAMPOO AND LOVED IT. NOW WE'VE LOST HER TO THE JOYS OF CARNAL PLEASURES." -- Tsathoggua] Julia gets a solo and sounds nice, if a little bit soulless, like a zombie. Kimberly gets a solo, and of course she walks up to sing directly into the camera. Hi! I'm Kimberly! Look at me! Hi! I'm on television, singing! Hi! I'm Kimberly! Olivia Newton-John stands in the audience, wearing a pained smile on her face. She'd probably be crying, if all the facelifts hadn't sealed off her tear ducts. Charles and Vanessa get a duet of Neil Sedaka's "That's When The Music Takes Me," a fun little upbeat number that works well for both of them. Charles's voice isn't the best tonight, but they're both having fun. Then Clay gets a solo of Lionel Richie's "Hello." Whap! I can sing! Whap! I can sing! Listen to me turn every note into an exercise in going over the top! The medley concludes with an awful group rendition of Diane Warren's wretched "Rhythm Of The Night." The kids run out into the audience, of course. Kimberly points and stares into a camera again. Look! I'm Kimberly! I'm on television! They head back onstage to finish the songs. Sparklers go off on the back of the stage. They end with the required medley pointy pose. Yay! The pointy pose!
Ooh, there's Mark Valley in the audience. See, they forced their actors out after all. They probably should have captioned him and mentioned Keen Eddie if they wanted that cross-promotional thing to actually work.
Commercials. When we return, Ryan reads more fake blather off a card about Clay and Ruben "taking" various states. Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up! We've still got forty minutes here, people. So Ryan brings out Clay, Ruben, and Kimberley to sing for us their songs from the compilation CD that I have no intention of ever buying. Of course, I hardly ever buy any music at all, anyway, so the market is hardly quaking in its boots. Anyway. Clay sings "On The Wings Of Love." Ruben sings "Superstar." Kimberley sings "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." They do this weird, cheesy thing where they blend the three songs together at the end, turning it into another medley. They all sound the way they always sound. I told you the wad was shot. Actually, I think Kimberley should let "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" go. I think some of the songs she performed in the contest -- ones that she didn't have years to perfect -- sound better, more interesting, and a little more spontaneous. The audience cheers. There's Justin Guarini in the audience, wearing the grim smile of somebody who's realizing that his fifteen minutes will probably be up by the end of June.
Commercials. Ryan milks that stupid electoral college thing some more. Than Ruben heads back out to the stage in a black suit with a white tie to sing that wretched "Flying Without Wings" song again. When you do things that make you happy, you'll find that you're happy. That's really what this song is saying. The song is demonstrating the reflexive property of mediocre pop ballads. Happy = happy. The Mysterious Choir Of Mystery is back as well. Bleah. Awful. When he's done, Ryan comes out and sends us to the FOX Affiliate Clone back in Birmingham. She reassures us that Birmingham still supports Ruben. One of Ruben's pastors praises him. For some unknown reason, the guy talks like Martin Lawrence in drag in Big Momma's House. He tells us that they all love Ruben. Another pastor says the same. They show the crowd cheering for five minutes.
Now it's Clay's turn. He comes back out to sing "Bridge Over Troubled Water" again. Hate! Haaaaaaate! I refuse to say anything further about this cover of the song. Other than the following: Hate! When he's done, Ryan insists that people are talking about that song in front of the water cooler. Like Ryan would know. Ryan sends us back over to FOX Affiliate Clone in Raleigh. He's even more obnoxious, if that's at all possible. A former roommate of Clay's says that he was a slob. College friends of Clay again show their support. People in Raleigh love Clay! Ryan snarkily points out that the reporter seems more excited about Clay than his own friends. Then there's some more crap-ass electoral college humor. Clay "takes" Ohio. Whatever.
Commercials. When we return, Ryan blathers with some pretty young girls in the audience. Clay is going to win! No, it's Ruben! Clay! Ruben! Shut up! I don't care! Anyway, they found a duet for the Ruben and Clay to do that won't make them sound gay or anything. It's the disco song "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now." They do a dance that literally involves them just walking in sync, and the audience shrieks and cheers. The song is filled to the brim with boring. Their voices don't blend well. This disco song has all the energy of a sleep clinic. Bleah.
Ryan comes out to the stage to blather away some more and reveal the winner of the favorite [product-placed car] skit. It was the pimp skit with the final four. They show it again. I roll my eyes. Again.
Commercials. Remember that we are not watching American Juniors.
When we return, it's time to finally reveal the winner. Finally! Sleep! Seriously, my eyes are red and raw from writing nonstop for the past two days. Oh, but first, they have to go over the judges' comments. I've forgotten all the songs by now. Paula and Randy loved everything. Simon loved everything Ruben did, and Clay's final number. Any final comments from the judges? Randy says they're both winners and loves them both and they're both his dawgs, yo! Paula says they're all great and they're going to have to keep competing to stay on top. She blathers on some more, then concludes that "no kid ever wanted to grow up to be a critic." Did any of them ever grow up to want to be a washed-up, untalented basket case, Paula? And I'll have you know I sent letters to the editor of my daily newspaper when I was around twelve years old, offering to write movie reviews from a kid's perspective because they panned a movie I liked (A Christmas Story, believe it or not). In conclusion, shut up, Paula, you brain-damaged, strung-out, Botoxed gargoyle. Simon starts by pointing out that he still can't understand anything Paula says. Typically, she says then that her work is done. Which, you'll note, also makes absolutely no sense. Simon blathers on that the competition this year was "image versus talent," and talent won. For some reason, he says this is a good thing, like he hadn't been pimping image nonstop in the early rounds. He says that the big competition comes later, because they're both going to be releasing their first single on the same day, essentially rendering this entire week moot. Thanks so much. I'm on page million of this recap and now I find out that the results don't even matter.
Time to actually reveal the winner! Yay! Ryan tells us that it's the closest vote in American Idol history. Of course, that's bound to happen when your voting technology can't keep up with demand. They both got as many votes as the system would allow. Then Ryan explains that the original numbers he quoted as the difference between the winner and the loser were wrong, and reads off a different number that also turns out to be wrong. Heh. Clay stares at Ruben during this whole thing, because it turns out he accidentally got a peek at the card a few minutes ago, and he knows who the winner is. And the winner -- is not Clay. The winner is Ruben. Ruben! Wooooooooo! I get to sleep! Oh, I hope you don't think that "Woooooooo!" is about Ruben winning, because I so very don't care. It doesn't matter. I wouldn't care if Clay won, either. And as Simon pointed out, they're both being treated like winners anyway. If only that information would stop the conspiracy theories. But they won't. Because conspiracies are just that way.
Anyway, everybody cheers. Ruben's supporters cheer. The judges cheer. Ruben and Clay hug. It's going to take some dry cleaning to get all that sweat off Clay's jacket. How does Ruben feel? He feels great, y'all. Ryan comments that Ruben's speechless, because he's normally such a motormouth. Then Ruben is forced to sing "Flying Without Wings" again to remind us that, just as in "The Lottery," sometimes winning isn't always a good thing. The Mysterious Choir Of Mystery joins him back out onstage to sing. The kids come out. Kimberly Caldwell is, of course, right by Ruben's side in order to get some of his reflected fame. When he's done, Ryan tries to pull Clay and Ruben back out for more interviews, but Ruben is too busy giving big velvet teddy bear hugs, so it's just Clay. Clay says that Ruben is one of the most talented people he knows and his best friend. He's very happy for everybody and everything. He jokes that he's going to beat Ruben up later for "stealing his title," and the two of them pretend to box each other. Anybody who took that exchange seriously (and I know that some of you did) needs to go outside for some fresh air. Ryan asks if Ruben's ready for the fame and speculation and gossip and overworking and bad music and eventual self-destruction that comes from being a pop singer. He is. He tells us all that he loves us. Clay says that Ruben ordered him not to cry if he wins, so he turns around and orders Ruben not to cry. We can't tell if Ruben's crying or not because his face is covered with sweat. Ruben gives a shout-out to all his friends, family, and the judges. So does Clay. Ruben's family is allowed onstage to hug their guy. As does Clay's. The families all seem to get along well, too. The judges head onstage, and everybody mingles as the season comes to an end.
And just as with the Jim Verraros camera-whoring at the end of the finale last season, we get a perfectly appropriate and symbolic shot to end with. While chatting away, Paula nearly pitches herself backwards off the stage and has to be grabbed by the folks around her to keep from falling. Just perfect.
And just as we were all a bit surprised at how popular the show remained this season, I've been continually surprised at all the responses I've been getting from the readers, so I just want to give a shout-out to all of you for reading and posting and making us so popular that, well, it occasionally causes the site to stop functioning properly. There are about 200 emails in my mailbox that I haven't had time to respond to yet, so don't think I'm ignoring you. You all are the greatest! And so is Sars, who fixes my mistakes and keeps me from going crazy. Crazier. ["Clip! I mean, 'You're very welcome.'" -- Sars]
Y'all have a good summer, you hear? ["HEY, WHAT ABOUT ME? DON'T I GET A SHOUT-OUT? WAIT, COME BACK! IT'S SO LONELY DOWN HERE. SO VERY LONELY. CAN'T SOMEBODY AT LEAST SQUEEZE A GAMEBOY THROUGH THE GRATINGS ON THE SEAL? HELLO? ANYBODY? HELLO? DAMMIT." -- Tsathoggua]