There's a "Carrie's town has one stoplight" segment, and it's adorable, and her mom loses it talking about how great Carrie is, and then I lose it with how terrible Carrie is. She sings Martina McBride's "When God Fearin' Women Get the Blues," and, like, I am none of those things, but I can get the blues too, and you just gave them to me. It's awful, and then she coughs kind of pointedly, like she needs to worry, but it sounds kind of gross and real. Randy enjoyed the other musicians, Paula backhands her with how it's great she has so many fans, and Simon tells her none of this matters. Ryan asks if she's at least attempting to learn the lyrics of her songs these days, and they both giggle like dorks because she already knew this one. I like her with Ryan. The blondening of them.
"The man who wouldn't make the choice," okay, is wearing a stupid dashiki and sunglasses and looks like a Halloween "hippie" costume, which is essentially what Bo is, but whatever, I'm ready to love it, because he's awesome. Then the pre-song is all about how he's got this realistical real reality that surpasses normal reality in a really real way. And I agree, insofar as he wouldn't know the difference, and that's what I can't stand about Bo. Disingenuously to the fucking extreme, he'll be singing Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Want to Be," and what he doesn't want to be? Is anything other than what he's been trying to be lately. Barf. But the real problem is how bad he sucks tonight. It's his worst ever, and one of the worst non-Constantine songs in the last six weeks. I'm not hating, and I'm not happy about it, but it's honestly that bad. His voice is shot, he's off-key, he duffs the last note crazy bad. The judges "love" the "coincidental" song "choice."
Tonight is not going well. Vonzell's package is adorable -- Daddy, karate, Daddy, cute, Daddy, mail truck -- but we note that her cuteness is genetic: her whole family is like that. She sings the Christina Aguilera song "I Turn to You," andI love her, you guys, but damn. This is turning into a bloodbath. Like, I don't even want to watch it again to tell you exactly why. One part just before the ending is pretty good, although there are some fucked-up faces, and she dedicates the song to Daddy. Getting over that, actually. Randy welcomes her to the Dawg Pound because he wants an all-white Final Five even less than I, and Paula notes that America is falling in love with her. Still. Simon has a "horrible" feeling that Randy and Paula are totally wrong, and he's right, and Ryan tells her she's awesome, and he's right too.
A-Fed's parents cannot, like, handle how great he is, to the point where even the sensitive finger-picked guitar score gets bored. He'll be singing "I Surrender," by Celine Dion, and he will be rocking it, even though it's the most boring song in the universe, and I don't remember ever having heard it, even though I just heard it not five minutes ago, but he's great. It's not a chick song, when he sings it, just a song, and awesome. And yeah, everything is relative, and everybody else is sucking, but still, he does that thing I've been talking about. Randy and Paula give him unabashed praise, Simon hyperfocuses on the awful song, and Ryan hyperfocuses on A-Fed's bod.
Ready to meet Constantine's family? Let's. Are they totally creepy? Why, yes. Does all of this make more sense now? Absolutely. Was he cute once? Wicked hot, actually. Will he be great tonight? Not at all. Not at all. He'll be singing Nickelback's "How You Remind Me," and even he will not enjoy it. His staging, his vocals, his karate kicks, all are lazy. This song sucks, and he's making it worse by singing it. Does he have the flu? He makes the 2Cats sound again, even. It's like we're in a time machine. All the goodwill he's built up is gone. Gone! The hate is back. With disinterest. Randy points out the sucky voice; Paula allows as how the performance and song and vocals were for shit, but feels that that is really cool; and Simon calls it a "bad imitation," and yeah, that's what me and Randy think too.
Scott's home life is going to be depressing, I think. I have no idea what his parents are saying, just like I have no idea what he is saying. They thought he would end up a priest, which was dumb of them. He feels he represents people who "get up in the morning." Thanks? Then he insults Cleveland on a massive scale: "You'd see a million of me walking around." I want you to close your eyes for a second and imagine that, please. And then understand that Cleveland is not like that at all.
Scott looks very nice tonight, and he sings Luther Vandross's "Dance With My Father," which leads to a whole host of confusion, because his dad hates him, but there's also a stepfather, or he wants to dance with his beautiful child (the kid is gorgeous, y'all), or I don't know what. I don't care for this song, and his voice is better than it has been, but that makes the bad bits stick out more. I couldn't care less about this. Randy calls it his "weakest performance in weeks," Paula calls it unemotional, and Simon tells him to pack his suitcase. I don't want to jinx myself by offering him anything other than total support, but I will say that I had a feeling about Nadia, if you'll recall, and the same feeling about Anwar, and I was right, and that's the feeling I'm having now. Fingers crossed.