The judges, Ryan, and the contestants are all in on this fake banter vibe that is really irritating, just cartoonish, but that ends early as the judges start agreeing on every single contestant and giving the same notes every time. Not as fascinating: Kat McPhee, who does a boring rendition of "All in Love Is Fair," by Stevie Wonder, a song with which I'm not familiar but I'm fairly certain it's not usually that boring. I fear for her. Kinnik turns in a fairly lackluster Gretchen Wilson song, "Here For The Party," wearing a lovely cowgirl outfit but shocking the judges with her loss of all range and personality. Lisa Tucker turns in another professional number, this time "Who's Lovin' You" by the Jackson Five, but Simon wisely warns her against coming off as "a very young girl singing grownup songs." Melissa sings "Why Haven't I Heard From You," by Reba McIntyre, which is a good song for her, but not that interesting to watch. Simon actually hurts Paula's feelings for real. Heather sings "Hero," by Mariah Carey, and it doesn't matter if she's good (she's fine) because it's Mariah and she didn't bring anything in particular to the table or change it in any way.
Brenna comes in with yet another hairstyle, and sings a totally boring-yet-passable version of "Last Dance." Disco is not her thing, and neither is this feel-good bullshit. Where were the claws? I was promised claws. I don't want her to go, not really, but I wouldn't be surprised this week. Paris is wearing a crazy outfit! Again! She looks like Rudith Huxtable dressed as my grandmother. She sings "Wind Beneath My Wings" and it's kind of creepy and low, and it's technically sound but played out. The judges beg her to stop being a little old woman. Beautiful Ayla sings "I Want You To Need Me" by Celine Dion after attempting once more to come out of the closet, and Simon warns her against becoming too perfect, and like who wouldn't kill for criticism like that?
Kellie actually turns in a fairly adorable "Something To Talk About," her razored bangs and makeup doing their job of distracting from her face. Pleasant and impressive. Mandisa then teaches Ryan a fun game to play with his mom (yeah) besides Scrabble and performing tableaus in the parlor, and then quickly blows everybody's ass off singing Faith Hill's "Cry" in an incredibly powerful performance that's still only scraping the possibility of what she can do. Randy and Simon aren't thrilled with the song choice, due to the fraction of her skill it represents, but everybody admits it was amazing. Tonight: Joe R. and the Dawgs.
Ryan's wearing dirty black jeans and an elaborate velvet tuxedo coat; Will is already bouncing around. Ryan tells us that last Thursday was "the biggest night in television for an entire decade," given that Survivor was up to something, Dancing With Idiots was having its finale, and it wasn't simply the Olympics, but Ladies Figure Skating, Ryan's total favorite, and yet AI still was "on top by two to one." I don't know what that means exactly, but it's exciting nonetheless. A spooky girl in the audience looks on as Ryan bows to the judges in his little outfit; Simon grins at Ryan because of the fake-ass banter in which they're all about to engage. Ryan mentions how all last week, they were all on different pages, judging-wise, like apparently that's a new idea, and Simon asks him to redefine it as Simon being on the "correct page." He says that after "watching it back," he gives himself ten "marks out of ten," using both of my favorite weird Simon phrases in one sentence, while Randy and Paula were averaging about six and a quarter. Paula laughs, and Ryan mentions that Simon might want to try some of that humble pie they were talking about with Brenna last week. "It's just about being right, Ryan." He says the other judges are wrong about 60% of the time, blah blah, he's playing to type, this show is a dumb cartoon and they all know it. Which producer's brilliant idea was it that this aspect of the show simply must be over the top and constantly hit: "Simon! He's mean! He thinks he's right all the time! Doesn't that make you feel emotions?" Ryan and Paula laugh and joke fakely about how they're just a small part of the show, that it's all about Simon, whatever, Ryan gets down on his knees and screams over and over, "Thank you Simon!" and it's weird and a little creepy. Even Simon is bored by this stupid charade parody of actual worthwhile show content. I wonder if even Simon could explain why this shit is 90 minutes long.
There's a background video for Katharine, who's up first. The theme this week is the highlight of their AI experience. For Katharine, this amounts to wrestling with Kellie Pickler in bed as often as possible. "We're just like silly and dumb together," she says. I wonder if, as a child star with a stage mom from hell, Katharine's ever met another girl before. If you don't know what actual fun is like, I bet hanging out with Pickler is totally fun. They hug and snort and grunt on the bed like Emily Rose, and then have so very much fun that they fall on the floor. It's clearly not rehearsed in any way -- because if it was, that would be like the creepiest niche porn ever; ergo, the cameras must have just accidentally caught them in a moment of exuberance. Can you imagine what this shoot was like? "Arm higher, McPhee...Kellie, grab a pillow and hit her across the face with it? Good, that's good...now you're wrestling, scrabbling...we'll add the maniacal giggles in post...now fall off the bed! Fall off the bed! Yes!" And then Pickler's wearing roller skates and they're both doing massive amounts of blow and McPhee's all, "I've always thought of you as a daughter."
Onstage, Katharine's still thinking in terms of motherhood, because she's wearing a knee-length empire-waist...thing...that makes her look like she's pregnant with the entire population of Liechtenstein. From the neck up, she looks incredibly beautiful -- the hair and makeup department really outdid themselves this week, everybody looks wonderful, even Heather Cox and Melissa McGhee look pretty -- and I think she's strikingly gorgeous anyway, but she looks even more...wait, are those bike shorts? What the fuck is going on here? She looks like a million bucks. Pregnant ones. My mind keeps wandering because Katharine is singing one of the most boring songs I think I've heard in my entire life. I might have heard it before, but I wouldn't remember it. "All In Love Is Fair," by Stevie Wonder, who I love and cannot believe that he performed this song so lifelessly. I wonder what the actual song sounds like. Because this...sucks. It doesn't even suck, that implies that it does something, anything, but all it does is lie there like tapioca. Why? Why this song, Katharine? You're my favorite! Her voice is of course mostly lovely, but she sucks it up on a particularly tricksy part, then goes nasal and crappy in the middle. Mostly it's boring. Her ass looks great, at the expense of the rest of her. Her parents, in the audience, are very scary. I don't know what to say right now. Her voice is pretty off tonight, and this is boring, and I picked her to go home in the TWoP betting pool with Joe and Sars. That's quite a loss of faith.
Now that the song is over -- to applause best described as "moderate" -- her parents have gotten normal and cute. I guess they're just scary when they're being so intense and mean-looking. If Katharine was my daughter, I'm not sure I would be any different, because she has a very salable quality. Randy tells Katharine that Stevie Wonder is never a "safe" choice, no matter how boringly you sing it. There were no runs of note, which is where Katharine excels, and it was not her best performance, despite the couple of times that she had "it going on." I'm not feeling Randy tonight. But Paula is, of course. She shoots out word salad about how Katharine moves both Paula and America, and that's she's "just a gifted artist," but how it wasn't a song choice that connected with Paula so much. If only there had been a clapping part, or a really repetitive chorus, Paula would have been down. Nevertheless, Paula's gotta "call it as it is," which is that Katharine is "brilliant" and deserves "congratulations for another really nice week." I hate it when the two parts of Paula's brain, the "repeat what Randy just said" part and the "tell them they're totally awesome" part, get their wires crossed. Simon accuses Katharine, rightly, of "being in her own world" and still expecting to "interest the nation." Don't go all Nadia on us, McPhee! He also points out that by the time three more people have sung, nobody will even remember the performance, which makes me wonder: do they pick their songs before they know what order they're going in? Because the performance order is also so clearly manipulated that it must rely in some part on who's doing well in terms of the research, which makes me think it happens closer to the airdate than them having to pick the song, which sucks. Her voice is good enough that, given a different place in the performance order, that might have been more interesting. Like, say Kinnik and Heather Cox both sing some kind of Shania Twain bullshit with bells and whistles and "woo!" and then have McPhee come in with the calming, normal stuff. Well, maybe another low-key song, not this particular boring one, but still. Katharine is, of course, very gracious with this, but they're telling her stuff she already should have known about.
She and Ryan discuss how she negotiates all the different parts of the performance, song choice and the portrayal of the song, the wardrobe, as if he didn't just see the pass she gave herself on two of those three tonight. She admits to having even bored herself, early on, but "once you make your choice, you have to go with it." Ouch. Somehow, though, it makes me like her more: "I know, I fucked up. Sorry." She tells Ryan she's not feeling particularly "destroyed," and then Paula screams, "You're a star!" Simon makes fun of Paula for being a dork and Katharine makes a funny face at him, and Ryan -- in warning us once again about the whole "these are not 1-800 numbers" thing -- gives the world some good advice: always watch out "where your fingers end up."
Kinnik's wearing this gypsy-sequined rag on her head in her flashback video, telling a pretty touching story about how the first time she stood on the actual AI stage, the day before their first studio performances, how overwhelming it was and how she started crying. I know, girl. I mean, it seems really lame, but at the same time, as she says, "You can't possibly imagine how it really feels to be there." I believe that. So crazy. I mean, I don't have an analogous ambition to what these kids are going through, at all, so I can't really identify. I always thought it would be fun to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, say. But thinking about standing on a stage and being like, "Stort tack, y'all," I don't know that I would get choked up. I don't even know how much $10M kronors actually is. But if you want to be on this show, you want to stand on that stage and sing, and I imagine it's a freak-out to actually stand on the stage at that point.
Kinnik has a cowboy outfit on, with little po-mo touches, which means she's going to be singing a song I hate. Automatically. And why yes, it's Gretchen Wilson, whom I blame for a whole lot of stuff that isn't actually her fault. But I also blame her for stuff that is her fault, like this song that Kinnik is singing, which is called "Here For The Party," and which would seem to involve yelling a whole lot in camo pants. Kinnik is...she seems like a nice "girl." Looking like a dude never looked so good, for sure. I mean that. Her voice gets lost on the lower notes, but then this isn't really a song, and all the time spent on hair and makeup seems to have -- through some kind of metaphysical Murphy's Law or entropy or something -- made the sound mix really fucking off tonight. There's a high glory note that is in no way glorious. I gotta say I do not like this. Even apart from the song itself being awful, plus the fact I like Kinnik just fine, when I can remember she exists, which is mostly when she's actually in front of my face...this is not good. Her voice is cruddy tonight. Maybe she's sick? The end is lackluster, although she goes "Woo!" right after the song, thereby hitting a note she tried to hit earlier in the song, and failed. It's just kind of depressing and boring. There's a face on the back of her fitted jacket that's very "outsider art." Kind of like this whole show right now.
Randy's a big Gretchen fan, for whatever ungodly reason, and he "likes the song a lot on her," but with Kinnik, it has a complete lack of the kinds of melody (or any) that would show off Kinnik's actual voice. It's a character-acted, fun, pointless song, which is exactly right. It's a Paula song. Not the kind that she made back in the day, but the kind that she likes now: lots of energy, very little actually happening. Actually, those were the songs she made back in the day, come to think of it, but at least they were, you know, totally awesome. Paula repeats Randy again, basically verbatim, although she does note that it's nice to see Kinnik up there "having fun," and asks her to push herself and take risks such as singing actual songs. week: "For The Love Of Money." Simon's like, "On the plus side, you did something to stand out. Last week, you were just forgotten," and he's right, but on the downside, it was like being at Disneyland, at a theme park revue or whatever, and how nobody ever got discovered singing "Hello Dolly" at Six Flags Magic Mountain, contrary to popular belief. Paula, uninvited to the conversation: "I'd certainly like to see you on a rollercoaster! Would you smile?" Shut up, Paula. Simon's like, "Yeah. If you fell off," she hits him, it's the only authentic moment so far. Ryan cracks Kinnik's secret Letterman code and she admits that the song was a message for Randy, a rebuttal to his comments last week, and she says that yes, she's "only a six," supposedly, but that the "boys over there" think she cleans up "good." It's because they think she is a drag queen, but I'm not going to tell her that.
Dear Weight Watchers: "Song For The Lonely"? Really? Seriously, really? Could somebody maybe get fired?
Lisa, yet another boring young lady in a competition with at least fourteen of them left, is wearing a stretchy yellow tunic over a tight red top. She looks very pretty, age-appropriate or not, and it shows off some killer muscle tone. Ryan plays with her hair fakely, as she fakely admits that her pre-show ritual involves "taking a breath." Her highlight video this week starts with how she was in the Broadway Lion King, in front of 2700 people a night, four nights a week for a year, until Child Protective Services rescued her from her parents. "You'd think a little kid would be terrified...I don't know! I was so comfortable! It was just my routine!" Translation: A little kid probably would have been terrified, but that's something I've never actually been. She talks about how she was assuming Hollywood would be a walk in the park, because she's like the Golden Child of singing, but she was shocked by how intimidating that part of the process was. She mentions, apropos of nothing, that she's the youngest person left in the competition this year, and that she wants to win.
Before the music even starts, the runs begin. She's got such a great voice. The gain is still way up and her voice is somewhat obscured, and I wonder again if the studio is hearing anything close to what we're hearing, and whatever. Where her monitor is. Sway is totally into it as once again his forehead smells what the Tuck is cooking, frighteningly. She's singing a Jackson Five song called "Who's Loving You," and I'm admittedly ignorant of a lot of things, music things especially, but I have yet to recognize a song tonight. There are like two all night that I've actually heard before. I simply can't force myself to feel bad about that, though, because in addition to being outside my wheelhouse, they also seem to suck awfully bad. At least, the performances we're seeing are not selling these particular to-me-obscure songs in any way. The ending is sweet and perfect, after a couple of rough spots, but luckily that's all we'll remember.
Randy says that he didn't like the song choice, and would have liked her to do the En Vogue version, or sing it a cappella, and I wonder if he's actually responding to the overwhelming loudness of the band tonight, and not in fact to the song choice at all. Paula goes on and on about a lot of things, but not the performance at all. "When you've got it, you've got it...you're sixteen...I don't know why you haven't been signed already...regardless of this show you're a star...you're a star all the way everything" is what Paula says. Simon says he gets where Randy and Paula are coming from, but cautions Lisa against "coming over as a very young girl singing grownup songs." "You're better than that," he says, which is awesome, and then he admits that she will be sailing through, tonight. Ryan appears and Lisa tells him that she's loved the song since she was a little kid, laughs preciously, and admits that was pretty recently. It all just seems so fake tonight that I'm way less predisposed to enjoy even the offhand moments. She says that she used to sing it in the mirror, and Ryan horribly segues to the numbers: "Look into your new mirror!" he says, indicating the camera lens.
(For some reason I find the whole interchange kind of chilling, something about cameras stealing your soul and how when you look in the mirror, you see yourself, except now that AI has her by the hair, she's going to lose herself altogether, just like Ryan, who can no longer tell where the mirror stops and the TV cameras begin, or something. Heart as dry socket. Some kind of half-assed horror story like that dream I had last week about how The Dating Game is actually this forty-year elaborate conspiracy where they send you on dates and roofie you and then force you to make up funny and inconsequential stories when in fact what happened was closer to an alien abduction scenario, and I was a P.A. on the show and found out that they were experimenting on the women of the show, and Richard Dawson found out and tried to kill me. Or, I guess, eat me. It wasn't that scary, because I don't have actual scary dreams very often, but it did make me wonder, when I woke up, if I am actually a very creepy person and just don't know it.)
Speaking of creepy, it's Melissa McGhee! The makeover of all of them tonight has even helped her out -- she looks tons better, less tired and run down. Her highlight video is all about clothes, making sure you have enough clothes. "I'm a Florida girl." Fucking clearly. "We wear flip-flops all the time." Really? Any other state I'd have trouble with that. Nothing against Florida, but there's definitely a Melissa McGhee part of Florida that I can't think about for too long without getting really worried, and I can believe that in the McGhee Quadrant, "flip-flops" are de rigueur. So this one day they were doing a lot of press, and she was wearing "flip-flops" because she wanted to be comfortable -- "Old raggedy white flip-flops! With this great outfit!" -- so of course every single interview, they panned down to her shoes. I think the moral of the story has escaped her, but it's not that hard: If you don't want people to think you're trashy, don't act trashy. I mean, how hard is that? Eventually we'll figure it out, Britney, but at least give yourself the head start of not letting us know up front.
Singing "Why Haven't I Heard From You," by Reba McEntire, who is a woman I like a lot because I like her version of "Cathy's Clown," but also: "Fancy." I cannot hate the woman who brought "Fancy" to our benighted world. However, Melissa McGhee, wearing a midriff-baring shirt with ripped Ryan Starr crap at the cuffs, singing this utterly uninteresting and uninspired song in the "cutesy wordplay" genre of country, does her no favors. She looks really cute, for her, in the same way everybody looks great tonight. I was actually able to look at her long enough to realize that she has the exact same jawbone as Sheryl Crow. The song suits her voice. I find her utterly uninteresting, but it's good as it is. It's all Melissa. I at least understand why she's here now, which is more than I have up to this point. Kat's up on the balcony, looking nervous, as the song refuses to go anywhere interesting or change itself for the better at any point.
Randy, of course, thinks the song was a perfect fit, and that she could probably make a pretty "dope" recording of it, should she so choose. He notes that "the smoky voice" is back, but I hadn't really missed it, due to the inordinate amount of time I've spent stalking Jessica Sierra over the past few months. He forces the Dawg Pound and the audience to clap for her to a degree I find out of kilter with how well she did, and in the audience there are her friends, one of whom is a lipless dead ringer for Joanna Lumley's Patsy Stone, emphasis on the "dead," and from whom the stale cigarette smell is so acutely strong that you can actually smell it if you get close enough to the screen; the other looks like every television producer in the history of television. Patsy is: bright orange, wearing a bejeweled jacket over a bejeweled top, and is wearing some complicated jewelry. The other one is actually fairly pretty, has the dyed-black underneath-layer thing happening with her hair, and a lacy, frilly, whimsical top.
Paula says she thought she was listening to the radio or some shit, and Simon accuses Melissa of not making a connection with the audience, which I can personally attest is at least a little true, and then Randy and Paula fight him on it and it's boring and nothing we haven't seen before. However, things get awesomely awkward. Simon tells Paula straight up she needs to STFU, and she keeps slapping him and laughing and giggling and acting like an idiot, and he actually vents actual irritation instead of just playing the whole "Watch our show! The judges fight!" and he says it's "like being with some precocious child," and she thinks he's kidding for a delectably long amount of time, but he just keeps talking about how fucking exasperating her behavior is becoming, and finally she just slumps and stares at the table, and her simple smile slowly fades. They fight him about his assertion that it was the wrong song, and Melissa tells Ryan that, last week, "Simon said my personality was being overshadowed, so I thought I should do a fun song and show who I am," and everybody cheers for some reason, and it's taken Paula this long to realize she's actually been insulted, so her face is very tight and angry as she asks Ryan if she and Randy can switch chairs, and they do, and it's pretty awful but I'm glad somebody finally said something, because she's been getting closer to Nicole Richie every episode this season and maybe this is going to be the reality check she desperately needs. Thursday will prove this hope to be false, but I'm still glad this went down, because it's nice sometimes to see a person get called on their dumb, pointless behavior and acting out.
"Whither one stripper goes, verily so must the other also go." That's in the Bible. This recap has family values now, I guess, according to Taylor Hicks. What it means in this context is that Heather is up . She's wearing a boob-trapping black strapless that stretches weirdly across her chest, and she and Ryan speak at length about how she's the stalker of American Idol and how she watches every episode multiple times and goes back to the archives during the off-season to watch them even more, which is important to the segment because it explains how she knows without a doubt that nobody has ever before performed Mariah Carey's "Hero," but it's important in life because it causes everyone watching to think seriously about life and where it's headed. She's very pretty in her highlight video as she talks about snapping pictures on the Hollywood Strip, and how -- this is so effing stupid -- everybody said she should "watch out for the snakes in Hollywood," such as Simon Cowell, but then on the Strip she ran into one of those attention-deprived losers that always shows up to the Strip or the carnival or whatever with an actual, non-metaphorical snake around her neck, like even going that far could make you interesting. Because Heather cannot go for five fucking seconds without mentioning food, food quality, portion control, her weight, whatever, she characterizes the snake as "weighing more than" she does. Heather's "not going to lie" but it was kind of "intense," when she had the snake around her neck for a second, and that's the coolest thing that's happened to her so far. Even more painful and depressing in hindsight, no?
Her video is all about the red carpet, and she tells a very sweet story that points exactly to the reason I love her. Basically, that like all of us, she's been waiting and practicing for the red carpet her entire life, making cute and camera-ready faces in the mirror for hours on end and sweating that moment when she'll have to respond to the paparazzi, and I don't actually understand why nobody likes her but me, because I got over the "diva" image so fast thanks to my Mikalah immunity, because the girl behind the not-very-well-done diva thing is precocious and funny and smart as hell, and her bravado is so poorly constructed that she manages to convince you of the exact opposite thing she's trying to convince you of, and that is beautiful to me. We're getting the truth, but we're getting it slant, and anyway I'd rather watch her do her whole "I'm a big fierce tiger" routine that kittens always do when they're unsure of themselves, and see the vulnerability that way, than have to sit through another goddamn second of Kellie Pickler trying through sheer force of will to prove how terribly innocent and sweet and vulnerable and gosh-darn-it loveable and poor and cornpone she is, because that routine has all the subtlety of a bazooka gun, and makes it seem completely untrue, when in fact that's exactly what Kellie Pickler is. I guess what I'm saying is that I would rather be lied to, poorly, than Biced to death with how "real" they are, because having the option of taking Brenna apart to the girl beneath gives me a sense of control in a meaningless universe or something, while listening to Kellie Pickler painfully trying to pronounce words like "calamari" and "spinach" and "internet" properly just makes me want to slap somebody.
Anyway, she had all these model faces ready to bust out, but got performance anxiety on the actual red carpet, and so she just made this one fishy, ridiculous face the entire time, and she's like, "That's not cool. Not sexy." I love that. So she sings "Last Dance," by Donna Summer, which always sounds to me like it's a little slower than it actually should be. It's nice. Pop out those contacts and we might have a deal. Okay, actually, she still sounds kind of like a duck -- I'm not going to lie. But I am under her spell, because I can't shake this feeling that after about a half hour of bullshitting around, she's probably a fun conversationalist. It's not good. I think part of the problem is that, as Vonzell taught us last year, it's possible that you can be to the manor born as far as disco, and now we can't accept anything less. Brenna's a fantastic fake, just not at this. And it makes me angry, because of all of them, she needed to play to the type, and last week she seemed to understand that, with the "I'm bringing the claws this week," but some time between now and then, her gumption failed her, and she turned in another Partridge Family bullshit performance that sounded bad and came off really lame. Plus, going home, it's so stupidly on the nose as a sing-out...I do not understand the choices of Brenna. They are mysterious to me.
The cheers go on forever, and then Paula adores her confusing fashion choice for a while -- she's wearing bright red shoes! -- and she talks at length about how great and wonderful and amazing Paris is, and how she makes the competition "incredible," but the criticism is that we already know Paris is a great vocalist, so she should get over herself and maybe "celebrate the fun and the youth" that Paris brings. Two things Paula Abdul loves: Fun, and youths. Randy says that Paris is like a young Lauryn Hill, that she can sing everything, anything, and I hope he didn't just jinx her with a psychotic break. Remember when Lauryn Hill wasn't crazy? What happened? Randy tells her to not "play it safe, ever," which is good advice for Paris, actually, and he demands that she stop singing old lady songs immediately, and then fills the silence with stock Randy phrases for a bit. "Be young for me. You're still hot. Not as scorching as you were last week, but you're still hot." Simon begs her to not go the "I'm seventeen and I sound fifty" show, and that everything about her tonight was "like you're a little old lady." The three judges weird out again about how they're all on the same page. I want to ask them if they can think about what it's like for me, agreeing with Simon every week, and not just this once. Ryan asks why Paris chose that song, and she walks right into it: "It's my great-grandma's favorite song," she says, causing Simon to guffaw with the unbearable rightness of being him.
Ayla is really lovely. And really tall! Her very, very strong shoulders don't look as out of place in this very lovely, soft dress as you might think. In her highlight tape, her hair is straight and just hanging down, as she tells us some things about herself. Normally, in life, she can be found "always" in the gym. Lifting weights. There's never a time when she's not "sweating" and "working out," so the weirdest thing about being on the show has been the makeover she's gone through. She now owns "tank tops" and has learned to apply makeup. She relates a story about how her hairdresser had to tell her what foundation is. And I mean, come on. I've gotten a lot of self-righteous email recently about how vile and stereotypical my take on all of this has been, but I called it before I even heard her sing or speak, and...nothing has happened in the weeks since to dissuade me. The question I would ask is: what is so damned awful about being a lesbian that you need to write me a shrill letter about acknowledging it? Say she's not a lesbian (she is), just for argument -- have I actually defamed her so egregiously? Elliott Yamin hasn't come out and stated that he's Jewish, but if I mentioned it, I doubt seriously that I would get any emails about how I had somehow defamed him. I think that question, and the assumptions that underlie it, are a lot more interesting than whether or not she's gay, don't you? ["Also, I hear she enjoys golfing and is a stand-up comedian." -- Joe R]
Anyway, she's singing "I Want You to Need Me," by Celine Dion, which -- I didn't know that hated lady had contributed a song to the stalker songbook -- isn't so bad. I don't normally like the forehead-back hairclip thing she's doing tonight, but she has such a pretty, symmetrical square face that it really works, and highlights her very lovely eyes. She's probably my favorite, besides Katharine. Sometimes even Mandisa. She powers through the song, which bores Bucky and Elliott no end, and yeah, but this kind of thing, she's quite good at. Paula says it's great to see how she's growing, and how her conviction and I assume confidence keep growing. She says it's exactly the right song for Ayla's vocal range, which is true, and interesting on a night when even Paris couldn't manage that. She says that last week was great, this week was even better, and then goes to a crazy place about how, if she only had Ayla's legs from the knees down, she could...do something. I don't know what she means. It's weird and awkward and Simon is still kind of hating her from the other end of the table. Randy said he very much enjoyed the "tomboy to glamour girl" thing on the tape, and Paula stares at her, unblinking, I guess coveting her legs from the knees down. Randy says that Paula was exactly right about picking the right song, and that the whole package was perfect. Ayla grins, and giggles adorably. I like her so much.
Simon says that she strikes him as "the type of girl who probably got As in everything," which -- in England, do they have As and Bs? I always assume that everything in England is different and strange and like, I don't know. OWLS or whatever. I don't know the difference between Harry Potter and actual England, maybe that's the problem, but I just assume that whatever it is, they do it differently. She laughs: "Uh, false." Her mom and aunt laugh and shake their heads, and Simon's like, "Come on now." They get to the point of what he's trying to say, which is that she might have started with Cs, but she ended up with As, and she sees what he's saying. "I don't mean that in a derogatory way. You're working harder than anyone I've seen on the show so far. I think you're the type of person that will, whatever you put your mind to, you're going to end up with an A." If he said that week they had to juggle while they were singing, she'd by damn show up juggling perfect. "You're probably right," she admits, and her mom laughs and nods, and the camera stays on her, watching her awesome daughter, so proud and so loving. I totally adore this girl. Remember April? She's the only Top Model person besides Elyse I've ever comprehended or actually liked all that much, and for the same reason: fucking do it. If you're going to be there anyway, just get it done. Nothing drives me nuts the way, for example, Brenna's complete lack of bringing it does, which is why I don't watch any reality TV besides Big Brother that I'm not literally paid to watch, because people who go to the lengths to involve themselves in a competition, only to then give up and/or make excuses, drive me absolutely crazy. Simon warns her against perfecting herself too much, that you don't want to leave us remembering you as being "good," or coming off too mechanical. "Within your comfort zone, you are going to do better than you could've hoped for." So the problem is you might be too perfect? God grant me criticism like that. Ryan stands beside her on tiptoe, and she giggles at him, and he drops, and they laugh more. I like her more than Entertainment Weekly. Maybe even more than Harper's. She's just great.
Kellie tells us at length about how she's just such a fish out of water, blah blah, she's never had spinach salad before but she liked it although it was kind of like "pickin' a leaf off a bush" and they call squid "calamari" when it's in a restaurant and she didn't really like it and also in L.A. there are many dogs in clothes and she's such a poor sad sack that even the dogs of L.A. have more clothes than she does and it's been made clear to her that she's "not in Albemarle, North Carolina anymore." I don't have a problem with Kellie, beyond her eyes being too close together for my personal comfort threshold, and I have no doubt she is exactly what she seems to be. But the show shoving it down my throat constantly makes me want her to fail, regardless of how sweet she herself seems to be. I cannot be rational about that, but I know enough to blame the constant editing of her as this Ellie Mae bullshit simulacrum with no reality behind it, when in fact she's actually just Ellie Mae and she can probably come up with her own sound bite, and chances are it would sound even more ignorant and barefooted than whatever the producers are trying to do here, because it won't have the added sixteen pounds of cynicism drizzled on top.
Case in point: "Something To Talk About," by Bonnie Raitt, who is one of the most special, interesting, cool people in music, but it's a song with a lot of baggage, so you have to be careful and not sound like Bonnie Raitt. Luckily for Kellie, it's a good and interesting version, and she does look great, this stretchy peach top and some necklaces, pretty understated makeup -- they've even shadowed her inner eye, so that they look further apart than they are, which is good -- and the crowd is very pleased. I feel like she's managed to find the precise point on the spectrum between "familiar enough to make the audience comfortable" and "so familiar that it feels played out" that is right for her. She's wearing capris with big fat '50s cuffs and a very genuine smile. I have to say, I like this a lot, actually -- it's nothing groundbreaking, but very cute. They've razor-cut layers into her hair that go really awesome when she shakes her head around and "loses" it towards the end, all sexy across her face like a Nagel print or whatever. It's nice and very retro, this look, and for a second Kellie Pickler, of all people, looks more dishabille than they've ever let a female contestant get on this show. It's a nice little moment. Like, if American Idol is the McDonald's of music culture, she's the Karen O for a second. Remember toward the end of last season when Carrie started acting weird and kicking shit during her performances? I would like to see Kellie get wilder, or angrier, or something. I think it would be interesting. I know she's got it in her, you can tell when she talks about her family and stuff. Articulated rage coming out of that little gamine girl? That would be so interesting. And would pass for "edgy" on this show, too. Just give her a Lindsay Lohan song and be done with it. You know what I mean.
It's Dogjaw time! ["Woo!" -- Joe R] So the highlight for Mandisa was that, as a lover of practical jokes, she determined that she was going to nail Ryan, because it would take the edge off her Hollywood stress. I love that she's like that. "I'm nervous...better punk somebody. Who's around?" She decided to "shake her nerves off" by playing a little joke on Ryan called Dogjaw. I love that her jokes have titles. Like in con artist movies where they're like, "I was doing a Sick Louie that turned into a Scratch Johnson Turnover, but he didn't know the whole time that I was running a Flirting Poindexter on the whole group of guys! I got off scot free!" So luckily -- and presumptively -- we have footage of the perpetration of "Dogjaw" on Ryan Seacrest. It is the greatest thing. She goes up to Ryan and she's complaining about this and that and she's like, "Here's -- feel my jaw. I have dogjaw." And he reaches out to touch her jaw, and she snaps her teeth at his finger, and barks, at the last second, and he jumps back so cute and scared. It's all you wanted it to be! His whole face goes terrified for a split second and his hand flies cradled to his chest, and then he starts laughing and she laughs so hilariously and they laugh and laugh and he loves it, loves it. He makes her do it to a producer guy -- he actually rubs his palms together, in the lead-up -- and the guy spills coffee everywhere, and Ryan almost busts a gut, laughing and clapping. In the tape, she dedicates the joke to Randy because of the Dawg Pound, and then she leans her head way back and laughs hugely. She's cool.
As Mandisa's singing, Brenna's feeling the performance for real! Maybe she always does, and it just looks like she's hating because she concentrates so hard. ["I absolutely agree with that, actually." -- Joe R] Either way, this one it's clear she's digging. Within the first five bars, it's clear how this is a great song for Mandisa, and she really does it amazingly. She's kind of outclassed everyone this week. The music is so dramatic, and the backup sings are awesome, and she's got this amazing gravitas where you're like, she's telling to you cry, maybe you should cry a little. It's great. They've gone completely overboard making her look great this week, and it's so awesome that they did. The camera does those huge sweepy things all around her. I am frankly a little embarrassed by how much I loved that.
Paula calls Mandisa "one of a kind" and calls attention to her "unbelievable vocal range," and loves how she's taking songs that might be a little counterintuitive and somehow mixes her own flavor in and makes it this new, incredible thing...then tells her she has "the most beautiful face." Which...you do not say to a big girl. Ever. Find a better way. It's a natural inclination, and you are being nice, and they know it, but it's a compliment with a hole in the middle of it that you didn't intend to have there, and it's weird, and it just makes things go quiet and awkward, and don't do it. Because the vibe that shoots around the room when you do it, both you and the girl are going to feel like you've both done something wrong, and it's just...as my friend Stacey might say, there's an asterisk on that, and you go to the bottom of the page, and there's nothing there. Not to mention that dreadful woman from The Parkers might show up at your house, and nobody wants that. Randy talks about Dogjaw and Paula does it and smiles in this very "I'm so cute," proud of herself, Kelly Ripa way, and then Randy notes a few pitch issues, of which Mandisa was already of course aware, but he's very positive on the whole, and thinks it was the best of the night even with his reservations about the song choice and all. He wants her to avoid leaving anything "in the cupboard," that her voice is powerful enough that he wants to "hear it all," and that didn't happen tonight. I would add, though, that we heard a great deal of it, nonetheless, and that I am very interested in seeing how and when he brings the "cupboard" metaphor back into play. Simon feels certain that America will keep Mandisa around, but agrees with Randy that it's not the ultimate song for her, and that he looks forward to seeing her "totally nail something like she's capable of doing." He ends on a high note: "However. When you're on it, there's no better female in this competition."
Ryan and Mandisa are both pleasantly surprised by all of this, and they have an intimate, funny little moment, and then Ryan puts his entire ass on shout about how he does the Dogjaw joke to his mom all the time, and she still doesn't exactly get it. I think it's cool to spend time with your mom, I'm sure she's a fun lady, but there's something so...I don't like to think about Ryan's relationship with his mother. I'm not saying there's a damn thing wrong with it, but I just...you know how deeply Ryan is into approval? Imagine he wrote a poem, or something, and he wanted to show it to his mother, like, how he would come running into the room, all, "Mother! Mother! I have written a quatrain that I would like for you to read!" And she's like, "Dear child-man, son of mine, sit and rub these tired old feet by the fire, for I have been working long into the night, and such a jones have I," and then...he does. That's what I think about when I think about Ryan and his mom. Or like, they have corny in-jokes, and they play Scrabble, and they go shopping, and she wants to go to Mervyn's and Ryan whines because he wants to go to Diesel and she thinks that's just a waste of money and then they compromise over a Cinnabon and there's...for some reason, that's icky. I think you'd see too much personal stuff that belongs on the inside of people, and it would cause you to go insane. I prefer to believe that Ryan Seacrest hatched from a barleycorn, no bigger than your thumb.
To review: Katharine McPhee sang, remember? No? Me neither. That sucks. A very vulnerable, sweet and sultry performance that makes you feel like you got snuck right up on and stuck with a syringe full of sleepy. Kinnik Sky, remember? No? Doing country in the wrong range? Lisa Tucker? Anything? Remember when Melissa upgraded from "stripper" to "Coyote Ugly bartender"? Remember Heather in a pantsuit that last saw wear at a '70s key party, singing "Hero" so nicely and pointlessly? Remember Brenna refusing to show any spark or attitude whatsoever and begging to go home? Remember Paris singing that stupid song while dressed like A Raisin In The Sun? Remember how a guy is supposed to win this year? Remember Ayla rocking out and being awesome and singing in the key everybody else chose, but actually pulling it off? Or Kellie with her hair all crazy in her face? Remember Mandisa blowing everyone's ass away and being just wonderful and powerful and a mature artist who has no business being in this circus? Remember how together Paula wasn't, tonight? You have no idea. Boys with Joe tomorrow, and then I take on maybe the most...interesting results show, maybe ever, but especially in terms of Paula. Looking forward to it!