The unofficial theme on Wednesday is "everybody looks great," because seriously. Everybody. The "song choice" bugaboo from Tuesday is still in effect, though at the very least these are mostly songs I've heard before. Taylor is his usual subtle, reserved self, and sings that song from the Levi's commercial. His voice no longer matters, but his grab bag of spasmodic tics and rat-tat-tat WOO-ing at the judges are all clearly part of what makes him such a breath of fresh air in this competition. Elliott switches things up by singing some Stevie Wonder (though, to be fair, "Moody's Mood for Love" has apparently also been sung by humanity itself, so we'll scale that shit off), and I'm finally getting the voice, even if he's still pretty boring. All those waiting for Ace to start growing a personality, here's what he's come up with so far: he wears beanies. Perfect, no? It's the Nermal of hats. He sings that "If You're Not the One" song that I liked that one day two years ago, and he's significantly not as good as last week. Like that even matters, but regardless. Gedeon busts out some Sam Cooke, and pretty much lets the song do the heavy lifting for him. He's really good, but he also picked the right damn week to choose a song everybody loves.
Kevin is put up to even more "sing for Mommy and Daddy's friends" bullshit in his pre-song, and as if that's not painful enough, his song is "Heard It Through the Grapevine." That sound you hear is all of America shedding a tear for how screwed this kid is. And then he gets totally sandbagged by Seacrest with a Chicken Little sight gag. Poor kid. Is Sway even still on this show? Huh. I owe Jacob a Coke. He sings "Overjoyed" by that criminally underutilized AI talent Stevie Wonder, and the judges basically tell him he's in some deep shit. Will opts for "Lady" by Kenny Rogers. And I laugh and laugh. He's remarkably very good for singing such a ridonkulous song, and he's got his shit together way more than the rest of his teen brethren, that's for damn sure. The judges are kind of harsh, but that ceases to matter when Ryan begins to undress him and Simon has to remind everyone who is how old around these parts.
Bucky, much like Kellie, is baffled by the culinary wonders of California. What are you putting on his chicken, restaurateurs of the American west? He sings Garth Brooks's classic ode to wife-beating "The Thunder Rolls," and he looks about 100% more presentable than he ever has before. Randy actually says "dirty," though to be fair the word "south" immediately follows it. David Radford tells the most wondrously "who cares?" story of the night, about a belt and a cell phone charger, but he's super-sincere about it, and if he'd just agree to never, ever sing again, I would like him quite a bit. Oh, but then it's Stealing Sinatra time, and "The Way You Look Tonight," and I want to kill him again. Stop making those sounds with your voice! Right now! Finally, Chris is looking a bit too Bruce Willis for comfort, but he's singing Fuel's "Hemorrhage," which means he's got me, completely. Better yet, he's awesome and the judges give him top honors for the night. I start dreaming of a Mandisa-Chris final that can never be.
Tomorrow: Heather Cox and three others will be sent home, and Jacob will have all the juicy details.
Ryan is dressed like he's attending prep school back east as we begin our show. I mean, it's a girls' prep school, and it's likely out of one of those late-night HBO movies starring Dominique Swain, but that's the place the sweater-vest-under-jacket look is taking me. He tells us that the ten male contestants will "do what they do best" tonight, which is as honest an assessment of this show as I can conjure, mostly because "singing" isn't necessarily anywhere near that sentence. He gives us a rundown of the different singers whose songs are in danger of being massacred tonight, calling it a "cornucopia of primetime pop." What asshole scripted that Cobb salad of a line, and what did Ryan do to prompt it? Ryan introduces the ten remaining men, who parade across the balcony, trying to jog our memories of them from last week. Taylor effing hugs himself, of course, spontaneously and without even a second's thought as to who Ray Charles is and why imitating him might help him stand out in a crowd, I bet. Elliott is also going the sweater vest route, though he manages to look like a boy while doing so. Ace busts out a thumbs-up/winking combo I've only seen work for one person in history, and Ace is just no Buddy Christ, I don't think. Gedeon maybe thinks he is Jim Broadbent's character from Moulin Rouge!, with the "ladies and gentlemen!" arm flourish, and also has his shirt unbuttoned to a trachea scar degree. Kevin opts for the double thumbs-up, no winking, because coordination like that doesn't really develop until the third trimester. Itsy, bitsy Sway fires imaginary handguns at us, which in retrospect might explain some things. Will Makar is just way cool, and super incredibly tall, at least in relation to the Lilliputians populating the male half of this show. The camera actually pulls back from Bucky Covington, not even making that up, but -- or perhaps as a result -- he's looking way less like scabies this week. David blows a kiss to the camera, but can't keep his wrist from swinging like a gate. And Chris flashes some gang symbols, or perhaps a fraternity hand gesture, or maybe it's arthritis, because he is way old.Before we can get to the actual business at hand, we simply must rehash last night, even though it has absolutely no basis on anything that will happen tonight. Isn't that the basic rule of previouslies? How we never saw Quentin Travers say, "She isn't a demon, she's a god," unless Glory was going to be in that particular episode? Even Simon's little "I give myself a ten," and Ryan's subsequent Pavlovian bended knee response won't have much of an impact tonight, at least not beyond being one more piece in the jigsaw puzzle. Kinnik is better in retrospect than I remember, Kellie is worse, and Mandisa really is the only one who makes me sit up and pay close attention. Then we meet the judges, who will be enjoying a one-night oasis in between immature and really fucking immature. Ryan wants to make sure everyone will stay in their assigned seats, and Simon offers (threatens?) to swap positions (oh, grow up) with Ryan. Ryan's like, "What, whoa, whoa. Trust me, I've seen you try and do this? We'll never make it through on time." Paula and Randy laugh it up, knowingly -- has Simon tried hosting before? Is this about that dating show he did? Simon gets a weak comeback in about how his lines aren't scripted, which: riiiight. Randy, who has really nestled comfortably into his role of pitting Mommy against Daddy, tells Ryan not to take that crap. Ryan agrees with me on this one, and hauls out a few old Cowell chestnuts: "ghastly, horrible, nightmare." What about "appalling," Ryan? What about "appalling"? The pre-song video theme this week is "My AI Journey So Far," a theme amorphous enough to cover just about everyone's chosen niches. Taylor, for example, talks about how much his gray hair makes him stand out in a crowd. I know, right? Strangers on the street come up to him and tell him he's the gray haired, harmonica-playing epileptic from American Idol! What an unexpected consequence of sucking all the attention in the room to you like the world's spazziest Shop-Vac! Taylor has resorted to wearing a "toboggan" around town, which makes it harder for his silvery light to act as a beacon for unwanted recognition. Now, lest you think wearing an actual sled on his head is yet another desperate stab at attention, "toboggan" actually serves as Southern slang for a knit cap, or so the internet tells me. You might refer to it as a "beanie," if you're Ace, or a "tuque," if you're Canadian. If you're not Canadian and you say "tuque," that just means you're pretentious. So Taylor's wearing his purple tuque and learning to cherish his anonymity, a less-is-more lesson he's sure to carry into his performance, right? He's singing "I'm Easy," which is officially a Commodores song but is mostly from that Levi's commercial with the guy on the bus. Or perhaps I'm a bit young? Taylor's back with the chicken-dance posture, all hunched over, elbows at forty-five-degree angles. He's eschewed the post-stroke DeNiro face in favor of more smiling, which is nice in theory. Over in Suffragette City, the girls are swaying to the music, and I notice that Melissa is dressed like if Aileen Wuornos got a Queer Eye makeover. We won't see her much tonight, so I have to mention that now. Taylor's singing is pretty good, not like the song gives him much of a challenge. He makes up for this with lots of yelping and finger-snapping and jerking his head not unlike how Kanye does whenever he performs "Gold Digger." He's using "Woo!" as punctuation, at this point. Hella annoying.
Fucking Bo is in the audience, squealing his approval. Of course he is. What did I tell you about how this was going to go down? Dudes, I caught the tail end of Bo's music video on VH1 early morning today, and…how can I put this? That's not actually Bo singing, is it? Yikes. On the plus side, his hair looks fluffier than ever. Anyway, Randy begins by saying Taylor probably sang that song in bars and such. Just so you know I'm not unfairly maligning Taylor, I'm going to do you the favor of transcribing him verbatim as much as I can stand to. So to the "sang it in bars?" question, he says, "Too many. I'm glad to be here, though. Woo!" What Randy's getting at, as if the bar-band dig wasn't enough, is that he thought the performance wasn't Taylor's best. Randy does say that he's got a "Ray Charles thing," like, you don't say, Randy. Elaborate for me. Paula, of course, says he's got a "Taylor Hicks thing," which shocks me, because if Paula's adventures in the liquor cabinet should have taught her anything it's that knockoffs are never as good as the real thing. So Taylor hears his name and goes, "That's it, 'Taylor Hicks,' baby. Woo! I'll take it, I'll take it." Grinning like a fucking idiot. More content-free compliments from Paula, more "Woo!" from Taylor. Paula tells him it wasn't her favorite song choice, but she likes him. Taylor: "WOOO! I'll take that." I sure do hope Taylor kept a receipt when he bought his own hype. Simon says the song was boring and the performance was average. Paula's retarded and says Simon is being "mean." Lady, call me on Thursday and tell me you know from "mean," first of all, and second of all: not even a little bit, and if Taylor can't take that slight criticism at forty-five or however old he is, then what is he doing here? Of course, Paula's inadvertently correct, because it turns out Taylor can't take it, as he shouts a giant "WOOO!" in support of Paula being stupid and standing up for him to mean old Simon. So he's prematurely gray, idolizes Joe Cocker, yet moves and acts like a child? Irresistible! Ryan and Taylor talk about how he's old enough that his first concert was Lionel Richie and Tina Turner, which has to shock the hell out of someone like Kevin, whose first concert was last week's Top 24. He says the tour t-shirt might be a little tight on him these days, and Ryan steps right through that wide open door and says Simon could wear it. Simon and I roll our eyes, but it's not like Ryan could avoid taking that shot. One more "Woo!" for good measure before we go. Just so we don't forget how annoying he is.Up in the Royal Crown lounge, Ryan and Elliott are swapping sweater vest stories. Ryan brings up how the judges picked up where they left off last night with regard to song selection. He says by the time the women got their critiques, Elliott was "past the point of no return" with his own song choice. Was he nervous? Elliott is pretty confident in his choice -- "Moody's Mood for Love" by James Moody. He shouts out his brother, on his birthday, and then his video package talks about how his mom was with him when he auditioned in Boston, but then right before Hollywood she was hospitalized, but now he's made it, and Mom's "back on her feet," so good things all around. Nice that they were able to create a family angle for Elliott now that they know he'll be a finalist. The song, which I've never heard before, is jazzy and challenging for a singer, I would think. Elliott's up to it, in the sense that he's pretty much perfect. This is a much better showcase for him than "If You Really Love Me," and now I can see where all this "great vocalist" talk comes from, because he is. I'm not going to pretend I look forward to his performances every week, but this one was not boring like I said in the recap. I don't really know from jazz, but you know that jazzy thing where every syllable seems to come at a different pitch and it sounds almost halting, but it's really not, it's just a lot of changes coming at you rapid-fire? It can't be easy, is what I'm saying, and Elliott pulls if off effortlessly, so I have to give him huge credit. Randy says Elliott has an "amazing gift" and actually gives him a standing ovation. Which is no mean feat, considering the amount of effort needed for Randy to raise his wrist, clad as it is in what looks to be a sports trophy of some kind.
What comes is pretty momentous, which is why I'm giving it its own paragraph. It's not often that the spheres of politics, culture, television, and history all intersect at once. I think that's a lot of what Edward R. Murrow was saying in Good Night and Good Luck, actually. That we need to use our televisions as more than just passive entertainment, but as a tool for advanced citizenship. And I think that's what Randy Jackson has in mind as he says to Elliott, the studio audience, America, and possibly history itself, "Men and women are all in the Dawg Pound. Dawg Pound, we got a hot one tonight!" Just like that, with a flick of his jewel-encrusted wrist, Randy Jackson has integrated the Dawg Pound. Standing tall in the blinding glare of history, the newly inducted Dawg Pound stand and bark their approval, daughters of the revolution, all. I'm still going to call them Suffragette City, but try and think of it as a winking call-back to the days when the gender lines were more harshly drawn and all that young girls could hope for was to one day be shunted into the Kitty Pound ghetto. No longer, thanks to Randy Jackson.
Anyway, Paula calls "Moody's Mood for Love" one of the hardest songs to sing, and I do believe her. She says Elliott did Stevie Wonder proud, but apparently it's not true that Stevie sang that song? Honestly, that would surprise me, since it seems like everybody in the entire world has done a version of it. Not like I'm going to go to the wall to back up a Paula Abdul factual statement, but still. Paula can't wait to see what Elliott's going to do to top himself, and I kind of can't either. Simon likes that Elliott seems to have gotten his confidence up, but then he says this song isn't the kind that will win him the show. I think what he's trying to say is, "Sing a pop song, already!" but it gets lost in the "song choice" white noise of the entire week. Elliott tells Ryan again about how Simon said he had great "potential," and says he's been "potential" all his life. Ryan asks if he just wants to be "the guy" now. Elliott counters that he wants to be "the Man," and faux-pops his collar. Heh. I like Elliott.
Ace is wearing a very lovely striped shirt and continues the night's trend toward attention-pulling necklaces. Very pretty, this Ace. He says he intends to sing "If I'm Not Made For You," by Daniel Bedingfield, even though I'm pretty sure the title of the song is "If You're Not the One," not that I downloaded it or used to like it or anything. What? It was in my friends' wedding. Oh, you're lame. Ace wishes he had written the song himself, which I guess explains why he feels free to re-title it. But he only learned it this week? Weird. He says his job is to "sell" the song to "all these lovely faces out here." He knows what he's doing, and I have to respect it. Ryan says one of the questions they at the show get asked a lot is about Ace's beanie. They…do? His beanie? You'd think they'd get even more questions about his w-- …you know, no. I'm not making that joke. Video-clip Ace talks about how AI is an unpredictable roller-coaster, so the one thing he's kept constant is how he's always got a beanie on hand. We see him in his hotel room, various beanies spread across his bed, as he has to choose just one for the day. Wow, this is so Ace. Uncomplicated, cute, non-threatening, heroically dull. He says he's always got one with him, in his back pocket. Sometimes the color changes. ["Sars? Can we talk? In private?" -- Jacob] ["…" -- Sars] I can't even really go there with Ace, beyond that link. He's so devoid of anything base or carnal. He's a poster on your little sister's wall, you know? No matter how old he is. The beanie is his comfort blanket. Are you beginning to understand? He compares it to a wedding ring, because it displays his eternal faith and devotion to being a sexless object of lust.
So this is a perfect song for Ace, even if he kind of sucks at singing it. A bit whiny. He's much more comfortable singing in faux whispers, I think, which is why he was better (if endlessly creepier) singing "Father Figure" last week. His jeans are intensely acid-washed. Is that happening again? He technically sounds better when he hits the falsetto, but do not try to look at his face while he does this, or else his entire appeal goes away, and if that happens he will literally vanish and cease to exist. The bridge of the song allows him to do the whispery-talk thing he does so well, so that shores things up a bit. Randy goes all over the map with what is essentially a compliment, saying Ace is a better singer than he lets on, and he should continue to challenge himself like he did tonight. I actually disagree on every single count: I don't think Ace is any better than we've seen, he's possibly worse, and I think if he does try anything too ambitious and forgets that the money is in those eyes of his, he could get himself into trouble.
Okay, so this is great, though. Paula starts to critique, but she stops herself almost immediately, sits up very straight, smiles and says, "Hello, Ace!" Ace smiles flirtily right back. Simon, to Paula: "Careful." Like he's her attorney, cautioning her against incriminating herself. Which he is, and he is. The audience sort of titters, because they watch Primetime Live, and Paula shoots Simon a slack-faced death glare. I'm filling in the blanks as to what that glare means, because we don't really know which synapses are currently firing in Paula's head, but she makes a face at him and says, "Oh. Hello Simon," like she's placating him. I don't know whether that was Paula being oblivious or Paula covering so the few minutes aren't covered with a thin film of Corey Clark. Either way, it's too late. Paula tells Ace to take more risks because, as she says, "You are better than…better than …" Ace: "Better than I know." Kind of a Taylor thing to say, but the judges led him right to it. Simon, thank God, keeps it real, telling Ace that he won't be too pleased when he hears the performance played back, and he needs to find a song that better suits his voice. Yes. True fact. ["And thank God, because no way should he have gotten away with that line, disingenuous or not. I freaked when he said that shit, and I actually really like Ace." -- Jacob] There's some stupid, childish judges banter after that, and Randy again calls Ryan to step in. Cut that out, Randy, for serious. Ace makes up for a lot of the poor singing by telling Ryan that he agrees with all the judges "in different ways," but he's glad he sang that song, because he loves it, and he hopes he did well on it. Perfect attitude. Ryan comes full circle with the beanie talk and asks what color we've got this week. I'm sorry, Ryan, did you just reach around Ace and pull that beanie out of his ass pocket? And did Ace not even flinch? Hmm. It's a khaki-colored beanie, in case you were curious. And Ryan gets him to toss it into Suffragette City, where Brenna plays the part of Trying Too Hard Bridesmaid and grabs it out of Melissa's clutches. Oh, girl. Melissa will serial murder you for that and then star in a documentary about it, so watch your back.
Then effing Ryan gets up to do more fake banter, and he's shining Kevin on about the "movie-star good looks," and says he's found Kevin's "Hollywood body double." Cut to a split-screen shot, with Kevin on one side and Chicken Little on the other. Mean! Accurate, to a frightening degree, but so mean! Kevin just stands there and takes it, because what are you gonna do? But there's some significant "Way to blow my spot, Mystic Tan" vibing going on there. Then Ryan says that it was actually Paris who coined the "Chicken Little" nickname for Kevin. And the plot of my high school drama where Kevin, Paris, and Will are a tumultuous love triangle deepens! Devastated by the news that Paris doesn't think of him "that way," Kevin sets his sights on Lisa Tucker. Who is probably too busy padding her extracurricular résumé or taking the CPA exam or whatever else preternaturally mature and ambitious teenage girls are wont to do. Ryan digs his hole even deeper, as he says, "After all this attention, he's Chicken Large now." Ryan! Age inappropriate!Sway doesn't seem quite so short sitting on the couch in the RC Cola lounge. Maybe he should just sing from there. He's going to sing "Overjoyed," by Stevie Wonder. Okay, seriously? I understand that my own personal irritation is not sufficient basis for these guys' decision making, but come on. How can you possibly impress the judges singing yet another rendition of yet another Stevie Wonder song? Yeah, yeah, Elliott did it last week, but a) the judges were lying, and b) if you play the percentages, it's still a low probability that you are somehow going to breathe life into that dead horse. Stevie Wonder himself is awesome, but he has been performed four times in the past two weeks. E-fucking-nough, children. Sway's Idol moment was last week when his parents reunited, however briefly, to see their kid perform. Aw, I love Sway's parents. His dad looks like an amalgam of Cheech Marin (Tin Cup version) and Bruce from Survivor. All the Penalas are just adorable, and also very tiny.
"Overjoyed" is a nice song. Pleasant, you know? On the tip of boring, but not exactly. Sway sounds nervous, maybe. Not as in control of his voice as he could be. Compare this with how Elliott was able to keep his stuff in check, and Sway comes out looking pretty bad. Randy is once again "keepin' it real" (first time this season?) and tells Sway it wasn't as good as last week. Now, it wasn't good, that much is true. But last week was awful, if you recall, and Randy was about the only one who didn't realize it. Keepin' it real, though. Paula doesn't think he felt "connected," which maybe relates to my "nervous" theory. Sway concedes that maybe he was just having an off day. Simon says three things in rapid succession. He calls the performance "karaoke" (more karaoke than Kevin? Come on, Simon, our connection must be on a delay or something), he says it lacked all originality, and it was "forgettable." I'll certainly grant the last two. Simon's basically sealing his fate here, and Sway sadly knows it. He admits defeat some more, telling Ryan that it may have been the wrong song choice for him, and looks rather cute doing so. It's disconcerting to see someone stand so much shorter than Ryan. Sometimes we need our universal constants.
Yay, Will! He and Ryan are in the Royal Crown lounge, chatting about cars or fake IDs or whatever. I was gonna say girls, but that would be a hilariously one-sided conversation, I think. Ryan says Will is going to sing something "slow and soulful." Interesting, I wonder what it is. Ryan asks if Will is even old enough to pull off "soulful," to which Will sort of fake scoffs, like, "obviously." Ryan says the song was recorded well before Will was even born. This is so suspenseful! What song? What song? Will says he's going to sing "Lady," by Kenny Rogers. HAAAAAA ha ha ha! Hee hee. Oh, dear. Hee. Heh. Awesome. "Lady." Hee. Oh, Will. He talks about how Kenny is a country artist and he's gotta represent Texas. Dudes, I would be so stuck singing Ani DiFranco or Rick James if I ever wanted to rep my hood on this show. Not that me warbling "Give It To Me, Baby" or "Little Plastic Castle" on live TV wouldn't be worth its weight in awkward gold, but still. Don't bet on it. Will is the perfect amount of fake with Ryan, where he's trying to be boys with the host but also trying to show off for America. And at sixteen, that process could manifest itself as far worse than what Will is giving us, which is part of the reason I like him so much. In his video clip -- in which he is supporting the night's third sweater vest and a blinding gold cross around his neck which Mandisa may or may not have slipped on him when he wasn't looking -- he talks about going to class with his network-provided tutor, who I half expected to be Stacy Keach or Peter Gallagher or someone. He also talks about going to a cast party where he met Justin Guarini, who we only see in still photograph form, which is already too much, because dude looks haggard. Like he's been hitting some sort of pipe and/or needle. But Will was psyched to meet him because he remembers watching Justin on his season when he was twelve years old. Fucking Christ, show! You have to warn me when you're about to pull something like that. Stop making the rest of us feel old and/or ashamed that we'd probably buy Will a six-pack at the gas station if he asked us.So: "Lady." Heh. Will's voice is super-deep. Affected, but hell, so is the song, to an insane degree. Who can listen to this song with a straight face? "I'm your knight in shining armor, and you're my lady"? Not to mention coming out of Will's mouth. Last time he used the word "lady," it was immediately followed by "down the street who won't let us play hockey in front of her house." Starting off, he's standing a bit awkwardly, but things get better when he takes hold of the mic and starts moving around. He's at that teenage stage where he's all arms and legs, so it works best for him when the arms aren't just sort of hanging there. We get a shot of Will's parents in the crowd, who are both beaming at him, and his mom is also mouthing the words to the song, which is where my composure leaves me for good. This shit is hilarious. Will's doing a fantastic job with the actual singing, but the song is just too much. Heeeee hee. When it's over, he and Randy sort of banter like dudes, but Randy tells him the performance didn't really blow him away. Uh oh. When Paula starts her critique with "the good news is," you know you're in trouble. She says he has a great "tone" to his voice, which he does. "The choices that you made in the song for tender moments were right on point." No idea what she means there. But "tender moments" is a lyric that should have been in "Lady," so there's some cohesiveness, I suppose. Still, Paula thought it was too bland and too safe. I don't like how Will keeps getting blasted after singing well while, let's say, Kevin skates by on being adorable. When the truth is Will is every bit as adorable and has the added bonus of how he's not destined to be broken by the machinery of the show. Simon calls it an audition for Cats, which is 80% another one of his random Simile-Tron 3000 statements and only 20% actual specific criticism. I guess calling it an audition for Broadway could be applicable, but whether you like Will or not, the vibe he gives off isn't stage musical. Will takes this with some lovely raised eyebrows, like, "Okay. I…guess?" Simon then says Will's target audience is eleven-year-old girls. Will makes a face, and Paula -- oddly lucid and perceptive -- says he's probably looking for a higher age bracket than that. Randy calls Ryan in, AGAIN. I know I said before that Ryan needs to be quick on when to come in and make the save, but for one thing he didn't need to, because Will's fine. And for another thing, stop acting like a whiny baby, Jackson. My god. "Moooooom! Simon has a contrary opinion!"
Ryan jumps up onstage and asks Randy for a specific bit of advice for Will as he heads into week -- assuming he doesn't get voted off, which: don't even. Randy is remarkably content-free in his response: "You gotta sing your heart out. Find a song that you sing the best. I don't care what kind of song it is, make it about what you sing best, so you can stay in." Gee. Thanks. Sing any kind of song well? That's your advice? After an entire week of "you chose the wrong song" critiques, that's the best you can do? Sing your heart out?? Isn't Randy supposed to be the judge who sometimes gives useful critiques? What the hell is he there for, otherwise? ["To tell people what time it is?" -- Sars] Ryan at least tries to be helpful, saying he wants to see Will "throw down a little." Randy agrees a bit, saying, "Loosen up, baby!"
And here's where things get dicey, legally speaking. Taking the "loosen up" cue, Ryan tugs at Will's shirt and begins to pull it untucked. Simon, again playing the role of prudent officer of the court, is immediately like, "Careful, Ryan." Paula, too: "Ryan! Ryan!" Simon then of course brings it to the gay hornet's nest, which is expected and a little lame. But honestly, Ryan. You're undressing the sixteen-year-old boy? On national television? I really hope Nancy Grace wasn't watching American Idol just then, because she will be all over his ass. Ryan gets very "hands above board!" but it's too late. ["Hatched from a barleycorn! No bigger than your thumb! Joe R. is killing me!" -- Jacob] Simon is telling Will to back away slowly. Yeah, it's bull for Simon to blend the gay jokes in with this new pedophile material, but: undressing the sixteen-year-old! On TV! Will finally catches wind of what Simon is saying, and he lets out a giant laugh, not to mention points at Simon when he does it, because at some level he is still sixteen. Will is a back-of-the-classroom snickerer, I'm thinking. Ryan pulls Will to him (hands where we can see them, at least) and asks what Simon said. Will, still laughing, says Simon told him to "get off the stage, quick," and he makes a big show of tucking his shirt back in. Then, in the best moment of this entire dinner theatre production of L.I.E., Will feels bad (you can tell) for joining in on the "Ryan touches boys" schoolyard shit, so he turns to Ryan and is like, "I'm just kidding." He goes for the man hug, but Ryan pushes him away. It's deeply uncomfortable for 0.003 seconds, before things just suddenly go back to the default: Will smiling adorably and Ryan being a total professional and sending us to commercial to ponder a great many things at once.
"TV-G"? Yeah, not no more, it ain't. Ryan makes his way to the big red couch to talk to Bucky. Bucky, tonight, has his hair up in a ponytail, and a long-sleeved tan shirt with either an eagle or possibly a griffin on the chest. The description may not suggest it, but it's a de-lousing, of sorts, for Bucky. Now he looks like the type you'd find in a bar spitting Skoal juice into a cup, instead of on the hood of his car doing same. Tonight, Bucky garbles, he's going to sing us some Garth Brooks, Garth being "one of the first guys to put a little rock into country." Is that true? Isn't the history of both country and rock music littered with artists who blurred that line? Anyway, in Bucky's video, he's back to looking filthy and gross. He's also cheating off Kellie Pickler's test, because his big Idol experience has been dealing with the queer Californy cuisine. Back at home, you see, Bucky knows what he'll be getting. Chicken and dumplings and corn are straightforward. They don't put on airs. They don't think they're better than you, they don't go windsurfing, and they don't want to use your tax money to fund the arts. Bucky is confused and frightened by the mashed potatoes they serve in L.A. Get this: they call them smashed potatoes. See what you've done to Bucky, Rachel Ray? And what the HELL have you put on Bucky's chicken? Because he has no idea. And he does not like the way the chef looked at that busboy. Bucky's conclusion? "It's French. It must be French." What do you think, America? Have we sufficiently pandered to your most basic misgivings about how the other half lives yet? Because this is what it amounts to. "What did you do to my chicken, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys?"So the Garth Brooks tune Bucky has chosen to sing is "The Thunder Rolls," the only Garth Brooks song I could ever stand, from back in the day when he mattered. And the only thing I remember about that is how the music video was all about how Garth was beating the hell out of his wife, who was perhaps played by Heather Langenkamp of Just the Ten of Us fame. And how between that video and "Janie's Got a Gun," I started to become awfully suspicious of all my friends' fathers. It's not an altogether unpleasant experience, listening to Bucky sing this. He's just not all that impressive. ["He'll be a lot less impressive once I smash his potatoes. Fucking chucker." -- Jacob] He's more rock than country, which means he can't fall back on the twangy affectations like Garth can, and his voice isn't strong enough to carry the more ambitious notes. Thank God he has all the lovely intangibles. Randy says Bucky is "representing the Dirty South." Heh. He said "dirty." Randy liked it overall, though he mentions "pitch problems." I don't even think the performance was ambitious enough to have pitch problems. Paula thinks he was having fun, and Bucky's response is something ridiculously garbled, and then he blinks a lot. Bucky's mom and sister are in the audience, dressed for a funeral for no reason. For the second night in a row, Simon gives his stamp of approval to the corn pone, "I ain't much fer fancy book-larnin'" image-making, which means we'll surely get more of it in seasons to come. Maybe this season. What I wouldn't give for week Ace to be like, "They make bacon from turkeys out here? Now I've seen everything!" The problem, says Simon, is that Bucky is still coming across as the "support act" for the bigger stars on the show. Now, if I were a Bucky fan, I might mention that this could be a result of drastic disparities in screen time before the Top 24, but any hopes for me to get fired up about that issue were extinguished along with Patrick Hall. Ryan, because he can't resist being the Felix to Bucky's Oscar, says he and Bucky can go out for "spicy tuna rolls." Bucky -- I know this is shocking -- would rather some biscuits and sweet tea. And then he smiles with his impacted teeth and looks an awful lot like one of the West Memphis Three, to the point where I think, "I'm happy he's not in jail anymore."
David Radford is super-smily in his pre-song video, and for the first time in quite a while, I don't loathe him on sight. Maybe the beating he took last week has evoked sympathy? God, I hope not. He says he has a "funny story" about his audition in Chicago. He says in the days leading up to the audition he "got together a wardrobe [he] thought was fitting," which I found adorable in its minutiae, but that's the appeal of the entire story, so stick around. We flash back to David and his mom in Chicago, and David looked a lot better with the sideburns, I have to say. Also, audition David was very tan, and also very nervous and bouncy. So David realized on his way to the actual audition that he had no belt, and he couldn't find one anywhere (David: "Nobody has a spare belt, you know?"), so his solution was to loop his mom's phone charger around his waist and tie it together. What's the punch line? There is none, because nobody noticed, and everything went smoothly. Why did I love that story so much? It's the most typical, boring, everyday story ever. It's like a "So I eventually found my keys in the lock on the door" story. I like that David is so pleased with that story and doesn't feel like he has to create a myth about himself or talk about how everybody at home is looking up to him. He needed a phone charger for a belt this one day a few months ago. And he thinks that's hilarious. And now I realize that David Radford, seventeen-year-old kid with an awesome mom and lovely in-the-past sideburns and boring stories, is pretty great. The problem is David Radford, faux crooner with an inhuman voice and gross faces. Just my luck, guess who stepped out onstage?David's song is "The Way You Look Tonight," by Frank Sinatra. I know, I know. It's exactly the kind of performance he's been giving since the beginning: self-conscious to an almost unimaginable degree, not pleasant-sounding, inconsistent as to the Rat Pack affectations. It's the usual Radford mess. This song got played out for me big time back in high school, so even as someone who generally digs Sinatra, it bugs me. This one, and "My Kind of Town." I guess I just don't get the appeal of a faux crooner in the competition. I wasn't around for John Stevens, even though he was a local guy and the media were all over that shit, of course. So I don't know what he was like, but it's just playing dress-up, right? I mean, even more so than it usually is on this show. You're not getting that particular kid singing. You're getting that particular kid doing his best impression of a style that's gone away. It's why I can't stomach effing Michael Bublé. Well, that and the damn "Feeling Good" cover, which ruined literally everything good about that song, and I hope Nina Simone is haunting the hell out of him right about now. That dude's got it coming to him in about a thousand ways, but I'm also deathly afraid of him, because as far as I can see there's no him at all. Remember how insanely creepy it was at Club Silencio in Mulholland Drive? That's Michael Bublé, to me. No hay banda, that's for sure.
The dudes up in the balcony are dancing around crappily to David, which is about what he deserves, because he's putting it on as much as they are. He's not making half of the fucked-up faces that he did during last week's debacle, but the reason is because his spirit was murdered by the harsh critiques and was replaced by dead-eyed abject terror. David shouts out the band when he's done, which is pretty cool. Then he turns to the judges and puts on a stone face that will not budge one single inch. It looks like he's being pissy about getting bad reviews, but it's actually because he needs to tense up his facial muscles to an insane degree, lest he cry and/or barf. Randy says he was "bored" by it. Paula is self-aware enough to know that last week David got the "back in your box!" speech, so she avoids contradiction by not telling him to be more ambitious. What she does say is that his execution was off. Not really. He's no more awful and uninspired this week than he's been all along. But she can't very well say, "We made a horrible mistake by putting you in the Top 24 when we had Will, who can step out of the crooner box, and Kevin, who will do whatever we want him to, so the fake niche we wanted you to fill is no longer desirable. Time to go now." So I'm cool with the route she did take. Oh my God, David's immobile face is sort of frightening. Again, if you remember that just beneath that stone façade is an avalanche of tears and vomit, it becomes an admirable coping mechanism. Simon says David "absolutely" has the right voice for the crooner stuff, but he's absent the confidence and personality he needs to pull it off. That's about as close to the truth as we can possibly get, and he's totally going home anyway, so I'm glad Simon was semi-nice about it. Finally David is able to let a smile peek through, because it's over and nobody said anything too mean, and this time tomorrow he'll be on a plane home and happy about it. He's still super-clipped with Ryan, but if you remember how he almost lost it last week, it's tough to call him an asshole for it. Turns out I like David whenever he's not singing. So…good thing he's on a singing show, then.Chris is actually not in the RC Cola lounge, but rather on the stairs leading up to it. Because…I don't know. How do stairs contribute to the image of Chris, the slightly older family man who works hard and looks a little like Bruce Willis except hot? This show has my neck on a swivel for subliminal crap now. Ryan asks him about his song choice, which is Fuel's "Hemorrhage." Chris thinks it's a great song, as do I, and he says it has meaning for "what happens to relationships when you don't nurture them." Um. Hi, Chris's wife! Don't read too much into things! Chris keeps evolving his facial hair. The Elektra sideburns are still there, but it looks like he may have shaved and let them grow back. And he's got the upside-down triangle soul patch, which is very prominent in his video clip. He's just crazily good-looking. Not surprisingly, the video is all about Chris as a workaday stiff and daddy to his air-hockey-playing kids. He just seems like a nice guy with a nice wife and nice kids. Give me something to work with here, Chris! Jesus! (Sit down, Mandisa. I wasn't talking to you.)
So, I really love this song. It was one of about a thousand I listened to in college by these pop-tinted post-alternative rock bands, but it's one of the few that's stuck. Plus, I saw this VH1 thing where Fuel told about how the song was originally intended to be about the guitarist's dying grandmother and now it makes me think of serious and personal things as well. Which should not at all distract you from the fact that I have very shallow taste in music, and this song is a prime example. I have more than three Third Eye Blind songs on my computer right now. I shouldn't be able to get away with crap like, "It makes me think of Grandma." That's Pickler talk. Anyway, Chris is just phenomenal here. He's not overly screamy, and he's not too fussy with the vocal gymnastics. He and Katharine are in the same boat with me -- I love them, I just have to hope they leave the frilly shit at home. My boy Will is rocking out in the balcony, both arms up in the air. The Suffragettes are feeling it. He's working the Eddie Vedder voice a lot, and it's working for him.
Randy loved it so much, he repeats himself four times. He praises the song selection, just to wrap up our theme, and says Chris could have a hit on the radio with this song right now. He name-drops Audioslave and Incubus along the way -- yes, I have one Incubus song on my computer, but it's not the one you think -- as Chris's friends, different from last week, freak out. Paula: "Do you know how good you are?" Chris: "Only when you tell me." Awesome. She says he's amazing, and that he hit "one of [his] many to come magic moments." Simon by now is leaning back on his elbow, smiling at Chris with a -- dare I say? -- cute little grin on his face. I think he's happy he gets to give the week's high marks. He calls it the only performance that "stands up in the real world," and he calls on the rest of the guys to take notice, because Chris is now the standard. So fantastic. As Ryan approaches the stage, Chris does this running-in-place motion full of nervous energy and excitement. So cute. He slaps hands -- HARD -- with Ryan, and Ryan, as usual, is halfway between "butch" and "cowering." Chris is "on top of the world," and while he still looks like the guy who comes to install your cable (albeit in the porno movie of your imagination), he's suddenly credible as one of the front-runners, for the first time. I couldn't be more pleased.Ryan kicks it to the rundown: Taylor with his junk right up in our face. Elliott taking his voice for a stroll around town, dressed in his church casuals. Ace sounding like shit but frantically looking for a camera so he can make up for it. Gedeon pulling it together at the end. Kevin putting on a show for the grown-ups. Sway looking far more presentable now that he's not in pimp-wear. Will making me laugh hysterically some more, and also missing the camera entirely. Bucky growling and not flying around on wires like it usually takes to make that song palatable. David being officially dead and empty inside. And Chris stomping and pounding his chest and winning me over officially, for good.
Ryan sends us home with Kevin and Sway by his side -- just as last night, we're being reminded of those in most danger just as the phone lines open, which is interesting to think about. Ryan is the tallest of this trio, which…I'm harping on it, but think about it for one second, and it'll start to eat away at you, too.
: Jacob will be back with the results show and give the big kiss-off to four more of these adolescents.