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And we're live for a full hour. And such an hour! I admit that Wednesday night, I got more and more insanely jealous of Joe R during the hour-of-NAMBLA public service announcement episode. For exactly 24 hours, until this. Now I'm okay!
So Ryan's wearing a complicated black outfit with a white pocket square. The black makes him look more orange than lighter colors do. He tells us that Carrie Underwood is coming, and for some reason I'm looking forward to seeing her. I'm sure that will last about six seconds, but I was like, "Yeah? Carrie?" I guess when a person spends as much time in your living room as she did -- watching each episode multiple times, no less -- you can't help but be kindly disposed toward her. I hope she is happy forever. And that I don't ever have to listen to her sing again in my entire life, because that is not how I roll.
Avril Lavigne's terrifying body double watches as Ryan tells us there were over 42 million votes this week. That is so many votes! Randy's wearing a lovely candy-striped shirt, Paula's doing some kind of Anna Nicole thing and waving to her own face, and Ryan calls Simon "Mr. Cranky himself." I bet that's what he says in the morning as he's bringing in the tray. "And how is Mr. Cranky this morning? I made you crepes." A little paper flower in the OJ. Fuck Simon Cowell for not being grateful for what he has. What could be better than Ryan Seacrest bringing you crepes and calling you "Mr. Cranky"? Paula's out of it and not talking or looking at anything in particular, and Ryan tells Simon not to "start" tonight. I guess due to the fact that Simon asked him last night to please not molest the contestants. Does that really fall under the heading of "attitude"? Because I would have put it under "I will have your ass," and not in the nice way.
Now the group sings "Love The One You're With," which fits the cynical amount of bullcrap going down in the Top 24. I always thought Bo should have done that the night Carrie won. I think the fans would have appreciated that, and it's in his range and vibe. Quickly now: Melissa still dances like a stripper; Taylor still dances like a scary idiot; Heather still has boobs; Brenna still sings and thinks like a duck; Gedeon is still a strange little thing; Paris still sings directly to the camera with little "vote for me" hands in her eyeballs, folded as though in prayer. Bucky hates to dance because of California, Lisa sings into the camera with her eyes wide and then chases it into the audience. Ayla's the only one who's even trying, vocally, wearing a snappy and sexy red dress and ending her line with a cute little fake smile at the end. She sounds great even though she has to move around a lot more than most of the others, due to the choreography. Then Katharine! Rocks! She riffs over the chorus and does a cute little dance with her legs going every which way and is wonderful. Bucky is in hell. Will is at the front of the group, not really registering, and Kellie's cute some more. Kevin is still here? He looks like he wandered in from a studio tour, as usual. Kinnik is also still here, jumping into frame out of nowhere and wearing a really cute outfit, a newsboy, and huge white sneakers. (Andy: "She's the only one that looks famous. Everybody else looks like I went to high school with them." Jacob: "Your high school was not drag queen-friendly." Andy: "Tell me about it." Okay, I admit that I made most of that conversation up.) Will is a good dancer, actually. David Radford is still here? Then there is Mandisa to wrap things up.
Mandisa. Girl, no. I want to be clear here, when I say that Mandisa is a beautiful woman with a wonderful voice. She is a sexy large lady with very awesome hair. But this...99% of dressing yourself is looking great, and the other 1% is personal style. And what has been accomplished here is 0% of a possible 100%. There's no need to say she looks good when she doesn't, just because she's a big girl. Most of the time she looks awesome, and dresses for her body. Which it turns out is...really weird, if you dress it right. She's wearing a long tunic shirt, black, that is tight in the bodice and looks great, then flows voluminously down over her hips and thighs, which are wearing jeans. The lightness of the denim, and the looseness and darkness of the bottom half of the shirt, combine to make her look like a flip book of girls. The top half is sexy and is recognizable as Mandisa, dressed well. The bottom half is some other girl, who is clearly not supposed to be here. It's so weird and so wrong, because these are basic mistakes: if you have big thighs or wide hips, don't pair light bottoms with a dark top. If you have an outsized lower half, compared to your top half, don't wear a shirt that's tight up top and then flows like a tablecloth down across the rest of you. Simply switching the colors, and giving the shirt a consistent hemline further up, and you'd be golden. Instead, you look scary, and you look twice as big as you are. The mantilla she was wearing on Tuesday kind of went too far in the other direction, but still. The shirt, compounding the problem, is supposed to be sleeveless, but in a close-up there are these clear rubber straps holding it up, cutting into her shoulders, which also makes her appear fleshier than she is. This is an assault on the beauty of Mandisa, and I am not on board. Where did this hell come from? This is an outfit that would make almost anyone look bad -- even a chicken-legs person the exact upside-down opposite of Mandisa would look like they had huge thighs -- on color mechanics alone, and then there are the plastic straps, which would look assy on anybody. I think we need to have a word with someone. But she has infectious and powerful joy and her voice is great.
They all pose ridiculously at the end of the song, and Brenna looks like an album cover of amazing. There are still so many of them! It's like this giant herd! Ryan takes us back over the last three hours and two nights: Ace sucked and squealed and was bad but safe forever, Heather was boring as hell and still looked hard, Will was doing something I do not understand although I do love him, Kellie was actually awesome for some reason, Brenna sounded like a duck (but they clip the one part she didn't suck at, which was nice of them) and Simon said she was going home, Simon told Paula to go to hell and it took her ten hours to figure it out and then she got mad and switched chairs. Song choice was a continuing problem: Katharine was utterly boring with Stevie Wonder, while Sway could not pull off "Overjoyed" at all and made me forget why I loved him in the first place. Kinnik sang country and sucked, Bucky sang country and was awesome but I still despise him and his works, Melissa I don't know or care what happened. Taylor has tics but David maybe has more, since we haven't ruled out an actual neurological disorder on Taylor's part. Simon hated them both, David had no confidence, Ayla and Elliott were amazing and blew the roof off for a billion reasons. Paris and Lisa good, but a little boring, but of the two of them, at least Lisa wasn't wearing a Halloween costume of some kind. Gedeon did his thing and made it his own, to the point where I finally get why he's here. Kevin was a fucking joke, Mandisa and Chris needed to not be here but not because they're not good, because they're too good, and this isn't a singing competition. Point being: Mandisa and Chris (and maybe Lisa, who I couldn't give less of a damn about) should be off succeeding, not wasting time. This isn't about music, and anybody who tells you it is, is selling you something. Mostly Coke and Ford automobiles. Someone should give Mandisa and Chris this memo.