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The Good: As usual in this phase of the show, this category is weak sauce. There's Tatiana, a tiny little songster you can barely remember; Bernard, who I actually don't remember; and Chris, who combines the violent charm of Jonah Hill with a Jack Osbourne cuteness, and also can actually sing. Look for him to get no further than Hollywood, although if I had my way he'd be in the Final Two with Blake from Seattle.
The Merely Bad: There's Ericka, singing like a chipmunk while looking like Taylor Dayne's little sister; Diana, a big girl with an ugly voice and more pink netting; Lakia, who's like if Fantasia and Theodore the Chipmunk had a deluded baby; and Team Nichole -- even her creepy Pageant-Mom mom can't support the noises she makes.
The Horribly Exploitative: Jamie Lynn, whose father's murder/suicide of mom has left him unable to care for himself. Gross me out. JL provides material evidence for the importance of personal discretion, and also why Kellie Pickler is bad for America.
The Weirdly Good: I really liked Katie, who talks like Maria Bamford and sings like Britney Spears. Which is to say poorly. There was also Victoria, who sings like she's in choir with my girl Stevie Scott, and whose decade-long hair whispers softly, "My family is in a cult."
The Weirdly Bad: First there's Big Bird-looking Margaret "Mag Wildwood" Fowler, who lies about both her age (fifty) and her talent (nonexistent) but is refreshingly upfront about her craziness (a sight to behold). Then there's Brandy, who speaks at half speed like a person cruelly imitating the hard of hearing. She's gross and the segment goes on too long, but the plus side is that Simon's reaction to her is the cutest thing I've ever seen. I swear he gets more charming every year.
Ryan's much happier in Birmingham, which is nice. I believe twenty-one total made it through, of the entire hour, though I only would recognize two of them at best. Join me tonight for LA, where I'm sure it'll be weird but fun. Only four more months of auditions to go! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Seacrest dips into a weird non-native Queens place deep inside telling us how some people "cwall" Birmingham "Idol Country," due to the storied Alabamian preoccupation with the adoration and propitiation of golden calves, mutant M&Ms, and the patron gods of high school football, Daterapius and Homophoboton, with a meaty mix of sacrifices ranging from transfat-laden fast food and Dixie Chicks CDs flambé to the upper range of your classic jerkies: beef, venison, libertarian. Also, though, because of Bo and Ruben, and "of course, Taylor." That phrase is at the bottom of so much that is wrong: "Cervical cancer is on the rise due to an uptick in STDs, and of course, Taylor Hicks." Ryan says this year, they figured out that they should just go to Birmingham directly instead of taking part in the national joke that is this show, where a newly minted crooning pothead with gross dad flab and a whole snooze-inducing trashy family story would be waiting and ready to be our American Idol. Sadly, this did not happen. More sadly, we're spending an hour in Birmingham anyway.
Since so much talent has come from here, we thought, "Why not come to them?" And then proceed to pretend there is no talent here, because that's how Audition Month (month) works. The Mayor of Birmingham, who looks like a very nice homeless person, calls his town "the place where Idols are born," and Moses delivers just then a mighty bitchslap, and dude's like, "I'm the Mayor!" Paula looks totally cute, Simon's totally sweet to everybody, Ryan giggles in the voiceover about how Simon changed into a black sweater, and everybody cheers the judges as they arrive. Why?
Erica Skye (19, Auburn AL): Stripper dancing and talking I don't understand -- is she speaking English? Did she put something in her mouth? Was it pharmaceutical? Am I being hateful toward Alabama or toward the motor skill-compromised? I remember I had trouble understanding Bo sometimes too. She says she's studying "biological science," which...? And that she hopes to do something "in the dental field," and in addition to sounding either high or like she has a softball in her mouth, she also sounds like she's going to cry, all the time. Which is how it is, in Alabama, like all the time. Or so Oprah has taught me, through her many books. She's cute, I mean, this girl is cute, with wild hair that says "I'll totally make out with you, thanks for asking!" and makeup that says, "I look fifty!" Her impenetrable accent goes away somewhat while she's singing, but that doesn't help, really. She sings "Unchained Melody," which as we all know was written and first performed by Leanne Rimes, and it's almost there? But it's not really there. Randy is embarrassed for her, and he wigs out with Paula about how loud the girl is.
Outside, Ryan is totally cute in a light camel jacket talking to Erica's totally identical friends. Inside, she forgets the words and stumbles about stupidly for awhile. Finally, Simon informs her that it was "like a neverending torture," and she pulls the "my voice was shaky" and asks for another chance. He tells her not to sing more under any circumstances, so she starts singing. "Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica," says Simon; Paula wanders away off camera. "Erica. Erica. Erica. Erica. Please, Erica. Erica, please," begs Simon. "Jesus Effin' Christ," Paula nearly says aloud. Erica starts singing a third time; Simon is now pissed, and even Randy's nervous continuous laughter is starting to sound a little irritated and worn. Offstage, Paula flounces around about what an asshole Erica Skye (19, Auburn AL!) is being, and Randy asks security to get her stupid ass out of there. Paula is appalled and vocally "shocked" by the behavior, and I have to say, I agree. There's being determined and there's being moronic and forging ahead because you literally forgot to stop. They give her a unanimous no, and she makes a horribly nasty face, then brushes her shoulder off as she's leaving. Simon asks Paula what that means, and Paula's lovely/alert: "Basically 'fuck us,'" she says with a grin. "Really?" says Simon, in love with learning. Outside, Erica wishes they'd "been a little nicer," but I think she's talking about the judges and not like fate, or genetics, or that goldurn donkey what kicked her in the head.
Sad Boy Crying, Big Girl making Ryan feel nacho sympathy -- you know how much I love Ryan, right? This whole recap, picture him continually going, "Awwwww!" whenever anybody doesn't get through. It's the sweetest thing. It's the opposite of Seattle in like every way. More crying, more crying, just enough time for a quick shout-out to Molly Ivins: You go, Molly Ivins!
Katie Bernard (19, Oviedo FL) is dancing so awesome with her Maria Bamford little girl voice rocking out like a cartoon. She's like if Scooter Girl didn't seem so needy and looked even more like Pamie, that's Katie here. Love her. She talks about how people on the phone always think she's three, and they ask to talk to her mom, but her mom is her, and she has no kids, it's just Katie being Katie. Paula notes right away the "interesting voice," and Katie assures them that her speaking voice and singing voice are, luckily, completely different. It's clear she's charmed Simon and Paula before she even starts singing, which is probably best because her singing voice is one she shares with Britney Spears, who is many things both wonderful and terrible, but "singer" is not and has never been on that list. She sounds great, I mean, I like her voice, but it's not like real-life singing at all. Also, she is doing this drunk-slutty-robot-voice Brit bit while singing "A House Is Not A Home," which on top of the cartoon voice makes everything really weird. Simon is I would say equal parts intrigued, irritated, and weirded out; Paula loves it because she loves cartoons and things that seem to be good. Randy's just bored. Afterwards Paula calls it "the most interesting," and Katie starts yelling at Randy about "we can do this we can do this" over and over, and it goes on pretty long. Everybody gets on their knees at some point except Simon, Katie drags her husband into the room screaming hilariously, "Convince Paula! She thinks I should enjoy marriage! We can do this! We can convince Paula!" She's the cutest girl in all the world; Simon hates all of this terrible much. Paula finally puts her through just for irritating Simon, which is as stupid as ever, and when Katie comes out with her ticket and husband in tow, Ryan laughs and claps.
Ryan wishes people luck as they enter whatever this place is where Alabamians come to enjoy things en masse, still looking great and not sickly like he did last year, and we meet Tatiana McConnico (17, Austell and/or Atlanta GA). She's a student at an HSPVA, was born to sing, is pretty and tiny and speaks in that usual awesome preternaturally Dakota way the 16/17s talk on this show. She loves the show and hopes to be missing it this season; she calls this audition the "biggest thing I've ever done in my life ... all seventeen years of it." It's not as precociously irritating and self-deprecating as it sounds, because she's adorable. The judges love her scary professionalism, of course, and Paula vamps at her. Paula's makeup looks great and she's got a cute ponytail today. Maybe it's my screen resolution and everybody always looked great, or the lighting was off last year or something, but it's a pleasure to be looking at these people for six hours a week, and I don't remember that being true very often. Surely they'll get tired soon. Of course Tatiana goes nuts all over the song, and she's obviously got it, and the judges are totally impressed and act really cool with her. Randy calls her "a 100% natural" and "dope"; Simon puts her through without a lot of fanfare, because it's games within games with him, always; Paula laughs wildly, she's so excited. Ryan stares at the family hug outside, laughing, and then her friend does a crazy dance and acts like Cousin Pam.
Diana Walker (27, Atlanta GA) is too big to be here, and somebody should tell her this. Also, she works in child care. Which is awesome because children are our future, but also kind of tells you what's going to happen . She tells Ryan she used to be a cheerleader (this would be like ten years ago, okay) and that she was the base of the pyramid, but now she probably can't do the splits, and I cannot think of a less interesting conversation to be having on television, especially a show that regularly pulls Super Bowl ratings and ad revenue. She explains to us that this is a "grand" opportunity and that it will "open doors" like none other. These are lies from stem to stern, but it's important for them all to believe this stuff, as we'll see, so I'm not going to laugh too hard at that bullcorn, but there it is. "Grand" opportunity to get your ass made fun of on TV, right. She's wearing more pink netting around her zip code breasts and dangly plastic pink earrings and generally looks like the forgotten Hologram, and Paula laughs right the fuck at her as she walks in. She's wearing a Bedazzled left-hand glove, in order to "represent" something I don't understand, and Randy draws the freakily intuitive and not-at-all obvious referential line to Michael Jackson, and then she sings very LOUDLY and very NERVOUSLY, and Simon's eyebrows go, "Girl, I am getting old." It's really scary, sharp throughout, and it's also the song "Saving All My Love For You," which I saved for last because it's the best part.
Randy busts out laughing at one particularly icky part and she turns the whole shambles into a scary pointing-at-Simon exercise in sexual terrorism, and his eyes go wide and finally he admits that he's "never heard that song like that," and asks what normally happens when she sings in public. Her answer is gorgeous: "I get a little nervous?" She bows and leaves after her unanimous no, and Simon's eyes are still kind of wild as he watches her go, pronouncing her awful outfit the "most extraordinary dress I've seen in my life." Randy says "dress" is not the best word maybe, and Paula...my notes say, to be honest, "Paula: Crazy talk." We'll go with that.
Bernard Williams II, (26, Birmingham and/or Pleasant Grove AL) is a cute, nice, bland guy who sings "Rock With You" powerfully loud, causing Paula and Randy to dance all weird and antsy. He's got good tone and control, but is a little shouty. He's the best we've seen so far, I think. Simon calls him "very good," and gives him "absolutely 100% yes," which Paula finds shocking because he was "completely off key" the entire time. Simon says he's got potential and to stop pretending you know what those words mean, and then Bernard calls Randy "dawg" and gets through. Paula claps drunkenly for him, but his excitement trips some wire inside her crazy head and she tells him to eat some humble pie, and I don't know what it is about Bernard that's making her act out like this, but I wouldn't really venture any guesses either, because 26 is pretty old for her, isn't it? Outside, he runs this way and that and then dances around madly.
Here's something that didn't really need to happen: Fucked Up Margaret Fowler (26, Atlanta GA), who talks like a cartoon about a stupid old woman who should have stayed at home but somehow doesn't know any better. She's wearing a shapeless yellow Muppet cape with lots of marabou bullshit all over, and under it she's wearing a faded yellow sports bra and some nasty fupa stirrup pants. It's pretty gross. She talks about her many ventures and whatever, a "clothing line for plus-size girls," all of it in this put-on fake airy voice like a freaky cookie-bearing fairy godmother, and explains that the bullshit currently happening on her is her "frilly" look, with a "little" gold-sequin "pocketbook" that is so totally from Ross; the "jacket is fringed and flowing," she minces, spreading it open so that she is now exposing herself. I don't know. This lady pushes like every button I have. Why do you have to embarrass yourself so much that it's embarrassing for others? Why can't you just try harder not to be fucking crazy? Everybody looks worried when they see her giant yellow vagina, and then they laugh/look irritated as she talks crazy some more.
Simon is...not pleased, as she's walking in. Randy asks how old dumb old Margaret is, and she says she's 26, and Simon questions this, and then she flashes them yet more Big Yellow Montana, because that's where she's got her number stuck to her. She dances around with her number stuck to her fupa and her stupid handbag and the goddamn feathery yellow Big Bird hat, and I have no idea what the fuck she's singing. It's like so telling that I'm more appalled by this -- not funny, just stupid, timewasting crap -- than I usually am about the retards. It's just so worthless, watching her do this is so damned worthless. Simon is bored and this is beneath him, and Paula's as usual misreading the room as she asks if he loved the mess that is Margaret. "I have no idea what this show is anymore. I'm serious. I've got you standing in front of me looking like some kind of Easter Bunny nightmare experiment... Atrocious. Own up. How old are you." She says 33, and he asks again. She laughs, and then she stops laughing, and admits that she's fifty. Paula says she's amazing and she leaves, and that's ten minutes closer to death we all just got.
There's a blonde Ellie May girl like Carrie that gets through, a brunette girl, and an Asian girl with a boyfriend. Or maybe I made all that up, because how would anybody know?
What's more useless and soul-sucking than watching Margaret Fowler gay around in a Big Bird costume? Jamie Lynn Ward (17, Reidsville NC), a girl wearing a t-shirt that says BLUE EYED BOMBSHELL and whom Ryan calls in voiceover a "blue-eyed bombshell," but who...does not seem to me to have blue eyes. What she does have, and in motherfucking abundance, is some obnoxious baggage. She's cute, looks like she could be Dolly Parton's daughter. She tells us that she wants to get a single-floor house for her grandma, with whom she lives, because her dad's paralyzed. What's interesting is that I honestly do think this whole thing is funny. Like, the amount of fake and stupid that this show usually is has gone so exponentially fake and stupid on itself that this episode somehow puts your soul in hock. So while tomorrow in LA I'll be crying for Vietnamese lesbians and Korean War vets left and right, today I'm laughing at just the words "my dad's paralyzed." That's fucking comedy, right there.
"Tell us something interesting about you," says Simon, unlatching the gate of the very awesome monologue that spawned a thousand imitations. "I live with my grandma," she says, starting as far as possible from "interesting" as she can, and working back toward it with a quickness: "And my daddy's paralyzed from here down. He shot hisself, like right here?" She indicates the Federov area on her own throat, "But it's okay!" Everybody stares. "His wife was cheatin' on him? Which was my stepmomma? And he caught her in the act, and it wasn't the first time, so he like, shot her, and he shot hisself, and now I live with my grandma, but it's okay!" It's not okay. It's not going to be okay ever again. Paula pours some refreshing lemonade about Jamie Lynn's entire life: "So the real story is that you're here, now, and the rest of life is just an illusion?" Jamie Lynn's like, "That is the point of the 'it's okay' philosophy, Paula." She sings -- shockingly enough -- "Reflection," though the nose, but it's okay, and Paula tells her she has a very pretty voice "when you're not powering through," and to watch her tendency to get nasally up in her nasal, and Simon and Randy agree completely and wig out about how Paula's just a dumb girl, so how can she know anything about music and act incredibly patronizing about the joke that Paula's a fucking moron and this goes on for a million years as Susan B. Anthony turns over in her grave for us all, but it's okay, and Paula holds up her paws and pants at this praise, like a fucking dog, but it's okay, and they put Jamie Lynn through so we're going to be hearing yet more about the Nikki McKibbin to the power of Pickler that her sad stupid life is, in the weeks to come, but it's okay, and outside her family -- those of them that are left -- go wild.
Ryan, with a queasy robotic awesome grin, to the camera: "I like Alabama. Do you?"
I like Chris Sligh (28, Greenville SC), who says he's usually compared lookswise to Jack Osbourne or -- more of a stretch -- Jack Black, but that really it's Xtina that he sees in the mirror. He does a funny dance and lays out some well-rehearsed bavardage that's not important but is charming, and as he comes lumbering in Simon calls him Justin Guarini, because he's got a great big bully of a whiteboy afro happening, and they ask why he's there, and he says he wants to make David Hasselhoff cry, and they laugh hysterically for a while before admitting that they have no idea what the joke is, so then he explains it to them, and we have to remember Taylor Hicks exists, but it's okay, and then...he sings. Awesome. He sings awesomely, and nobody can handle it, and he has a little bit of the Harriet/Seth almost-lisp thing happening, and he is very wonderful, and I love him so much I would totally be nice about Jesus around him. One very nice part, Paula Abdul actually loses control of her body and wriggles all over; when he's done, she screams. He's so clearly through (although I have doubts about how far he goes after that), and when he leaves, Paula talks about how likeable he was. "Dry," says Simon, and I'm not sure she understands that he means Chris has a dry wit, but how dumb would you have to be? Outside, he tells us how "Paula crumbled in my chubby little hands," and then proceeds out of the building, where the entire world cheers for him.
For Day One of Birmingham, then, fifteen people total made it through, including: a Normal Black Girl, a Crazy Black Girl, a Screaming Black Man, and a Thick Blonde Girl. Or maybe I made that up too.
Day Two, Simon and Randy were on their own, because Paula was back to Hollywood for a "family obligation." (Yeah, the barbiturate family! Hey-o! But it's okay!)
Meet Victoria Watson (18, Gainesville FL) who is at least as cute as Leslie Van Houton, and whose six-feet long home-schooled hair causes the Addams Family theme to begin playing of its own accord. "Without heels," she tells us, her stupid cult hair drags four inches on the ground. Her mom also has the crazy hair, which she started growing at the age of 29. I imagine that inner monologue went something like this: "Is this really as interesting as I'm ever going to get? Have I given up so completely that this boring lot is all I can claim for my own? I really desperately need attention, and have weird sexual issues, but am so boring that I have no way of working either of those things out. How will I distract people from my incredible blandness and lack of personal characteristics?" and then a lightbulb went off over her head, which was bad news because electricity is the Devil's work, and Goody Watson only barely escaped being tossed in a lake, so she grew the hair to both seem interesting and to distract from any further lightbulbs going off under the watchful eye of God's chosen children.
Spooky music begins to play as Victoria tells us that she sounds "like a Disney princess" and twirls slowly and creepily around with her hair in her hands like she's about to fly away or turn into Agnes of God, and Ryan is fairly indulgent with her nerdy, needy, unsocialized self, and is again just adorable, turning cheesily to the camera as she heads inside, What he says is: "Hair we go!" But what he means is: "This goddamn show is not going to break me."
Simon is not feeling her when she walks in, because she's dressed like a Mennonite, and they stare at her and at the hair, and Randy calls it a conversation piece, and Simon's like, "Whatever. Why are you here?" She talks unending madness about how she wants to be a "role model" and "touch people's hearts" and -- get this right here -- to "uplift them when they need it most." I defy you to find the problem there, because there isn't one, but if that's entirely true, then how come I keep making a fist without noticing it? Simon admits that Victoria is a genuinely nice person, and gives her a beautiful smile. She leaves to get her mother, for some reason, and as they're heading back into the audition room, she snatches her mother's dorky glasses and passes them quickly to Ryan. Hilarious and smooth, this girl. I think I just like the economy of scale, like what's embarrassing is like a matruschka doll and no matter how nerdy you yourself are, there's something you yourself find mortifying and would like to help with. Everything that rises, I guess.
Victoria still hasn't sung, though, which is a danger sign. So Simon stares at both of them, with their stupid hair and their dickies and culottes and whatever's embarrassing, and mom laughs how "it's a family thing," which is a huge clue to how mom operates, right there, because what it is, is a "mom and daughter" thing that A) you started and B) would make Sigmund Freud shake his head worriedly and go, "Vaaaas?" Victoria finally, finally sings, and of course she sings "You Raised Me Up," because people in cults only get to listen to like three cassette tapes, now that Amy Grant's betrayed us all, and she sings with her back straight, like in choir, and sounds like choir, and her mom's standing right there, and whatever. At some point you stop bathing your children and trust yourself to have at least gotten the basics across. She has a total choir voice: good high range, tone clear as a bell, weird pronunciations. Randy stops her fast and thanks her, and Simon tells them that they are creepy and this was not an audition but a valentine from one head of hair to another. Victoria has trouble believing that she's good but not great, and outside, Dad's totally effin' creepy with a red shirt under a black suit, mom completely forgotten as she burrows into him, and he's saying there are no losers, and she's repeating the same thing over and over and over: "It was meant to be, it's fine, it's fine," and whatever Calvinist thing they still do in the woods, and Ryan's very wicked uncomfortable, and then there's a long slow procession of the hair people leaving, and the sad music of their passing. He Who Walks Behind the Rows apparently says better luck year.
Lakia Hill (20, Birmingham AL) has a crazy accent and would like you to know that she's the "total package," I think, and she's pretty cute and pretty nuts. After the obligatory "sweetheart" from Cowell, she sings "How Did You Get Here" by Deborah Cox, many words I don't understand in a row, and it is: bloody awful. Screechy and screamy and all over the place; inducing a fight-or-flight adrenaline response. She does cute crazy stuff while she's singing, but there's a serious Kitty Genovese vibe all over it that makes it hard to relax and take it in. "What," says Simon, "The hell. Was that?" Randy laughs and Simon tries to explain to Lakia the gravity of the fact that she must never sing again on this earth. Randy calls it an "assault on singing," which I quite liked, and Simon takes pains to explain to her that she is one of the worst voices they have heard in the last two days.
She thanks him and leaves quickly, leading to a montage of people saying "thank you" politely and leaving the auditions. The fact that this is worthy of montaging says more about the sad state of American etiquette than anything else, and it goes on quite a while, but there's not much say about it: Simon says something nasty yet true, a person says thank you. Lather, rinse, repeat. The people saying thank you to Simon and the people to whom he is addressing his criticisms, if they exist at all, are probably not the same people. "That's the worst version of that song I've ever heard in my life," he says; a person who may or may not be involved says "thank you." Something is "absolutely useless," somebody says "thank you." Somebody says thank you, somebody says "thank you for your time," some hot dude says "thank you so much," a billion people say "thank you." Randy's amazed by this, because normally people are so blah blah irony reversed expectation-cakes. Point of interest: If you're in a coma, how do you know?
Team Nichole (Gatzmann, 17, Muskogee OK) is I think well smarter than she's letting on, and but also kind of a hollowed-out little pageant thing too. Everybody's wearing TEAM NICHOLE t-shirts in a hideous shade of pink, but most especially wearing the shirt is her scary pageant mom, who looks exactly like a pageant mom: disappointed, poor, and full of rage. While most of Team Nichole sits in a line behind her, trying desperately not to break into howls of laughter, Nichole Actual sits before the camera, telling a stultifying story about how she wanted to "do talents" in a pageant and her mom told her, "No. Nichole, you have no talents," and everybody on Team Nichole snorts and tries to stay calm and pretend they're not listening in to this. I can't tell if they're laughing because Nichole is being purposefully funny, or if they're just used to her being funny by accident because she's kinda dumb. Could go either way. The scariest part, though, is the thing, where she gets kind of intense about how she ended up singing a song from preschool. So I'm guessing this whole "you have no talent" conversation took place sometime between the ages of 4 and 17? Which means that Nichole has literally no hope. But that's okay! The song she sang at this fuzzy moment in time was "I Am A Promise," which I have to admit sounds kind of shitty, and everybody was amazed by the fact that she did have a talent after all, and Ryan voices over: "Hmmm."
Simon laughs out loud because she's so cute, and then she tries and fails to sing Bonnie Raitt's "Something To Talk About," with a deep smoky voice and too much in the nose unpolishedness and some really bizarre pageanty moves, and Simon staring at her, now bored and hateful, and Randy staring at her and wondering what the hell. When she's done, Simon says this: "You sound very old-fashioned, and you sing through your nose, and it's a shame." Which is a nice way of telling her that her mom is right and that she's a commodity; the pageant circuit doesn't lie; but it's okay. Randy tells her she's got a lot more work to do if she really wants this, and outside Ryan again goes, "Awwww, noooooo!" So sweet. She cries on her mom, who assures her that doing your best is the second best thing to actually succeeding, and there are loud squeaking noises coming from her for a while, until Ryan gets bored.
So that's the end almost of Birmingham, but Ryan wonders if they couldn't just find one last person to rescue them: somebody to pick up where Ruben, Bo and Taylor left off. Jesus God I hope so. Nothing would better make my day than to see that particular fuckin' legacy continue unbroken.
Brandy Patterson (28, Birmingham AL) looks a lot like Nicole Randall Johnson, of the late, lamented Significant Others, the currently lamentable MADtv, and the soon-to-be lauded, then immediately lamented, Andy Barker, PI. She's not a genius of hilarity like Ms. Johnson, or a genius of any kind, although she's interesting in certain ways that hold your interest a bit better than that awful old woman that we started with: she's jumpy and erratic, and talks exactly like somebody making fun of a cleft palate in the 1950s, cf. that nerf-nerf joke your dad tells. She's adorably extraordinary! Brandy! "They're going to think, 'Where have you been? We've been waiting on you!'" she tells us. And you know what, I didn't know that I was waiting for Brandy, but part of me really, it turns out, was.
Randy, apparently feeling her crazy field all around as she walks in, reacts by getting crazy too: "Brandy and Randy!" he says. "Simon, have you met Brandy?" Simon wonders how it is that Paula is not here, but somehow she still is. Brandy says a lunatic hello and explains that she's "the only person [her] family" that "gots the nerves" to be a star, and then she sings "Like A Virgin," and it looks like she's the only person in her family with a disorder of the nerves. She sounds like she's making cruel fun of the hard of hearing, while throwing her limbs around and bugging her eyes out. Somebody needs to get her the hell in hand. Simon grins at her like a vacation in somebody else's mystery and she takes off her jacket. As she heads into the chorus, Simon and Randy whisper, "One...two...three! Like a virgin!" Simon finds it all too difficult to watch; afterward, he thanks her for "an absolutely rotten audition." Things go from cute-crazy to scary-crazy faster than you can say "sugar tits." Brandy yells at Simon that he -- and not everything that just happened -- is "wrong," and he tries to explain how charming her craziness is, which makes the job of seeming honest and not mean even harder, but how "on this, I am so right." She offers that perhaps it is the wooden floor on which people have successfully auditioned any number of times, not that we've ever seen them, and Randy laughs that it's possibly "the wall to the left" that's throwing her off. She gives him a hilarious look like that's the most retarded thing she's ever heard. "You are barking mad, aren't you, Brandy?" Simon says to himself.
He cruelly indulges the BS that follows to kill time, and because he likes her, and because he's awesome and a cutie-pie, and because he's a dick, and because she's more than willing to go there with him, and because he's bored, and because it's been a long day. So she sings on the carpet and he asks if in fact that was not worse, and not better. She thinks it was slightly better off the dance floor, and he laughs at her. "That was a massive difference, Brandy. I take back everything I've said. How anyone has sung on that floor is beyond me." He immediately -- not respecting her amount of crazy, which is always unwise, because it will get you cut -- reverses the ironic polarity and asks her to cosign that it was hopeless both on the floor and the carpet. Which is asking a lot, logically, because she doesn't get it on either surface, and he just in the same breath told her she was awesome and that she sucked. You can actually see her brain go TILT. Randy tells her straight up that she was "still terrible," and thanks her for coming. Brandy informs them that they don't understand talent, and Simon tells her, "Out you go, I don't want to hear any more of this rubbish." Her response? "Rubbish muffish." Brilliant, it's just brilliant. Simon tells her to get off the "non-singing" dance floor as she begins to yell all crazy; she tells them that Paula is their better in every way, and he calls out, "Call me!" She assures him that she doesn't have any intention of calling him, and Simon protests that she does, and this going on for awhile. He sends her out so Ryan can deal with her, and inside the audition room, Randy and Simon giggle helplessly and wonder how Paula would have dealt with Brandy. Which I admit is a pretty good thing to think about.
Simon comes out into the hallway as Brandy's wigging out on Ryan; he shouts, "Brandy, where is your family?" She tells him not to worry about her family, then wheels around on Randy, who's also exiting, to tell him he's a "faker"; Simon continues to yell at her to call him; everything is chaos. Randy appeals to Ryan: "She can't sing!" She whines that she's sufficiently mind-blown by their poor choices that she has no idea what they're looking for; Simon narrows it down to Not Brandy, and she tells him she is reciprocally not looking for him either, and he assures her that she is, and then Other Doors himself, which gives both him and Ryan a huge case of the giggles, and the crew's laughing, and Ryan's just slain, and still there's Brandy running around yelling random things. Finally Simon goes back inside -- grinning hugely -- and Ryan starts that pat-patting he does sometimes, really intensely, because the crazy is just getting stronger in her, and Randy appears, and she says something really really bad that makes Ryan jump like an electric shock, but I can't figure out what it was. Ryan tells her it's not nice to say such things about Randy, and she says it's okay because they were "cruel" to her, and he says that kind of talk is cruel in its own way. Ryan, this is a losing battle: Brandy, words, logic, up and down, right and wrong. Let it go, buddy. Let it ride. "Brandy, we won't soon forget you," he says, and she goes wandering off with crazy eyes bright as lanterns.
Simon and Randy are very tired; Ryan's got some kind of wonderful rejuvenation from its madness: "Thank you, Birmingham!" he says brightly, and subliminal-fast, some more golden tickets flash across the screen. A Yelling Black Guy, a Screaming Girl, a Skinny Person With Mumps, Tim Riggins, a Black Girl With Red Hair, a Girl with Gigantic Eyeballs. As Simon signs autographs, jumps in a limo, boards a plane and flies away, Brandy talks and talks. The people that won, in years, "didn't even sound hardly that good," she says. For example -- over Simon being totally sweet to some autograph people -- "Ruben didn't even dance," she explains: "Just stood there and sang songs, really," like, if we're being honest about it. Simon hugs a lady with nutty hair from the planet of the Goth Temp Agencies, and Brandy talks, whatever. She's totally cute and I am glad I don't know her, and I doubt things will end for her in anything but a hail of bullets, but it's okay!