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The Alamo's main floor: Haley Scarnato (24, San Antonio TX) is almost too grounded -- like you're wondering if she's up to something behind that gorgeous and bullshit-free façade. I think she's great, even if she is dressed for Charlie's Angels. Bailey Brown (16, Krum TX) has based her entire identity on how she's too good for the farm life she grew up in. Simon uses all the buzzwords that mean "cute, blonde, 16-year-old girl with an okay voice," so she's in. William Green sings "Amazing Grace" like he's trying to warn you that the fog is too thick to cross the bridge tonight. He gets rejected, but then tells the judges he's going to talk some trash, just for the cameras, you see. He does, and the judges and I just love him. Akron Watson (23, Dallas TX) is William's cousin, and he has a good voice but a weird personality vacuum. But, come on, all the family's charisma likely went to William anyway. Akron makes it through. Ashlyn Carr (18, Sugarland TX) can sing, but she sabotages herself with weird Toni Braxton tics and facial contortions. The original verdict is a no from Randy and Paula, but Simon feels like seeing how many people's strings he can pull at once, so he says he'd have put her through. And since Paula and Randy so rarely have an opinion of their own in these auditions, they call her back in and let her re-audition. Nothing's different, but they let Ashlyn skate by on some very thin ice. Jimmy McNeal (23, Waxahachie TX) is "like a little fun Ruben," per Simon, and the judges love him. Then he and his family have some "kids say the darndest things" fun with Ryan in the hallway. Heartwarming!
The Alamo's basement: Bryan Kyrish is scary as hell and has opted for screaming Billy Idol songs instead of becoming a serial killer, which is nice of him. Jasmine Holland is sad and cannot sing, though I'm not sure to what degree those two things are related. Once she's rejected, she gives Randy shit for being a non-entity in the music industry, and you have to be a special kind of bratty to make me defend Randy, so congratulations, Jasmine. Sandie Chavez invents a new language in which to suck, which is always interesting. Jacob Tudor is a Rumpelstiltskin-looking creature with angry, beady eyes who uses his platform on national TV to talk the same tired shit about the judges that they all do. But he likes Ryan!
In other news, the "Other Door" phenomenon gets the glowing tribute it so richly deserves, and we learn a couple disquieting things. Chief among them being that your recapper and Paula Abdul are on the same mental wavelength. I'll be in the liquor cabinet if you need me. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Ryan Seacrest wearing his little pale pink plaid button-down while standing in front of the Alamo is just about the cutest thing you ever did see. Like he's our tour guide today, only he'll be telling us things like what General Santa Ana was wearing, and whether Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were really friends or just super-fake to each other's faces. The requisite "Remember the Alamo" reference having been laid, we're free to delve into the opening credits: "DA-na na-na na-na na-na na-na na-na na-na..."
Ryan calls San Antonio the "last stop on our audition tour," and the hordes of sleeping wannabes represent the collective weariness we the audience feel as we enter into this, the seventh mind-numbing audition episode. And then it's morning, and everyone's awake and screaming and moving around, and it's like Dawn of the Dead, only you probably couldn't get away with sniping these guys from a rooftop. Probably. The "Rawhide" song cue lets us know that, yes, we're actually in Texas. The judges arrive -- Paula in a very pretty polka-dotted dress -- and Ryan's voice-over makes some sort of excuse for Simon, saying he was jet-lagged after flying in from London. I'm not sure Simon's behavior tonight is any weirder than normal, so I don't know why we needed that disclaimer, but okay.
First up is Bryan Kyrish, who looks vaguely like Tom Sizemore before his life went to shit. He's a hulking figure, even if you totally can't see his legs at all because he's wearing camouflage pants. He says he's not intimidated by the judges because "Paula, Randy, and Simon put on one leg...in their pants, same as everyone else." Indeed they do, Bryan. Indeed they do. There's a very slight, but very real, sense of menace hiding behind his eyes, and he reminds me specifically of a person I grew up with, the kind of person who you were really glad never had access to firearms as a high-schooler. He says people compare him, vocally, to "Billy Idol, Ozzy, AC/DC," so, you know, what better outlet for him than this show? "I want the judges to feel my energy, feel my fire." He does scary break-dancing moves, including a scary worm, in the interview anteroom, and then he scares the hell out of Ryan Seacrest by just...being. Seriously, it's the weirdest thing, because he seems happy and nice enough, but you can totally see it in his eyes. Inside, he tells the judges that he entered a "mock American Idol competition" and he won the grand prize. There a couple different ways you can take "mock" in that sentence, though once he starts singing, the choice becomes rather clear. It's just a lot of yelling and intense eye contact, over and over. He drops violently to his knees a couple times, causing Paula to recoil. He's "singing" Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell," so he does the requisite fist pumps. Paula and Randy join in the fist pumping, because it's fun, and aerobic exercise will be good for both of them, for very different reasons. Bryan's fist-pumping gets more and more scary, and then he's just...done. Just stops cold. Paula asks if it hurts his voice to scream like that. No, it doesn't. She then asks if it hurts his knees to crash down on them like he does. Again, no. I love that Paula is more fascinated by him than anything. Her fight/flight response has never worked quite right. Simon sums it up as a whole lot of screaming without any melody, so it's a no for Bryan.
Outside, it's more weirdness, as Ryan notes that Bryan was probably not the best fit for ballads. He laughs, "Can you imagine singing a love ballad?" Bryan says he actually can, and then he and the crazy eyes propose a duet between him and Ryan. Bryan says something about "Beauty and the Beast," but when he starts singing, it's an Ozzy Osbourne song. Ryan, back to being afraid again, balks at singing along. He gives Bryan the arms-length handshake and sends him on his way, before exhaling the exhale of a man who's just dodged a bullet.
Ryan's voice-over moves on to the subject of a pretty face who can gain Simon's attention, and that brings us to Haley Scarnato, who looks like the girl door, if the girl door had once upon a time worked at the police academy, but then got taken away from all that by some guy named Charlie. That's the only way I can explain the bell-bottomed jumpsuit -- backless until just about her ass crack -- accented by the giant hoop earrings. She's gorgeous, but I'm not sure what she thought she was dressing for. Inside, Haley is quite poised and polite, to the point that Paula asks to shake her hand. Paula has to comment on the outfit, of course, and asks where she got it. "I got it at one of those, like, hoochie stores," Haley says, winning me over officially. She sings "I Can't Make You Love Me," another nominee for "Song Most Ruined For Me By American Idol." Paula praises her control, but Randy goes to a more "a'ight" place. Simon hedges similarly, saying it was "a bit cabaret" and didn't show much originality. "But you can sing," he says. Plus, you know, she's super-hot, which doesn't get mentioned, but come on. She gets "yes" votes from everyone and then commences screaming with her whole family out in the hallway. And then she goes to meet Jill and Sabrina down by the abandoned construction site so they can foil a drug bust.
Oh, and look, here's Reason #why this show can really suck sometimes: Jasmine Holland is introduced to America in general, and me in particular, by an extreme close-up on her giant camel toe. Thanks, you guys. She's also wearing a white tank top with the phrase "Peace Pure Love" Bedazzled across the front. Jasmine is what you would call a mess. She also doesn't fully open her mouth when she speaks, which is like the third indication in a row that she's going to be awful. The fourth is that her family showed up with a sign that [sic]s, "Jasmine's Are American Idol." Okay, let's get this over with. Right away, Simon and Randy are giggling at the camel toe that's suddenly been shoved right into their field of view. I'm not sure what song she's singing, though that may be because "singing" isn't what she's doing so much as "screeching." Randy busts out in full-on laughter, while Simon tries to stifle it with coughing, and Paula just looks beleaguered.
Paula tries to bright-side things for Jasmine, tiptoeing around how awful an audition it was. "It seems like you're really sad," Paula says, opening up Pandora's box in the process, because Jasmine chooses to cope with her embarrassment by being a brat. She says the judges are being "rude" (which...they are, but at the present moment they can see the entirety of her vagina, so I can forgive them for getting the church giggles). Simon tries to cut her short (as she busts out the "you don't know me" refrain that loser auditioneers seem to enjoy so much), but Paula wants to let Jasmine talk, because Paula likes it when the boys get yelled at and she's the nice one. Simon tries to explain the whole "you volunteered to be subjected to this" deal to Jasmine, and Jasmine replies, "But do you have to be negative?" Simon, essentially, says she hasn't exactly given them much choice after the egg she just laid. "You're entitled to your opinion" is what Jasmine settles on, and she begins to exit. "But it wasn't good," says Randy, piling on. Jasmine turns around at the door and brats, "And what do you do?" Instead of ignoring such a childish taunt, Randy actually starts listing his c.v., which is not the correct response to that at all. Jasmine continues to be (and display) a total twat about "Oh, because I never heard of you before American Idol, so what do you do? Oh, you do nothing, you're in the background, right?" This girl is twenty-two years old. She exits the room and plays the sad child again. Brat.
Back inside, Simon goes, "So...yes or no?" Ha! That kind of thing is why he will always manage to get me on his side. Outside with Seacrest, Jasmine cries and cries about judges being negative when they don't even know her, and how unfair it's all been, and I can STILL see her girl business all up in my face. Orange Lycra could not have been a worse choice. So then Jasmine's mom figures there hasn't been enough ignorance put on display in the past five minutes, so she adds that Simon "needs to go back to...where's he from? French?" Ryan chimes in that he's actually British, in that way he has of correcting stupid people where if they were any smarter, they'd beat the shit out of him, but since they're not, he's totally safe. "He can go back to British then," says Jasmine's mom. "And he can judge British people." British people who have the common courtesy to properly conceal their genitals, let's hope. Jasmine then calls Randy a "fat slob," at which point Ryan deadpans, "Those are my friends, you know. Two of 'em." Ooh, does he still not talk to Paula? Oh, wait, he probably means Simon. We're still supposed to pretend they don't like each other? Yeesh.
Ryan's voice-over attempts to convince us that what we need after that parade of awfulness is a "Texas rose," which has apparently come to us in the form of Baylie Brown. Baylie is sixteen years old and from Krum, which is a "little bitty town" in northern Texas. The Idol cameras actually take us to Krum, pop. 1,542, where Baylie's family ranch includes six horses, some lambs, and twelve steers. Baylie, we soon see, absolutely hates being a country girl. That's who she is. She's "The Girl Who's Too Big-City For Her Country Roots." She shows us her designer clothes, and she tells us she's scared of the horses, and her dad's all, "She doesn't spend a whole lot of time out in the barn, heh heh." Baylie's mom has even tried to go for the Capri-pants-and-rocker-tee look, but you know Baylie's still totally embarrassed by her anyway.
Baylie greets the judges with a "how are y'all?" which Randy finds adorable. So then this girl, who is SUCH a city girl and who so despises her country roots...this girl is going to sing a Faith Hill song. Which is actually really fitting on multiple levels. Baylie's rendition tries very hard not to sound country, but it eventually does in several spots. Her voice is okay, but nothing all that special. Randy starts asking her about the farm: Are there cows? There are cows. Are there horses? There are horses. Any bulls? Simon finally has to cut this game of See 'N' Say short and remind everyone what they're there for. They're there to validate Baylie's belief that she's far too talented to be stuck at home in her bumfuck town anymore, hello! Simon says she looks like she was "born to be a pop star," which no doubt earns him Baylie's adoration for life, because that's exactly what she's been telling herself. Simon loves the image, thinks the voice is "okay" but will improve, and sums it up by saying she's "commercial with a capital 'C.'" Paula also pushes all the right Baylie buttons, praising her fashion sense as being remarkable since she comes from a town with "more cows than people." Simon tries to needle Paula about making fun of small towns, but Baylie's face is saying, "Shut up, dude, she's totally right." Outside, armed with her golden ticket, Baylie hugs her family and prepares to never have to see or hear from their common selves ever again.
After the commercial, Ryan begins to set up the finest montage in Idol history: "These are the judging room doors..." Eeeee! You guys, if they gave "Other Door" a 1-900 number, I would totally power-dial for it every week until it got shockingly eliminated at Final Six, at which point I'd start a blog about how prejudiced the show (and America) is about inanimate objects. That's how much I love it. So first we see a bunch of people successfully negotiating the doors, emerging with or without a golden ticket. Ryan then tells us that it's not just how you come through those doors, but "whether you can make it out at all." From outside the doors, we hear the crunch-crunch-crunch of repeated auditioneers running smack into the one locked door. The screen goes sepia-toned as Seacrest's movie trailer voice intones: "One contestant. Two doors. The decision has been made." Hee hee hee. Sorry, in this regard I am beyond easy to please. "One door leads to freedom. The other, humiliation in front of the judges." Faux-Ennio Morricone music plays as these hapless wannabes line up for their date with destiny.
So here we go. Are you ready? Really tall guy in a t-shirt! ("...Other door.") An Asian girl and a black guy! ("...Other door.") Salt N Pepa singing "Push It" on the soundtrack! ("...Other door.") Faceless guy in powder blue! ("...Other door.") Cute white dude with unruly hair! ("...Other door.") Red mini-dress atop leggings! ("...Other door.") Tall, effeminate guy in a sportcoat! ("...Other door.") Overly-processed gay boy drama queen! (Simon: "Oh, for fuck's sake.") Tashawn Moore! Who all of a sudden has a golden ticket? When and how did that happen?* ("...Other door...other door...other door.") Alvin and the Chipmunks guy! ("...Other door.") Perla Meneses! ("...Other door.") Paula: "That's gonna be the theme for the entire season. 'Other door, other door, other door.'" It always scares me so much when Paula and I are thinking the same thing. Simon Other Doors himself in front of awful Brandy in Birmingham and they both have a laugh about it. Orange plaid shirt guy! ("...Other door.") Fauxhawk Ilan Hall look-alike! ("...Other door.") Paula's got her arm around a giantess with hair like the Goblin King, and Simon gets to say, "Other door, Paula," which makes his day. Randy cackles like a girl. Then this girl with dyed-red hair grabs her golden ticket, hits the locked door at full speed, and even as Simon is saying, "...Other door," she plows right through it and into the hallway. We've found the Chosen One! That was honestly the most enjoyable three minutes I have ever spent watching this show. Kudos.
*Actually, somebody on the boards offered a sensible hypothesis that Tashawn's endless fuck-uppery on "Kiss" was while she was filming her "all the weird people sing the same song" episode-ending montage, which as we know is filmed before the judges even get to see them. So I guess Tashawn was able to shake that off and give an audition good enough to earn her a golden ticket. Which is awesome, because I loved her. Dress to impress, Tashawn! That tie does just your justice!
The residual good feelings of the "Other Door" montage look to continue, because up, we have Akron and William. They're cousins. Akron is the slimmer one with a pleasant face, khaki pants, and bad teeth. William is the huskier of the two, swathed in baby blue (and a matching cockeyed cap), baggy jeans, and wearing giant shades and gianter headphones around his neck. They engage in some playful scripted bickering out in the hallway, and Akron dubs himself "Bruce Banner" and William "The Incredible Hulk." William growls and is generally your grandma's worst nightmare about kids today come true. For now.
First inside the audition room is William, who takes off his shades so he can see the judges better. It's weird, because we've seen all the promos that have shown William flipping out and screaming at the judges, so his affable and polite demeanor right now just seems sad, because we think we know how it's going to end up. William sings "Amazing Grace," and in the recaplet I compared it to a foghorn. I can't exactly come up with anything better. An off-pitch foghorn, maybe? Paula and Randy disappear into a fit of giggles almost immediately. William won't look at the judges as he's singing, which I at first took for anger, but after seeing what happens, I think it's because he didn't want to start laughing. William's singing is slooooooow gooooooing, and Randy starts to tap his watch. Once he's done, William starts laughing along with the judges -- just the biggest most wonderful smile on his face. "Hip-hop is normally what I do," he explains. "I just came out here to support my cousin -- he's comin' in ." Simon asks who's the better singer of the two of them. William says his cousin is. "Thank God you said that," says Simon, and they all start laughing again. The judges all vote no, but that they appreciate William. He appreciates them right back, and as he's exiting he says, "Now I'm gonna walk out the door and talk some trash back, but that's just for the cameras." "Absolutely," says Simon. So William opens the door, turns back to the judges, and yells, "And don't make me come back in there and tell y'all again! That's good singing!" The judges utterly lose their minds laughing; Simon is especially tickled by this good-natured poking at the ribs of the Idol machine. I am so glad that turned out the way it did. William is awesome!
Back outside, we see that William's outburst wasn't only for the cameras' benefit, it also serves to scare the crap out of Akron. He creeps into the audition room as the judges all make note of his wide-eyed terror. Paula asks if he could hear what went on with his cousin's audition, and he says he couldn't hear it, but he saw what happened once the doors opened. Akron's wearing his pants very high up on his waist, by the way. It makes him look like he's got the birthin' hips. Weird. Anyway, he sings "A Change Is Gonna Come," and while he's certainly a better singer than his cousin, Simon sees "a major charisma problem here." I'm thinking about half of that is Akron trying to follow the megawatt appeal of his cousin, but I think even without the comparison he'd still be kind of dull. Paula begins to compliment his voice, but Akron interrupts and says, "But he said he was bored. I don't want him to be bored." Then Paula -- grabbing wherewithal out of the ether or something -- tells him that instead of talking about not being boring, he should sing something else and not be boring. Nice, Paula! See what happens when the clonazepam wears off? Akron breaks off into "Let's Get It On," and whether that's what did it or not, Simon votes "yes." So does Paula, and Randy's vote doesn't even matter, because Akron is going to Hollywood. He leaps in the air and starts screaming. "That's what we want to see!" yelps Paula. Akron thanks the judges and -- one "...Other door" later -- bursts into the hallway to hug his big ball of awesome cousin. Family members stream in from off camera like they just got out of a clown car, and they all scream too. William continues to talk up his cousin ("This is talent right here!") as we trail off into commercials.
When we return, Ryan makes yet another "Remember the Alamo" joke, giving it the depressingly ham-fisted punch line that says there were some auditions they'd rather forget. Ugh. Ryan Seacrest and his voice-over could use a spa weekend, I think. The wear and tear of Audition Month have really gotten to him. So first up in this Montage O' Un-Alamo-Like Things We'd Rather Not Remember is a girl named LaRisa, who is dressed like a performance art exhibit titled "Rainbow Sherbet." Honestly, it's been sixteen whole years since neon was acceptable, so...oh my god, neon hasn't gone retro yet, has it? God help us all if it has. You think you've seen Sienna Miller looking her worst now? Anyway, LaRisa screeches a song about such-and-such being "intelligent." Then a girl named Deborah sings a scary version of "Vogue" and tells Simon that sometimes when she sings, people cry. Okay, well, that's just handing it to Simon; that's no fun.
to audition is Sandie Chavez, who tells us that her voice is "very bluesy, soulful-sounding." She tells Ryan that she's been singing since she was a little kid, at parties and talent shows, and then two years ago, she sang for the mayor of Houston. Ryan is almost imperceptibly incredulous as he confirms that the mayor of Houston "loved" her singing. She says he did, but I'm picking up on Ryan's super-secret mean-girl code, where he's all, "So you're saying you definitely never hooked up with Jimmy O'Dell?" even though he just got off the phone with April who talked to Brenna who heard from Jimmy's sister Shannon that he totally made it to second base, it's, like, a confirmed fact. Point being: Ryan knows how much Sandie is about to suck.
Inside, Sandie has chosen to sing "Black Velvet" by Alannah Myles, another Song Most Ruined For Me nominee. And it's about to get ruined-er. One hand on her ear, like she's getting her pitch cues from the Mother Ship, Sandie proceeds to sing from the Shakira place in the back of her throat, for one thing. For another, she completely doesn't know the words. "Kenny Rogers and...uh...a leftover pie..." is not what that song is about. (Though now that I mention it, a song about a leftover pie would make for a lovely companion piece to "MacArthur Park." Let me think on this and I'll get back to you later this season.) And that's when you can actually pick out the words. Mostly it's just "Annawannabuhma...oebuhrfeeing...obasewinnima...leevyaliefuhhhr..." and the like. Simon cocks his head sideways like "How do you solve a problem like Sandie Chavez?" but he can't keep from laughing. He tells her he couldn't understand a word. "It was literally like some language I've never heard in my life." He asks her if she was for real, and Sandie starts crying. Simon immediately takes it back and apologizes. And not to pile on here or anything, but...you can't exactly make out what she's saying when she cries either. Part of it must be an "I'm sorry," because Paula tells her she doesn't have to apologize to them. "Well," says Simon, "she does a little bit," which earns him a threat of violence from Joanie Walker Red over there to him. Randy asks if she wants them to be honest with her, and she does, so Randy tells her it just wasn't good. Paula suggests she go back to her career as a teacher. More unintelligible crying. More Simon being a bit of a prat. Finally, Sandie gets dismissed. ("...Other door.")
up, Ryan strengthens his case for a week's vacation with the following line: "It seemed San Antonio was turning a bit San An-tone-deaf." Oh, Ryan. What have you become? That one was worse than the Teri Hatcher photo. This is all a way of introducing Ashlyn Carr, who looks like all the best features of Lauryn Hill and Kerry Washington got blended together and then coated with a tasteful sheen of lip gloss. She tells the judges she got beat up in school for having such an awesome voice. "I got my head knocked into the floor," she says. "By who?" Simon asks. "This big girl," Ashlyn replies. Heh. I bet. Paula asks if she had to get stitches. Ashlyn says no: "I got a concussion, and I blacked out, though." Paula's like, "I hear that, girl." Ashlyn's going to sing "Feelin' Good" by Nina Simon, but she's going to do the Michael Bublé version. Fucking WHY?? "No, I won't go for the awesome, sexy, cool version of the song, I'll just sing the white-bread faux-swinger knockoff." I mean, I understand, I suppose. Bublé's are the CDs your aunt buys for your grandma, and no one's buying Nina Simone records, but still. That makes my fingers hurt just typing it. The point is moot anyway, because Ashlyn actually sings the unreleased Toni Braxton version of the song, complete with overwrought vocal acrobatics and weird facial expressions. Her voice is so full of tics, I'm surprised she doesn't have Lyme Disease (rimshot).
Randy and Paula call it "interesting" and "wild." Simon starts to talk about her weird facial expressions and phrasing, but Randy interrupts to say that he thought she sang the Michael Bublé version in Nina Simone's voice. Which really doesn't make much sense, and also, fuck off, Randy -- at least Nina Simone pronounces her consonants. Simon asks for a yes or no vote. Paula suggests Ashlyn sing in front of a mirror so she can stop scaring people with her face so much, but she doesn't vote yes or no. Randy echoes Paula's thoughts, and he does vote no. As, eventually, does Paula, which gets Ashlyn crying. As she's leaving, Simon tells her he would have voted yes, but not in the mean way he usually says that. Outside, Ryan's with Ashlyn's family, and he excitedly says, "Here is the verdict..." and you can tell he honestly expected a golden ticket to emerge with her. But it doesn't and it's sad for her, I guess, but she really wasn't all that good.
Still, back inside, Simon puts on his best "nagging regret" face and says, "I still think we made a mistake with that girl." This is Simon trying to up the drama ante, I would bet cash money. He knows Ashlyn will not make it out of Hollywood. (And she really won't since she got arrested for pulling the ol' "bingo, bango, sugar in the gas tank" routine on her ex-boyfriend.) Paula and Randy -- who have no spines or genuine opinions of their own anyway -- both start clamoring to bring her back in. The show would have us believe that Ashlyn made it all the way to the street before she was called back, and we see Ryan ask her if she's okay with going back in. Then the Seacrest voice-over tries to up the drama some more by kicking it to commercial before we find out how this turns out. When we return, her family members are out in the hall all, "She can do this!" The one lady (Aunt? Mother? Neighbor?) knows what's really up, because she keeps saying that Simon said yes, because we all know he's the only one that matters.
Back inside, Simon asks her if she understand what they said before about the facial expressions. She does. He asks her to pick out a song, and she sings a song called "Inseparable," and while you can tell she's cutting back on the weirdness, it's still there. Then...okay, then Simon starts grabbing his man-boobs. Seriously. For the rest of this critique, Simon will have two handfuls of man-boob at all times. It is profoundly distracting. He's, like, moving them around. Stop doing that, Simon! Please! Anyway, he says that Ashlyn has some "very bad habits," habits she may indeed never be able to break. But he thinks she's "unique" and compares her to Dionne Warwick, who is indeed unique. He thinks she's "too good to pass up." Randy bleats a "yes" vote, and Paula repeats exactly what Simon said about the habits, before voting yes herself. Fuckin' sheep. This time, when she walks out the door, Ashlyn's in a strut. Yeah, don't get too cocky there. I hear County Lockup Idol isn't such a prestigious honor.
Footage of the judges giggling and having a good time leads Ryan's voice-over to tell us they're happy because the seven-city national nightmare known as the audition rounds is almost over. But before we can taste the sweet, we have to live with the sour, so meet Jacob Tutor. Jacob's short stature, beady eyes, underbite, and scraggly chin beard all add up to him looking like a particularly angry troll from a fairy story. Who offers you a bargain but turns on you by story's end. Jacob says his friends call him "Jake the Snake" -- which they totally don't, come on. Jake the Snake is for bikers or football players. Jacob Tutor is just an angry kid who reads a lot of Chuck Palahniuk. Jake dances angrily in the private Idol ante-room, in his khakis and a pale pink shirt with grid stripes that looks enough like Seacrest's shirt to make everyone a little nervous. He tells Ryan that his musical inspirations are, like, Kurt Cobain and Axl Rose and the like. And I know that when Ryan makes fun of him for this, he's making fun of how out of place that kind of music is on American Idol, but even still, my first instinct is to tell Ryan to STEP OFF Kurt and Axl and go back to your Burt Bacharach, okay? Inside, the song Jacob sings is all about "down in the darkness" this and "you will not torment me" that. I tried to Google the lyrics, but I'm pretty sure Jake is not singing all the correct words, so I'm stumped. When he's done, Simon says that's the kind of song Jake needs to be singing in a darkened bedroom. Alone. With his pain. The judges all say no, and Jake looks like he's maybe going to say something, but instead he just croaks out an "all right" and leaves.
Outside, it's pretty hilarious, as you can tell Jake's worked up a head of steam and really wants to let the judges have it, but Ryan keeps interrupting the buildup with inane questions. "Well, I didn't make it becau--" "What happened?" "Apparently I'm not what they're looking for ev--" "What are they looking for?" "I'm...they're..." "Why aren't you in?" Hee. Finally, Jacob's allowed enough time to cuss out the judges like he's been wanting to do since he showed up this morning. Back inside, Randy gets the second-last laugh as he mimics the "Down the hall, in my basement..." lyrics. Back outside, Jacob's over-rehearsed spiel is almost all bleeped out, as he keeps forgetting his specific reasons why Simon, Randy, and Paula can all go fuck themselves. Ryan gets the actual last laugh as he's like, "But you like me, right?" "You're awesome," wheezes Jacob, and he darts away from the camera before he goes and hyperventilates into a paper bag. I'm thinking the penetrating glare of the cameras was maybe more than Jake was bargaining for when he decided to go on TV and call Simon Cowell a fucker.
Ryan's voice-over tells us the clock is ticking down to when Simon has to fly back to "British," (funny guy, that Ryan voice-over), but before we go, here's Jimmy McNeal, whose salmon-striped button-down is just fantastic. I don't wear pink, but I'd wear that. Simon keeps calling him "Jimbo," which is cute. Jimbo says he'll be singing Sam Cooke's "Cupid," though he splices it with Cooke's "Another Saturday Night," two great songs that sound great together. And Jimmy sounds great singing them. Paula's got a smile about a mile wide on her face. Simon calls him a "little fun Ruben," which gets Jimmy to laugh a bit -- Jimmy has a cute smile and an infectious laugh and is just altogether delightful. Simon adds, of Ruben, "That was when he used to smile." Ooh, I love bitchy Simon, even though I don't follow Ruben enough to know what he's getting at. Is he famously somber now? Last I heard from Ruben, he was still really, really sorry for 2004. Simon calls Jimmy "authentic" and "likeable," and the judges (including a dancing Paula) all say yes. Welcome to Hollywood, Jimmy!
Outside, Jimmy is mobbed by screaming family, one of whom nearly takes him down. Jimmy's all, "Calm down, people. Be cool. We're on TV." Ryan's carrying a little girl at the moment -- Jimmy's daughter? Sister? Not sure -- and he asks Jimmy to explain to her what all the fuss is about. Jimmy kneels down and tells the girl, "I'm going to Hollywood." The girl pulls her thumb out of her mouth long enough to say, "So?" Everyone starts laughing like crazy at that one, including Ryan, and it's a sweet moment.
Twenty-two people made it to Hollywood via San Antonio, including a pretty Asian girl, a pie-faced blonde, a screaming girl with one billion screaming family members, an effeminate crying boy, a cute boy in pink plaid (what's with that today?), and gas-tank Ashlyn Carr.
up: the "best" of the "rest." Neither of those two things is entirely true.