Ryan is all, "You know more about these contestants than any other season," and I was confused by what he meant until they got to David Cook, and then I remembered how, sometimes if you love David Cook, maybe it makes things a little more passionate for you, and knowing all there is to know about David Cook starts to seem like the normal thing, so when somebody doesn't know some ridiculously obvious thing -- such as how having the AC/DC logo stitched to his cheesy rocker jacket doesn't actually mean AC/DC but is only the half that spells "AC," who is of course David's brother, who is of course suffering a terrible illness, which of course explains events from last week and the week before -- can start to look like not only an idiot, but maybe the enemy, and you have to write furious profanity-laden emails, maybe, to the person apprising them of these facts that presumably everyone who's anyone already knows, and maybe a certain number of these emails, in a given 12-hour period, all kind of blend together, and show the person once and for all that the real story is that David Cook is the new fucking Clay Aiken, and will thus win, and that's what Ryan's trying to say. In which case, and additional to the off-center hair-point making a reappearance, well, I love Ryan.
Tonight, Paula Abdul is dressed like a creepy little baby. Jason nasally smarms his way through the first few lines of "Cracklin' Rosie," while David makes stupid faces, then Archuleta also sings way too low, and then on the chorus they all sing way too low. All five of them? Somebody is going to scream their stupid ass off at some point, then. David Cook kind of takes over the whole thing, voice still too low. Then the ladies sing "Song Sung Blue" also way too low. Brooke looks like she's got a machine gun to her head. The fuck are they singing so low for? How much screaming will there be? They all sound like hell, I can't even hear this part of the song to recognize it. Oh, there's Archuleta singing in a human area of the song: It's the "Brother Love" song. And David Cook does the whole "brothers and sistahs" part and acts irritating and gross, and then...the song is over. So it was transposed down to South America for what exactly?
Constantine! Automatic bleep-bloop, Gina Glocksen babbling dumbly, Ryan ignoring Ace, then Neil Diamond tells us that these kids are tops and not, in fact, average. He would like them to stick with it. Except maybe Brooke, who could by killed by it. Brooke was nuts, David was pretty good, Jason was a sweetie-pie, Syesha was fine, and Archuleta has no idea what's going on at this point. Then Syesha was fabulous and deserves to be here, Brooke was totally awesome and doesn't anymore, Jason did the same song with different words and was kind of gross, and Archuleta sealed his fate by being hideous. Oh, and David Cook yet again was the best. Neil says he was impressed with both the talent and the poise of them. Except, again, Brooke who used to be poised and is becoming a latter-day jellyfish.
Ryan on last night's "controversy": "The rumors about Paula aren't true." What? That's it? And what were these "rumors"? That she can foresee the future? That's not true? "She's part of our family and we love her." Fuck. So being psychic and able to see the future can get you fired now? And then he's like, "Also Jason is safe so it doesn't matter."
Then Ryan calls David Archuleta up and, embarrassingly, calls him "da bomb," and says Paula has noticed that there is no joy in his hollow childish form. That is because he wants to go home and play with his toys and not be on this show anymore and not cry himself to sleep every night from being forced into this horrible schedule and doing something he doesn't even like anymore. Then he almost starts crying onstage, and then he is safe.
Ryan shows us a little preview of So You Think You Can Dance, which seems to involve Serena van der Woodsen with a British accent, Rachel Ray screaming her ass off, stupid people with bendy bodies, another blonde British lady, the fact that entitled wannabe dancers are twice as scary nuts as entitled wannabe singers because you actually have to be able to do something to think that you can do that thing, and lots of backflips. Not interested, thanks. "I just like the outfits," quoth Ryan, and then says that the other blonde lady is named Nigel something, which is a funny name for a lady, and then some dude made Randy a horrible Coke cup and everybody claps for the cup. I'm so confused right now.
David Cook comes out onto the stage. If he's safe -- which: duh -- then it's the two girls, which makes sense for the bottom two, but I wonder if he's going to say "bottom two" at any point, because I really think the bottom two would be Jason and Brooke. Cook says that Paula's intuition that he's the American Idol can also be, as with Carly, the kiss of death. He's safe, though. Brooke sadly hugs Syesha backstage and then they go up together.
"Here we are again, girls." Syesha smiles her ass off, and Brooke stares at the floor and babbles quietly. Syesha had her best night yet, but Simon wasn't really feeling it. Brooke was a karaoke nightmare at first, but her second song was totally brilliant. Syesha admits that she has serious trouble with song choice every week, and the honest emotional and vulnerable Brooke managed to make her way out of the "nightmare" cave and finally kicked into "happy/grateful mode," but too late. He sends them both to the couch to do a bunch of unrelated shit, and Brooke awesomely is like, "Of course you're doing this. We'll stay as long as we can." Usually, Brooke's random talk bothers him, but Brooke? Just laughs, because what do you with a Brooke?
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Then for no reason at all, Natasha Bedingfield sings a song. Girlfriend is looking hard these days, no? The song is totally boring and she has a pretty voice at all, but like, why get to the bottom two so fast and then just fuck around? The song is a year long, and then she talks about the show for awhile, and none of it makes sense, and she kisses Ryan like five times, and then, staring at the blank face before her, she releases her inhibitions and feels Archuleta on her skin, hugging him like six times and asks him if she can go to Prom with him. ...Was that the point? Oh, God.
Ten-year-old Michael, fabulously blooming into his agency as a diva as we speak, wonders on the phones why it is that Paula is so nice to the contestants. Paula responds that Michael will one day be a fabulous diva. Miranda, 14, asks Paula if she's going to do any more music videos with Randy. Ryan also wants to know. Paula says in the one, Randy becomes a cartoon cat, and then they promise to keep dancing like there's no tomorrow. Tara, 46, gave Simon his first kiss, in his garden, when he was nine. Simon half-mooses all over the place and they are both totally awesome and weird. Ryan's first question is, "Is Simon a good kisser? Please." Tara and Simon talk about how he was only nine, and Paula screams to ask if she's over the rabies, and Tara says she'd had extensive therapy since. Ryan is totally done with this whole convo, it's amazing. Simon talks about how she was his first crush, and then Ryan's like, "Tara, I'll give you Simon's number. Which I have. And you don't. But I'll give it to you. And nine is too young to kiss anyway. And I'm hanging up now."
Then: Anything relevant at all, please ...Nope. Another song! Neil Diamond, doing the whole David Cook thing with the hips and the bright red lights and all. The song is fine, Neil Diamond is fine, his best songs are the ones that aren't about little girls. His mother looks like Neil Diamond in drag. Neil babbles Brooke-style about how his new album is coming out, and he can't stop making songs even though he's totally rich, which is funny because what if Ryan's passion is for like botany or something, and all this hustle and 20-hour workday stuff is so he can go live on an island? Neil Diamond is still talking. People, what are we doing here? He tells them to stay with it, don't listen to Simon -- Paula jumps up like a snakehandler, of course -- and never stop. Simon says he has history with Neil Diamond and Neil Diamond says he loves Simon and again Ryan's like, "Spare me the details. I'll give you Simon's phone number later, because I totally have it."
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Syesha and Brooke. No suspense at all. Syesha is now worried and Brooke is already a weepy mess. She knows it's coming and gives her version of not freaking out, which is to freak out. She sobs into her mic, Syesha's mic, her journey involved being totally warm and sweet and beautiful and fun and happy-go-lucky and truly delightful, sometimes not so confident and sometimes totally joyful...and then those things trickled down the drain one thing at a time until she was just a big old mess. But then at the very last second she pulled it together and gave a great performance, and that was the last thing she did on this show -- because I am terrified that this is going to be a singout apocalypse -- and that's something to be proud of.
She gives a short speech thanking everybody in America, very sincerely, and then tries to sing, and absolutely chokes on every line except for the one she had written on her hand, and gives the people a truly tearful, sad, kind of touching singout. I get kind of overwhelmed by happy singing, but it takes a truly rough sad singing to get to me. David Cook, paying attention to something off-stage, awkwardly steps forward and pats her back and then awkwardly steps back again, it's weird. The thing I like is how Paula stands up in front of her and tries to keep her attention by clapping wildly, but there's no use, because she's wigged. She finally just goes, "Thank you!" and turns to face the back of the stage and Ryan comforts her. I mean, you didn't think she was going out with anything less than a total bloodbath, did you?
So here's what we got: Syesha Mercado, who is in this to win it and doesn't give a fuck. David Cook, who's good at doing different versions of other people. Jason Castro, who's not that great at doing anything except a certain folky version of himself. David Archuleta, which...I think whatever Brooke is like on the outside, she's fine ten minutes later and we don't get to see it, but I think that's what David Archuleta is like inside, all the time. I bet Brooke is really vicariously cathartic for him in some way.
I think week it's Jason, for a David-Syesha-David showdown, and then the David/David finale. I'm sorry to see Brooke go from a selfish angle, because I enjoy her, but she could not get off the stage fast enough for my tastes, too. I think my friend Karen sums it up best: that the nature of being truly gifted is too be awkward, especially in an environment designed to smack your gifts right the fuck out of you. That Brooke was in there fighting for authenticity in the most inauthentic environment yet conceived. That this was the perfect sing out for her, "I Am, I Said," because it's all about ending up in a scary place that is too hard and dark when you should have stayed safe. And of course that Brooke can easily be imagined having "in-depth discussions of existentialist angst with a piece of furniture," such as David Archuleta. But I like the idea that this was a challenge for her, and that maybe she'll come away with a stronger sense of her own goodness, and how bad the place she invested it. You don't bring a bird to a dogfight and expect the bird to fight. Birds are best at singing.
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