Ryan asks Simon why he doesn't just pick the songs themselves, since Simon "always" bitches about song choice -- which isn't true, that's usually Paula or Randy since they have usually no thoughts in their heads -- and Simon says maybe he will, and they can have Simon Cowell Week on American Idol. But please: just like when you asked your parents why there's Mother's Day and Father's Day but no Children's Day and they said everyday is Children's Day, that is why there will never be Simon Cowell Week on this show. Although four hours of this crap is sort of like the same thing.
It's not just me, is it? The girls are really hard to tell apart this year? So Von Smith still looks like a child from a Molly Ringwald movie, Taylor is wearing the delightful sack dress/shiny pants combo that can't help but make you sick to look at, Alex is here to help you with your geometry proofs, Arianna has not one breast but two, Ju'Not is smarmy and looks like the uncle on a sitcom, Kristen is one Five Hour Energy drink away from beating her family members up on Springer if that show's even still on, Nathaniel is a little piece of hell right here on earth, Felicia has some hips and a shiny shirt to show them off. This is where I will crack, I can feel it: right here at around the 90-minute mark, right before Scott, who holds hands with dudes like some kind of homo, Kendall who has an herbal garden centerpiece attached to herself, Jorge's face still pissing me off, and Lil Rounds who will be singing last because that's how it was written over two hundred years ago in the Book of Duh.
Von's like, "Can you believe my indulgent nonsense? I should stop screaming at America. I realize that. But will I? Let's see." He talks about showing a "real," a "better" Von, and to that end begins Marvin Gaye's "You're All I Need To Get By" in a much lower register. As in, a scary phone porno "Who needs the bar scene/I like to talk to gay singles in my area" lower register. I like. What I can't believe is that Von Smith is nervous, with which gene I didn't think he was born, and it's throwing off his pitch. And it occurs to me that I don't know jackshit about Von Smith except that I want to put my mouth on his cartoon mouth, and all the rest is just like this personal mythology I made up so I wouldn't have to feel creepster about that. But he was on YouTube, right? He was one of the ones that was on YouTube, which means instant talent. His mouth is as large as Paula Abdul's head, which is also cool. Or was he one of those kids Rosie O'Donnell is always trying to abduct?
So he does like fifty different awesome tricks and is totally amazing and oh my God I totally forgot about the laughing like children and living like lovers part because I was so concerned about the thunder under the covers, but that's actually more intense somehow. What is fucking worse than Alex Wagner-Trugman saying the word lovers?
On the other hand, his voice is unusual and strong, and his performance is really clever without seeming unconnected, and I am of the opinion that Alex is maybe the coolest person I have ever seen on TV. His choices -- growling, sudden squeaks, rolling that word lovers around in his mouth like a piece of black forest cake -- are sort of brilliant and awesome, and it's nice to have somebody with this specific untrained/very-practiced sense of himself onstage. Even if that road leads to Crazytown, at least he's on it, and dude I love him: growling, spazzing, jumping around, making wild faces, acting fucked up, singing a dirty song on TV. ♥. But then there's the fact that his performance possibly could so paralyze you in your shame and weirded-outness that you can't lift your hand to dial and vote for him. But I hope that everyone in America worked it out, because damn that was fantastic and I want to see it every week forever.
The judges can't stop smiling and laughing because he's so awesome. Paula makes no sense and has some kind of a metaphor going which impresses her; she says that he was essentially entertaining to watch. Simon says that no, it was fun to watch but not listen to, and that the growling was ridiculous and stupid, which it was not. It was totally awesome and very dang weird. Simon calls him "stupid" sixty more times and bugs him for accidentally kicking over the mic stand, and Alex says twice that this was an accident, so of course Randy's main issue is how he kicked over the mic stand, because Randy is a fucking moron who can't understand a damn thing that's going on, and calls Alex "buckwild" and "kinda crazy" and they say he screamed it. Um, that's fucking right he did. What is wrong with these people? How was that not the greatest thing ever on this show? The judges are like that steering wheel in the pirate's crotch this week.
Kara gets it, see, Kara totally gets why Alex is awesome. She's like, "You cannot pay for that shit. You have to wait for it, quietly and still, like a fucking unicorn in a magical glade." Randy babbles at the top of his lungs because Kara is speaking, but Paula's like, "Yes, speaking as a professional choreographer that was like watching a unicorn say the word lovers like a hundred times." Ryan's like, "So you didn't act quite so insane in rehearsal, eh? But now you have gone nuts?" and then breaks the mic stand himself, and Alex stares at the camera and almost starts crying because he did think that was awesome until the judges told him otherwise, and it is heartbreaking. Because it was awesome, in more than a lightsaber-kid internet sensation way, but like Paula Abdul is going to understand what's so great about it. Wrong place, wrong time, absolutely perfect performance.
No. You know, it's fine. Into every life a little rain must fall, and it only makes sense that the same episode with Alex going murderball on your ass -- or Von Smith existing -- there would be two Alicia Keys songs. That makes sense, metaphysically speaking. And Felicia Barton is very pretty in a way where if you showed me her face on a flash card I wouldn't know who she was, and if you told me and then showed me the card a minute later I still wouldn't get it. I feel like we can work with her. I know she's operating at an even worse disadvantage than anybody else because we have literally never ever seen her, but she's gorgeous, and sings this song as well as anybody could. So pretty!
It's smart of her to sing a dumb catchy Khan-worm song like this, too, because the song never fucking ends or changes, so at whatever arbitrary time she decides to quit singing it and just round up the remainder, physics as it's been explained to me says we have technically known her now... forever. Paula loves her and wants her to stick around forever, Simon thought it was pretty good but not that original and then openly rolls his eyes as that other guy tries and fails to restate what Simon just said, and Kara praises her attitude, and she gets nervous and babbly with Ryan.
Now there's Scott, whose brother once appeared sort of hot in a mid-'90s South Beach big-teeth way like that one guy in the Mighty Morphin' Black Or White way, but who is now just sort of insane looking in that same way. Scott will be singing "Mandolin Rain," sans piano. And it's good, but it's not that good, and it's unnerving but it's not that unnerving. He seems to be one of the nicest guys in the universe, which is nice, and he does the awesome minor bridge that makes this song so fabulous, which shows taste. I used to be bothered by this song when I was a child, because I couldn't understand how weather could be a body of water, a cooking implement, and a musical instrument at the same time, and then other times I just figured I was hearing it wrong. I like Bruce Hornsby, I mean, duh. But I wondered what it was all about, and it turns out it was a wild metaphor that I don't think I actually understood until just now when I looked up the lyrics; I kind of wish I hadn't because it's sort of stupid.
Entire Judges' Panel, All Together at Once: "You're so fucking blind! How fabulous of you!"
Simon: "I seem to have remembered that you are a human being and not your blindness, and so will offer my critique. Not that it matters, because America is idiots who would be voting for you if you'd gotten up there and eaten a dachshund puppy with a knife and fork. In summary, welcome to the Top 12."
Ryan: "I'm not immune to how blind you are, either, but I'm so awesome it's fine."
Stupid Damn America: "Hand me the phone! This vaguely means that I am a good person somehow!"
Scott MacIntyre, Secretly: "I'm starting to feel sorta guilty for pretending to be blind."