It all started in Chicago, where we learned what it takes to be a paint salesman and a diabetic mom. Douchecentric shots of the both of them make magic hands at the camera in a blurry sped-up Times Square naked-Alanis kind of world, and it's time! It's finally time!
You know, everybody always says it's the worst year ever. Every single year, worst year ever. And round about this time in the season, I've gone through that dark scary tunnel of resentment and come out the other side. But this year? Meh. Taylor Hicks and Jordin Sparks are in the audience, reminding me how exhausting this show always is, but still. I don't think it's just bitching nerds and I don't think it's the fifty-some hours of the season. I think this season just really is lame.
And I was thinking about it today before the finale, like, is that true and if so why, and I think it has to do with authenticity. Great word. Central word. What that word means to me is that you go through life to a certain age and then realize that it's just easier to be honest. Whether that's good things or bad things, you're better off just looking at the truth about yourself and realizing that there's nothing really to hide behind and not really a great reason to even try.
And if you feel like bending the truth or refusing to acknowledge the tiny cruddy things you do throughout the day, you can think on this word authenticity and remember that there's not really a great reason to stay hidden. Even if you're just admitting to yourself that you're angry or being selfish or could have done something better, that is to our mutual benefit to get over yourself. Hopefully you can train yourself to hold up every thought and action against the question -- is this me being authentic or is this propaganda -- and automatically be more honest.
But what we mean here, when we talk about authenticity, is not the same thing at all. To be authentic on this show is to give a strong illusion of honesty, a sort of see-through vulnerability or trustworthiness. Kara talks about it all the time, they all talk about "connecting" to the song and this sort of thing, but it's queasy because basically what they're being asked to do is give the illusion of having no illusions.
You can do this by eating and fully digesting the spectacle, which is how Adam accomplished it. You can do this by skating on the surface so well that the outside and the inside, the form and function, are basically the same: That's Ryan. But the kind that appeals to me is the kind that Simon is about, which is generally about taking whatever thing you think you're selling and automatically pick it up and look underneath it, at the worms and the weirdness it's covering up.
Simon says, "Stop lying to yourself and look in the mirror. Stop lying to yourself and listen to your own voice. Stop lying to yourself and think honestly about why you are here. Stop lying to yourself and understand who is voting, and why." Take all the other voices away and listen to what you're actually thinking and doing, and be strong enough to accept both sides of it and stop trying to argue your way out of fallibility. Well, of course everybody boos him. Nobody wants to hear that shit!
But the irony is that we've ended up in this finale with two people who have consistently given us "authentic," but have been slipping away from actual authenticity every week since the show started. And every week Simon and the Judgery have asked Lee to stop being afraid, and just sing -- and every week they've begged Crystal to hold onto whatever bit of truth it is she's showing us when she's at her best. The whole idea of performance, like any fiction, is about doing something that is not true, but doing it so well and so honestly that it becomes true.
Crystal is annoying. We've known that since we met her. Lee is annoying, which we've only slowly begun to learn. They are authentically obnoxious, both of them. But I think the deck was stacked, because you know who else was authentic? Lilly. And that trashy girl with the red hair. Andrew Fucking Garcia was authentic as hell. And it occurs to me that the majority of contestants this year were authentically awful. In a way that is only barely related to their singing ability. So maybe it all evens out, and we're back to dealing with the two people who can at least sing. I guess we'll see. All I know is, I would like Lee a lot better if he'd gotten eliminated before the shtick turned.
Big ovation for Simon Cowell, which is good but something I don't even want to talk about. I really can't stand the idea that he is leaving. I don't know what that says for my future with the show, honestly.
Lee is just happy to be here. Crystal is just happy to be Crystal. They are both dressed like they go to Hogwarts, so I'm sure the duet is going to be annoying as heck. We visit Toledo, where somebody unknown and unseen -- but is definitely not Matt Sarver -- is reporting. Meanwhile, the people in Illinois are a bit more subdued. Their paint stores are going unmonitored for this.
That blonde girl or a blonde girl plays the guitar, looking like Patsy when she and Edina were in school. The Top 12, also dressed like Battle Royale, sing "School's Out For Summer." Not really a singing song, but all I really care about is how extremely rolled-up Aaron Kelly's sleeves are. Then things take a fucked up turn as a host of zombie schoolchildren come down the stairs -- in lockstep, like another brick in the wall or a total eclipse of the heart -- with Alice Cooper makeup on their eyes. It's super scary, like something the Joker would come up with. Casey introduces Alice Cooper, and he comes up out of the ground dressed like an idiot, spinning around a magical walking stick while the dead children are suffered unto him.
What are we doing? I mean, as Americans, what are we up to?
It's all like a fifty-year-old white man got Lady Gaga and Marilyn Manson confused and they were like, "Let's do something like that!" Like what? "Like with little dead kids and people stomping around and costumes and yelling and a sickening green light." Why? "Because of zombies. Somebody told me they are the new werewolves and I believed them." And so they called up old Alice to see what he was up to and he was like, "Oh, not much. Just completing a needlepoint," and they were like, "Grab your lunch mouse and get over here. We've got something weird and exceedingly ill-advised we'd like to run past you."
, alum Kris Allen singing a song, "The Truth," with a bunch of older guys you can tell think he's a total lightweight. His hair is thinning or just looks dumb, I can't tell. He's dressed, as usual, like AFI hit the Gap. The song is almost exactly like you think: Like what would happen if Rob Thomas combined his Matchbox Twenty accomplishments with his solo work. He's gotten a little skinnier but he still does that weird thing with his jaw. Did old Krissy used to sing just like Rob Thomas? That's new. He certainly doesn't dance like him. I'm done with this song. It is pussywillow whiny and three-chord mid-tempo and I'm afraid Kris's charms are no longer an effective smokescreen for shit like this. We're done.
Simon pops an Altoid to make out with Ryan and then Ryan shows us a little movie he made. Simon's hair has been different lengths but not shapes. Mostly it's people talking about what a dick he is. Ellen says she did the show only because he is "kind, caring, considerate," combined with shots of him yelling at idiots. Kara jokes about his professional pokerface that allows him to hide his responses to the idiots. Paula talks about how supportive he was of her antics, but then there are clips. Randy Jackson is disgusting a whole lot, Ryan maybe hates him as much as we do, and then Kara does a joke about how she won't miss Simon... I mean, this is some finale shit right here. It's not even funny, it's just weird. I thought for like one second we could drop the bullshit and actually talk about how he is wonderful, but what was I thinking. Maybe there's still time.
Siobhan Magnus and... Aaron Kelly. Weird. She overacts the first lines of a slowed-up crunk "How Deep Is Your Love," but then their harmony is actually really beautiful. There's a weird moment where they both sort of peel off like Price Is Right hos and the bad-singing animated corpses of some Brothers Gibb step out and look like pimps in a bad movie, and horrible sounds come out of them. The fat one "sings" at Siobhan and she pretends not to be freaked out, while Aaron ignores the skinny murderer-looking one in favor of going crazy with that one hip-move he loves. All four of them join in at once, and it's way annoying because you only really want to hear Siobhan, and Hasselhoff is out in the audience looking -- as per usual, thanks to surgery -- like he's tripping balls and perving out simultaneously, and then all four of them fail to hit a falsetto note that was apparently chosen at random... This show is ghetto. Sorry, but it's over. I'm calling it.
This happens to every reality show, and the trick is to stop watching it the second it happens, so that you don't end up trashy by the Commutative Property. Like okay, ANTM, it was when they brought back that girl with the clown-wig hair so she would fight with everybody, including another girl they also brought on just to act ghetto -- who poured beer in the girl's weave or had beer poured in her own weave, I forget -- but either way that's when you stop watching. The Real World, they faked you out with the Dan/Flora conflict but then reeled you back in with Lyme disease in Seattle, so it actually ended up being Ruthie that ruined everything for good. Big Brother -- which I still haven't kicked, to be honest -- it was the Donatos, followed by that summer edition with all the retards. (It happens with scripted shows, too -- Breaking Bad has gone there and come back so many times I just gave up -- but generally those follow a different arc.) I don't know why this happens, but it always happens, unless you're on VH1 or the show involves prostituting yourself to a rich bachelor, where it already started out trashy and you shouldn't be watching it in the first place. In any case, you gotta flee that sinking ship because while you may think it's just striking up a friendly conversation, to somebody who knows about this ghetto slide factor you're saying things about yourself you don't wanna be saying.
Big Mike, crowd clapping along the second the song starts, sings "Takin' It To The Streets" with a maximum amount of church faces, and then brings out Michael McDonald, who looks like the Colonel of Chicken now but sounds like he always sounds. I love how we're having Mike sing soul music... But it's Michael McDonald. You know what I mean? Isn't that perfect? And you know Randy Jackson is like, "That's exactly what I was picturing."
The judges are beyond bored. Then things get worse and Dane Cook comes out. He looks orange and skinny and he only makes that one face he makes, that you want to stab? He's playing the guitar and doing some kind of roast about the tight t-shirts and the... Whatever. Is Dane Cook still a thing? I feel like if there's anybody who likes Dane Cook they're acting contrary to hide the fact of their real secret love, like with Dave Matthews. I don't even have a particular problem with Dane Cook, in the same way that it's impossible to have a serious problem with the guy who does your lawn. He's just a guy.
I find Dane Cook charming, I guess, in an abstract way. I turn the channel when I see him coming, but I do it without any kind of malice. Like Scrubs. He's a standup, which means he's mentally ill, which means he's probably fun to hang out with. Especially if you don't feel like being On. So then a bunch of nutty shitty people from the auditions come out, like that jumping lesbian with the muffin top and Normund Gentle. I don't really recognize the rest of them. A man with a cape is there, and a freaky-looking homosexual fights with possibly Tatiana. It's a nasty little circus, but also kind of bucolic and calming. It's like the beginning of Freaks when all the microcephalics are dancing around the one guy and he's patting them on the head. Probably this is what it's like when Dane Cook meets his fans.
Gross what's-her-face, Lacey whatever, comes out singing "Beautiful" in her yucky baby voice, and then Didi comes out doing another version of that voice. They are both dressed like hookers. Then Katie and that fat girl I hated so much, and then Siobhan. So many girls singing the song. Then Crystal comes out, totally in her cheesy element, and they all sing about how beautiful they are. Just bring out Xtina already so we can move on. This is the most repetitive song. Just when Alicia Keys is going, "The chorus? Again?" they move on to "Stronger," which you know Siobhan is all over that song. Katie singing it is adorable, but not as adorable as her edgy moves. Everybody belts. Siobhan raises the roof. Then a bunch of gay men suddenly appear on the stairs, and you know what that means. Christina Aguilera!
They prepare the way and throw down rose petals of dance moves in her path, and she appears looking like Princess Irulan Corrino-Atreides in the boudoir, sings like one line of that song, and then goes into some very slow sad boring song. I mean, it is beautiful and she is beautiful (no matter what they say!) but I thought she was a robot now. I was sort of looking forward to that. Am I wrong? Didn't she turn into a robot? Well, I don't know what kind of songs robots like. I can see Jude Law kicking back to this song, in that movie where he was a robot. Robots have all the time in the world. They don't mind ballads in the middle of a two-hour recap. Me, on the other hand, I can see myself being in the mindset that would enjoy this song, but it is not now and it would frankly be a lot of work to get there. A very rare occasion, where I could sit still for this song. She's great though.
Ricky Gervais shows up to say farewell to good friend Simon Cowell, via satellite from his house like a mile away. I looove Ricky Gervais. I don't like The Office because it makes me nervous and I don't really get Extras, but have you seen his show where they discuss monkeys on the radio? It is so, so good. I am in love with Karl Pilkington, he's a genius. Ricky gets very sincere for about five seconds about how awesome Simon is, and then starts talking about how he could be a lap-dancer and going through his garbage for spare money and whatever. For British people my understanding is that that was, like, most of a love affair.
Lee sings "I Can't Go For That" because he is, and this show is, all about relevance. Andrew Garcia... I can't go for that. No can do. I could go for some Tim Urban in tiny pants bumping into Big Mike like he's blind, though. And I could go zooming past Casey singing "Maneater," because how boring is this? Are we really going to have to deal with Hall and Oates? Are they still alive? Also, the moves of the Top 12 boys are like, hopping and moseying. Mosey, stop, and hop. Then Hall or Oates gives us a disinterested performance of some other damn song. I saw Hall or Oates on American Idol and his hair looked perfect.
Hey, who's old and still grasping at attention on a Wednesday night? Around five or six PM, California time? Let's just call them and make some medley magic. Does anybody know Madonna? Tell her we got Tim Urban and he still looks hot as hell.
The unnamed person reporting from Toledo is Janell Wheeler, whose name I remember as a person I liked, but looking at that face? I don't know that I have ever seen that girl. Clearly very memorable. Let's talk to Crystal's dad, who is dressed like a physics teacher in an all-leather outfit and a ponytail. Do you have anything to say, Crystal's weird dad? Nope? Cool, cool. Rest those dogs, man.
Then Crystal comes out singing "Ironic," which is... Yeah, she can duet with Alanis, I don't mind that. And the backup singers rock it. But what a boring, dumb song. Like every song on this album was a single! You can't manage to... Oh. Look, Alanis! It's Alanis! Singing "You Oughtta Know" with Crystal Bowersox. My inner sixteen-year-old is very excited, but also very confused. These are the songs you bring to the table with these two? Crystal Bowersox singing Glen Ballard rockouts? Here's a list of successful singles, off the top of my head, that Crystal could have rocked: "Thank U." "Head Over Feet," even. "Uninvited," as boring as that song is. "Hands Clean," though? That would be amazing! I just don't get what these two particular songs have to do with Crystal. I barely get what she has to do with Alanis, but I could get there. Whatever, hot mess show.
Carrie Underwood, singing "Undo It" -- which she wrote with Kara, what -- with some serious drumbeats in the background and a shiny shiny shrug. Every single woman on this show, I forgot to mention, is wearing black tights at all times. Carrie does her usual thing where she does the minimum of country necessary to still qualify, like the case law element of any episode of The Good Wife. That show is excellent, as is Carrie, and in both cases I'm weirded out and unsure about my strong love of them. There's a dude in her band wearing a Mad Hatter hat, also, and playing the violin, and dancing around like a dick. You should totally watch this performance just for him, and for Carrie's awesome dance moves.
Kris meets up with Crystal and Lee -- "I'm just glad to be here, you know?" YEAH WE FUCKING KNOW -- and gives them some cars. Hers has sunflowers painted on it, so it's as queer as she is, and Lee's is painted all weird because he sells paint. Then there's a mashup of all the car commercials from all year while Lee and Crystal sing a terrible song and act really uncomfortable about it. His nervousness makes me want to vomit. I'm not exactly sympathetic, because he's just coming off neurotic and moronic at this point, but it's still really hard to watch.
How you doing, Lee? Oh, he's just having fun being here. GREAT THANKS.
Casey strums along and sings "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" and you know what that means -- Bret's aneurism is going to be here in five, four, three... There it is. Wearing a hat over his bald insecure head of course. You know who doesn't fucking matter in any way? Bret. He was gross in the '80s, he was gross in the '90s, he's super fucking gross now. Here's a list of things he likes: Eyeliner, drugs, pussy. Hot tubs. Tanning. Big hard fake tits. That's literally all he is into.
Forget the Venn diagram where he and I don't have much in common: Can you imagine looking at his EKG? How did they even know he was having an aneurism? And why is he this cuddly beloved standing-ovation mascot of our childhoods? Did we all grow up in trailer parks? Is it just because of the aneurism and seeing his nasty face on TV so many times we forgot what he actually looks like? I think that's it. But even still, I mean: He has a TV show, for several years this has been true, where mentally disadvantaged whores fight each other to give him blowjobs in locations that smell like urine. He did so many drugs that his brain literally exploded. That's his contribution to society. That's our hero up there. That's our Miley Cyrus. Do not fool yourself.
Lee joins Chicago -- are they just sandbagging him at this point? -- to sing "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" with his dead-eyed fucked up pronunciations. An elderly insurance adjuster takes over for him after a while and the band attempts to sing backup, and it's awful. Then it goes to some man that I thought was Peter Cetera somehow looking hot for the first time in his life but is maybe a man named Keith, singing "If You Leave Me Now," my very favorite, and then after like two seconds of Lee stupidly mouthing the words along with the mysterious hot guy, they go to that totally stressful song about the "twenty-five or six to four" or whatever, those numbers that keep coming at you and make you feel like you're on all the drugs.
I cannot handle that song at all, so we're jumping ahead. Matt Rogers is on location in Illinois, and frankly I don't know what I ever saw in him. I'm over it and I hope he shuts up forever. Time for more weird memory-clips about Simon, including all the times they pretended he and Paula were fucking but he was really just flirting with himself. Then we see a bunch of trannies and Bikini Kill and just barely touch on the fact that mostly he's into big beautiful black girls. Simon and Ellen flirting, Simon touching his chest a whole lot, tuning his nipples to old-timey radio stations, Ryan admitting what a flirt Simon is, and then Simon in bed with Randy, and it's so boring and dumb, and then Ryan draws allusions to "Summertime" and "A Moment Like This" and "Mad World," which means we're... Yep, "Pants On The Ground." Fuck that. Oh, and William Hung too? We're done here. How embarrassing for everyone. How validating for the terrorists.
Paula videos about her time with Simon somewhat cogently -- well, for her -- and she thanks him for teaching her to be strong, and it ends up being really sweet. Then she appears onstage, looking actually really beautiful, and Simon is touched. She thanks the crowd, in her pink bubble-skirt dress, and reads off a teleprompter as poorly as she ever did, tosses some kind of lame gay joke Ryan's way, and then refuses to talk to Simon, and leaves gracefully.
Just kidding, she totally goes into some nutsacky Catskills routine about why she really left, which is apparently that Simon knocked her up, and the whole time she does this weird stork-kicking walk back and forth across the stage. It's supremely uncomfortable. Then she fake-emotes at Simon in this weird broken unconnected way as she explains... Oh, fuck it, I have no idea what she's talking about. She is so fucking nuts. You can tell she really feels whatever the hell it is that she's trying to communicate, and I guess that's what matters. Long montage of Simon, and we're done. I want to miss Simon and remember him in my own way. I don't need Paula for much, but I certainly don't need Paula for this.
Kelly comes out looking sorta crazy, and is joined by Ruben and Fantasia, and then Carrie, Jordan and Taylor and Kris each take a line of the boring unknown song about how I guess Simon made them out of the clay and blew the breath of life into their lungs and they have become something very special. It's so weird how Taylor looks good all the time and then you remember. Then like everybody ever comes onstage. Blake and Ace and Justin and Kim and Archuleta and that little girl from Hawaii and, um... Shermy and Ringo and Squeaky and Harpo and Katniss and Sneezy and Polonius and Catalano and Renesmee and Xander and Holden and Rudyard and Pennywise and Balthazar. Just everybody!
Ryan summons Simon up to the stage, making him wicked uncomfortable, and Paula brings him up there in her weird prom dress, and he shakes Ryan's hand, is totally sweet with Paula, thanks all of us a few times, reminds us that they are not actually "judges" in any way, and has a little moment with Ryan but not really what we deserve, and Ryan goes in for a third hug but Paula's cockblocking him and we're going to commercial anyway.
Green lasers and Siobhan starts it up with some song about how they'll never fall in love with you again, and then crazy-ass Janet Jackson comes out in some kind of bizarre dress and looking sort of bald. They are just dying to see her, that's nice to see, and her ass is doing something new with itself. She sounds the same as she always does, heading into some other song I also do not know that has a lot of words and sounds like most of her and Michael's many other breathy-whispery songs. She sounds more like her brother every year, with her pointy elf ears.
Man, she is going to be gorgeous when she is a hundred years old. That's nice to think about. Especially while she's singing this one verse of this song over and over and over. Is this a single? I don't know that this will do great. Then things go a little crazy and it heads into a sort of scary bass-heavy rendition of... Technically it's "Nasty Boys," but it seems to involve a lot riffs and sounds from other songs in that era. She does a dance with scary faceless newsies and droogs that are I guess the nasty boys, and once again there's a sort of creepiness to the proceedings that make we wonder if 2010 is just going to be haunted and dark all year, because I can't handle it if that's the case. She's always had a kind of Cabaret S&M thing going on, but I always thought that had to do with their family and growing up in a warzone. Maybe that's all of us now. Well, one of them is wearing tube socks, which is fun, and her ass is doing its own separate dance, and then they all take off their shirts and do a humping dance, so I guess all is not lost.
Ryan explains that the boring song was the theme song of some movie and that she has had a lot of famous songs, and then it's back to old Lee and Crystal. I forgot about them altogether. What a downer. Lee and Crystal both auditioned for this show, I don't know if you knew that. One of them is a single mom, the other one sells paint. Bet you can't guess which is which. The screen says they were "just two faces in a sea of dreamers," which is super meaningful, and then Sufjan Stephens plays while we see them selling their "ordinary people, ordinary lives" stories about how he's just happy to be here and she just wants to feed her kid but then "together they took a journey to become something extraordinary" and whatever.
Oh my God, and then they both start singing "With A Little Help From My Friends" because we are still not done carrying the dead weight of the Baby Boomers on our backs, and it's perfectly suited to their voices and very beautiful, and then some spastic from the Bada Bing purporting to be Joe Cocker comes out and sings with them a whole lot. He makes horrible screaming noises, and they make horrible screaming noises, and the crowd goes absolutely insane. You can tell that Crystal, and to a certain extent Lee, are happy just to be there. It is made abundantly clear in their facial expressions, but you have to look for it because Lee DeWyze is so subtle generally. I cannot believe this is still going on.
And what was the message there? That they are "friends" even though they never spoke to each other one time onscreen this whole season? Meaning of course that they both win no matter who wins, because it was a group effort? Because what that tells me is that Crystal won this show. But if the message is about underdogs and all of us working together to level the playing field so that people who are better than other people at a given skill are not unjustly rewarded for their excellence, that means Lee is about to win.
British man comes out with the results "contained" in an envelope, which he hands to Ryan. That makes it all so much more legit. Dim the lights! Lee is already crying and looks like he's about to black out, while Crystal has gone quiet and still. Lee starts crying before they even announce it, and then... He wins.
Well, that's stupid as shit. I mean, I wish them both ill, but that's still super dumb. He stomps around on the stage breathing hard, and Mike grabs him but doesn't pick him up, and they all crowd around him and ruin Ryan's camera shot for the end of the show. Lee, of course, simply can't believe it. He cries and babbles and is totally boring and starstruck some more, and he hugs Crystal and cries and cries and thanks us a whole bunch and he's really happy, you guys, he's just really happy.
Was not kidding about this show going ghetto. Now we have proof. So Lee sings "Beautiful Day" just about as shitty as he did last night, and acts all amateurish and silly some more, although I will tell you this: Between the crying and the unending disingenuous wide-eyed wandering around the entire theatre, he totally forgets to pronounce words weird. And you know, without all the affectations, his voice is actually pretty gorgeous. Wish we'd gotten to hear it.
So yeah, it's done. Simon got the fuck out just in time. Congratulations, America. You took the lemons of this season, and made Tall Poppy lemonade. As long as we're measuring by anything other than excellence, and apparently you are, you made a great choice. Fat Midwestern white guys have really taken a beating these last few centuries, so I guess it was just a matter of time before one of them smashed through that particular glass ceiling. And way to break convention, after nine seasons, by rewarding someone specifically and explicitly for their mediocrity. After all, if he was excellent it wouldn't be authentic. Hope you're proud. I know I am!
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