Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT James Franco in the Mouth Area
By Jacob Clifton | Season 10 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.19.2011
Steven Tyler is an asshole.
Sagittarian trashbox Ashley Sullivan (25, Springfield, MA) is basically gross, but she's trying so very hard and has a sort of a cleverness -- and accompanying deepness of crazy -- that will make some young man very unhappy one day. Sometimes when it says "Retail Sales," you know they're talking about Macy's, and sometimes you just know they're talking about Kohl's. Maybe Payless, in this instance.
Ashley's manic performance of some song from Thoroughly Modern Millie manages to scare the bejesus out of the Judgery, though, which earns her some points. J. Lo tells her to stop acting like this and maybe they will take that shit on Broadway where everybody is nuts, but right now you are just freaking us out. She begs and screams and weeps and does a scary dance and starts a step routine and sometimes she's laughing and sometimes she's crying and the music is like seriously though y'all this girl has mental illnesses and the mascara's raining down and J. Lo puts her through just to be nice, and then something in Steven's head goes wrong and then she is put through and then she drops to the floor and has a damned fit. She will be the one this year that gets stabbed in Hollywood. Mark my words.
Ryan, at sunset. Even in Jersey.
Future sister-wife Victoria Huggins (4 1/2, Lumberton NC) has an indomitable spirit and a weird little accent and an insane shine in her eyeballs, and a sweetness and love of Ryan that reflect quite well on her. She's about the weirdest, coolest little alien being I've seen in a while, with her Baby Eva Longoria-Parker looking self. The Judgery immediately call attention to her whole cupcake-handsy headbandy petroleum jelly-toothed Pageant Girl deal, and she's like, "Some folks think that's a negative thing!" in this weary way of like I been burnt before by that one and they're like, "No, it's what is pulling your total weirdness together. Don't drop this particular part of your bullshit yet."
And then she sings! And it's great! And they put her through, and Steven offers to statutorily rape her, and she says that yes, her poodle skirt and matching shrug are quite revealing, but that appealing to "the boy audience" is part of the job. My God, this girl. Hocus-pocus-alamagocus. She does so many quirky cute things that everybody in the room laughs until they cry and even Randy is like, "Every. Trick. In The Book." When even Randy is calling you a ticking child-bot, you know you are salable.
Next up: Hardcore Kosovo education for your brain and your heart. No warning, no warmup, just boppin' along with Huggins and suddenly Idol is Giving the fuck Back.
We're about twenty minutes into the profile of this refugee family and how they got amnesty and the history of Former Czechoslovakia and I'm... Still not clear on which one of them is actually competing. It's the whole A-Fed deal, where you want to make breakfast for the whole family and do what you can to make them stop crying. Then finally the girl -- Melinda Ademi (16, Yonkers) -- sings, and of course it's beautiful, because of course she's going to be in the Top 12, because we know the drill by now. Randy, bless him, goes, "You won the lottery twice!"
Yup. Once to avoid ethnic cleansing, sure, but now this? Lightning really does strike twice sometimes.
Mean black girls, annoying white girls. The eternal struggle. Then we meet Devyn Rush (20, New Hope PA), who is a diner waitress or something, and we pretend that's unique for awhile. I think it's at a Red Robin or one of those other places that only exists in those big strip malls full of heavily branded places you've never heard of and yet each one has a very specific corporate culture that only mildly mimics actual places? You know what I mean? Like next to IKEA sometimes. With a TGI Thursdays or something, O'Bennigan's, chicken place, pan-Asian place, just this host of made-up companies that feel like shell corporations you're helping launder money by eating their delicious food.
That anonymous, class-limbo feeling you get at, like, California Pizza Kitchen. Era-less, identity-less, demographic-less, confusingly unattached to other signifiers. James Dean and Marilyn and Brando in that Hopper ripoff painting, always. Always.
I've only eaten at one of them once, and it was right before we saw Planet Of The Apes, and I just can't face that memory, so -- except for this one very memorably charming fry cook at the Five Guys Burgers in Plano TX -- I hate and will not involve myself with them or their ilk. Except when Randy asks Devyn about singing waiters, she goes, "That's a loaded question, actually," which is an awesome, awesome answer, and now I hope she can sing. Maybe we can burn down her pretend job together when she wins. She is cowed by their approval, in a really sweet and modest way, and we're good.
Being mean to somebody with some genetic things happening, and then Genise Deal (20, Teaneck NJ) singing well enough that, once again, Steven Tyler tries to upstage her. Screeching along and pounding on the table like a goddamned child. They don't put her through for some reason, and then Steven starts barking at Randy for some other reason. I feel like I caught shit in years past for hating on Tyler so hard, but are you kidding me? The guy is a massively mean-spirited rockstar toolio. It's not an act. The walking-hardon thing, the lead-singer thing, the outsides-looking-like-your-insides thing. All these things are true and real and if that's honestly sexy to you, start over from the beginning. Don't date cocksuckers even if they're in a band: That's like half of everything I learned in the '90s right there.
Yoji Pop (25, Japan/Crazytown) is a fan of Michael Jackson, like one of those you get every year, and the only person who can even handle his bullshit is J. Lo, who just bellies up to the buffet and goes, "Give me what you got, Loony Tunes." And he does. Yoji Pop would like to give you "Party in the USA," for which I'm always grateful, and he's so over the top and bizarre and dancy-aroundy that J. Lo finally just hops over the edge, similar to what happened to the Judgery during the pants on the ground.