Ryan gets to break out his most dramatic delivery about how this is the big one, on a half-lit stage where Candice and Kree are facing each other, stone-faced. Well, for as long as they can, that is, because they crack each other up within seconds. I vastly prefer that to whatever the producers intended.
After the credits, all of the top ten are back, singing "Glad You Came" in unison while all dressed in white as though they're either in a cult or dead, when in fact only one of those can be true. They get to enjoy a bit of applause in an awkward finishing-pose until the announcer calls out the judges, during whose entrance the celebrity-cam finds Adam Lambert, Taylor Hicks, Kimberly Locke and probably some other former frontrunners I don't recognize. Step it up, celebrity-cam. Enter Ryan in a tux, re-presenting Candice and Kree, who get a standing ovation from the audience before even singing a note. Ryan tries to chat them up a bit, but they're going on five hours of sleep so it's like trying to interview a pair of helium balloons.
Ryan introduces The Band Perry, which despite their dumb-ass name turns out to be capable of putting on a decent show. If you're into a country band that stole its choreography from Warrant, that is. Janelle gets to join in from the second verse on, and seems to be having a great time, silly moves and all. Almost to the point where it must be almost worth losing.
There's a little clip package about how the top five dudes think it's super-suspicious that they all got wiped out, five in a row. There's a supposed flashback to Kree giving Curtis Finch, Jr. the ugly-ass jacket he sang in the week he went home and going on to high-five Angie in the hallway. And then of Angie encouraging Paul Jolley to make jokes on the stage, Amber drugging Devin Velez's coffee, Janelle hand-editing Lazaro's chart to hide the key change that he never made, and Burnell getting shaken down by Candice for his lunch money, which he claims is the real reason he lost the weight. And then the little clip ends with the eliminated dudes busting into a party and confronting the girls and Jordin Sparks, who says it was lonely being the last female winner and wishes the guys luck on The Voice. Hilarious. Ryan then introduces them in a stiffly-performed group sing of "Let's Hang On," which they weren't able to do, so that's not nice. But at least they get to make it a whole Frankie Valli medley, with "Walk Like a Man" (which they did, away from the competition), and introduce Frankie Valli himself to finish it out as he leads them through "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" and "Grease." The number does its job admirably, which is to fill a great deal of time.
After the ads, we come back to what looks and sounds like Mariah already in the middle of a medley of her biggest hits, without benefit of an intro from Ryan, or a big edited package about how awesome she is, or all the vocal capabilities she used to have. Each song has about thirty whole seconds devoted to it and she stands motionless on a pedestal like a cake decoration. She finishes up and thanks everyone including Randy, who was supposedly backing her up on guitar. Not that I'm convinced there was a live track anywhere in that mix.
Amber is back to sing "to Me" so try to look surprised when she introduces the original singer, Emeli Sande. And try to forget that it was Candice who sang this on the show last week. Their voices match nicely, even if their outfits don't. Emeli looks like Amber's cool English teacher.
Then there's a retrospective overview of the Ford Fiesta missions, which I've already covered once and don't plan to do again. But it's also serving as a set-up for the top two to do something for their "hometown mentors," which are Candice's grandmother and Kree's musical brother-figure Misa, who were presented with tickets to the finale during their hometown visits. Fortunately that's not all: they're also getting cars! But they're only Fiestas, so that must be a bittersweet moment for both of them.
Guess who's ? Psy. Yes, that Psy, performing "Gentleman" instead of "Gangnam Style." This new one's a little slower and darker, which is exactly what we've been clamoring for from Psy, right? Still got the moves, though. And I didn't know you could say "mato-fato" on TV without getting bleeped.
If Mariah gets to sing, so does Keith, I guess. Ryan doesn't introduce him either, so I don't know what the song is called. It's the overproduced Poor Man's Jimmy Buffet one, if that helps. Ryan belatedly tells us it's called "Little Bit of Everything," asks the Glover family in the audience if they're nervous (they are), and introduces Candice to sing "Inseparable." I'm really impressed with how quickly Keith Urban's band got cleared off the stage, if nothing else. Candice's song turns into a duet with Jennifer Hudson, who can actually keep up with her. Look upon your future self, Candice Glover. Could be a whole lot worse. They do this big finish that's so big they need to get a room.
Angie Miller is back at the piano, singing "Titanium" in a duet with Adam Lambert. By which I mean she's at the piano and he's to it. Alas, it doesn't get nearly as Fabulous Baker Boys as I might have hoped. They sound pretty good together though, with him taking most of the higher parts. Big hug at the end, but I think that was the first performance of the night that the judges didn't stand up for. Not that Keith is back yet, and God knows where Randy is. Then Adam Lambert introduces Angie's personal idol, Jessie J, with whom Angie gets to sing her second duet in a row. Nice consolation prize for the second runner-up, Never mind that Jessie J showed up spear bald. Now Nick and Mariah stand up. They must have known all along that more was coming. After that's over, Adam and Ryan come back out so Jessie J can plug her upcoming single, which kind of gets overshadowed when Jessie J invites Angie to come to the UK and do her own song at a Jessie J show, since she didn't get to sing that tonight. So I think we might have a winner already, and it isn't Kree or Candice.
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After the ads, Ryan is still the only dude at the judges' table, as he introduces a clip of the contestants talking about the judges. It starts with Mariah and her "dahling" and overblown vocabulary, Keith's t-shirt and notorious listening-face, Randy's needless yelling and catchphrases, and Nicki's hard-ass-ness and tonsorial style, which they mock by wearing various wigs And -- with a shot of Devin at the end -- her ass. Keep it classy, Idol.
Ryan interviews Kree's sister in the audience, then introduces Kree herself to sing "Where the Blacktop Ends," with Keith on guitar, Randy on bass and Travis Barker playing drums, because why not? And Ray Chew playing keys, I guess. Yikes, man, everyone else in the top five got a way better duet deal than this. Kree and Keith make a duet out of it, and as a bassist myself, I take no issue with Randy's bass playing. Even though it's also too loud and repeats itself a lot. Actually, that explains a great deal.
The judges are finally reassembled back at the table after the ads -- all in new outfits -- and Ryan says it's the end of an era with the departure of Randy Jackson. The tribute clip has a framing device of talking dawgs that I refuse to pay attention to, and a whole montage of Randy's greatest moments of the last twelve seasons. Which, naturally, are almost entirely filler. After the clip, Randy gets to give a gracious farewell speech and thanks everyone. Don't feel obligated to stick around for the rest of the night, Randy.
Ryan gets Aretha Franklin on the big screen via a live feed from New York, but not to say goodbye to Randy. There seems to be a bit of a delay as she's talking to Ryan, but they're going to make her sing live with the top five anyway. The six of them do a medley starting with "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," and going on to "Respect" and "Think," with Aretha and her band playing in a studio while the top five are relegated to being her backup singers (which, we should all be so lucky) and the full horn section plays along in L.A. On a technical level, that was actually pretty amazing. If The X Factor tried that we'd still be waiting for them to figure it out.
After a rerun of the big clip calling for auditions for year, Ryan says they're opening online auditions right after the show. And then he presents Kree and Candice with keys to their new Ford Escapes, and cues the retrospective clip of the season set to "Gone Gone Gone." Unlike in the weekly farewell reels, the sing plays in its entirety this time, so we know this is going to take a while. Which it surely enough does, starting with Kez Ban and proceeding to more nutjobs and some people who made it to Hollywood and the top twenty and the top ten, all the way down to the top two. And every time they do this I feel like I got as much out of the last three minutes as I did out of the last four months. "Went by quickly, didn't it?" Ryan has the unmitigated nerve to say.
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Jennifer Lopez is back for a duet with Pitbull that's staged like a Cirque du Soleil number performed by drugged Victoria's Secret models who are afraid to leave the ground. They're both clearly lip-syncing, not that anyone cares. It's all about the overwhelming audiovisual noise, in any case, of which there is plenty. And I'm pretty sure I saw Jennifer eyeing that judges' table like she's got a spot all picked out for when she returns.
Wow, is it almost nine o'clock already? Having successfully killed two hours deader than Rasputin, we're almost clear to announce the actual winner. That is what we're here for, right? First though, Kree and Candice do an indifferent duet of "A House Is Not a Home" that they must have spent literally minutes. rehearsing together. People still feel obligated to give one last standing ovation, it being finale night and all. Finally, Ryan joins them onstage for the announcement. The one literal, binary bit of information it's taken us this long to get to. The dude from the accounting firm walks up with the gold envelope, which Ryan snatches away and spews some positive-sounding word salad before dimming the lights one more time. And the winner? Candice Glover! Looks like a woman won after all.
The whole top ten swarm her on the stage while the audience goes apeshit. Angie makes sure Candice has a good grip on that microphone trophy as Ryan draws Candice down to center stage to try to get a coherent thought out of her. "Three years!" is all she can manage. Ryan says Candice's album is already available for pre-order. Damn, she recorded that fast. Finally, everyone yields center stage to Candice so she can sing her winning song, "I Am Beautiful." Which, you know, kind of makes it a pyrrhic victory on top of the fact that she's in no emotional condition to actually sing right now. The confetti and streamers are no less real, though. Congrats to Candice, goodbye to all the judges, get some damn rest Ryan Seacrest. And I'll see you all season... which, according to what Ryan said earlier about online auditioning, has already begun. God help us.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis- based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.
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