In case you missed the one-hour recap last week and the re-run before this episode, ABC would like to remind you that previously on Making the Band, Lou reviewed Paul's progress. Everyone's favorite vocal coach, Mini-Lou, pointed out Paul doesn't seem to be pushing himself, so in his a one-on-one with Paul, Lou urges him to work harder. They thoughtfully omit the fact that Mini-Lou at that time also complimented Paul's voice. Cut to the contract distribution, where Jacob notes their ten-year deals could be awesome, or could end up (bleep)ing them for two years. Apparently, "screwing" is suddenly an awful word. It didn't get censored in the original airing. ABC is getting a little trigger-happy with the buzzer -- unless there was horrific backlash last time from that wild mob of three people who didn't touch their dials after Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Lou tells the guys to return from vacation with signed contracts, and Mike notes he's nervous because once the contracts are final, Trans Con Studios cuts the cast to five.
In its triumphant return, this week's show is about Lou's passion for swindling people, Paul's decision to sacrifice a spot in O-Town, and Ikaika's determination to behave like a flaky wimp who doesn't know his own mind -- which makes sense, because he lacks one.
We're in Orlando, jamming to peppy reunion music as we watch the guys return from holiday. "Honey, I'm home," Jacob shouts, and Mike runs out to greet and hug him. For good measure, Mike squeezes a couple other guys too. "I'm sick and tired of vacation," he says. "I want to get back to work." Jacob agrees, saying he told his mother he "missed home," to which his mother responded by flipping out because Jacob considers Orlando his home. Ashley pipes up that he was looking at his pictures thinking, "God, I miss these guys," probably because unlike his sane stepfather, the O-Town finalists understand Ashley's yen to be a close-harmony singer. Ashley helpfully makes sure we all know Ikaika isn't due back for another day, and his cohorts repeat it three times for good measure.
Trevor asks Paul if he's read the record contract. Someone belts out, "It SUCKS!" Trevor confesses he tried to read it but didn't understand anything, so "hell, no," he didn't sign it. He reveals Jacob called and told him not to, saying a lawyer would sort the whole thing out for them. Paul feigns interest. Trevor's tipping potato chips out of a tube, but they've blurred the label so we can't tell if they're Pringles or those other curvy ovoid potato snacks that come in a tall cylinder. In a voice-over, Ashley notes that "instead of coming back with our contracts all signed and ready to go, we found out there are some very specific problems with the contract that are actually kind of scary." The guys peruse the contracts around the dining table, trying to understand tricky jargon like "royalties," "contingency," "non-disclosure" and "heavy petting." Ashley clears things up by saying the lawyer identified concerns about "royalty percentages being really low, something about merchandising, and who controls the songs we write." And when he says "we," he means the Trans Con tribe of lyricists, who my sources say are a rabid posse of one-eyed monkeys whacked out on Quaaludes. Jacob says the lawyer warned them that if they sign, and then achieve all the fame and success they expect, they'll end up angry and bitter that any certified attorney approved such a hideous contract.
Lou calls the house, and Paul answers. They chat casually about their respective vacations, and Paul finally chokes out that he "wants to talk for a little bit." Lou prefers to wait and do it at the studio tomorrow because his crew can only airlift him out of the house a couple times a day, and he can't afford to pay them for extra trips until he bilks O-Town out of all its album proceeds. Paul nods and agrees they can confab at Trans Con studios the morning. "I'll catch you mañana," Lou finishes lamely, forgetting that Erik-Michael, not Paul, is his token Latino. Paul hangs up and, unsatisfied with subtlety, stares at the Bat Phone, taps on it once, then drums thoughtfully on the desk, his sharp features etching a conflicted expression into his pointy mug. "After he got off the phone, I said, 'What do you want to talk to Lou about?'" Trevor remembers. "And he said, 'You might not like me after.'" Never one to let well enough alone, Trevor presses the issue a few hours later. He wants to drag the truth out of Paul, and naturally the best time is to catch him when he's vulnerable, so Trevor turns on the pressure when Paul's standing around their bedroom clad only in tight white cotton boxer-briefs and afflicted with a severe wedgie. "He dropped his head and said, 'Uh, I'm quitting,'" Trevor recalls, looking and sounding close to tears, as usual. And indeed we all are, for this is the last time we'll see Paul scantily clad -- at least until the "O-Town Orgasmatron" issue of Playgirl hits the stands. Drink it in, people, and commit it to memory. At home, his jilted fling Heather from Herizon is licking the screen and trying to paw his buff torso. Meanwhile, Trevor is convinced Paul's kidding, but his roommate confirms his controversial decision even as he unpacks his suitcase and hangs up his clothes. Makes sense. "It's just not for me right now," Paul says, utterly confounding Trevor. "What did those three days DO to you?" Trevor wonders, following Paul into the bathroom and watching him brush his teeth with a red tube of toothpaste and a blurry label that may or may not say "Colgate." Paul says he just has other places to be and things to do at the moment. "What do you mean?" Trevor says, choking on his incredulity. "This is the only moment you're going to have!" Trevor lays out a scenario: if Lou says Paul can't leave because he wants him for the Final Five, will he still insist on departing? "Yes," Paul says. Trevor tosses a toothbrush over his shoulder, the universal sign of disbelief. "I can't believe you're telling me this right now," he says. "I'd rather you change your damn mind." No censors on that one. The guys flop onto their beds. "This is not where I need to be," Paul repeats. In a completely false and ridiculous gesture, Trevor says, "I'll quit too. You quit, I quit." Paul just laughs and tells him to shut up, but Trevor insists Paul will change his mind. "I don't know," Paul said. "I don't know." Cut to shots of both guys in their beds, looking pensive -- Trevor pondering life after Paul, and Paul wondering if he'll ever live down this show once it airs.
Welcome to Honolulu, lair of mob lord Don Kahoano and his childish clan. "I don't know if I'm gonna get chosen or what, but I mean if I do get chosen, I'd like at least a decent contract," Ikaika says, leaving the closed-captioners with the task of editing that sentence into sensible English. They kindly oblige. Ikaika says he feels like this whole scenario is just a big game to Trans Con. "I don't like people who are dishonest," Ikaika says. "I like...honesty." Ikaika immediately joins Erik-Michael on my list of favorite philosophers, and the onmipresent Malia sits nearby and broods. Ikaika says he felt psyched about making whopping great wads of cash, only to learn that his take would be one-fifth of the dollar-figure in the contract. "I could only support myself and maybe one or two other people with that money," Ikaika complains. Cry me a river, lei-boy -- if you're 21 and barely making enough for THREE people...well, either suck it up, or suck back a Drano cocktail and leave us all in peace. "I just don't want to be anybody's slave," he says to his father, then adds in a confessional: "I'm starting to feel trapped and I don't like that feeling." Tough break, then, since his family and Lou Pearlman are equally responsible for his discomfort. He's a mere pawn in Don Kahoano's family game and he's expected to become the breadwinner, even though he's unhappy with the contract terms. I almost pity him, then regain my senses. Ikaika says he doesn't want to leave Hawaii until he feels secure and comfortable, and Malia broods some more.
Finally, some sensible soul dredges up Lou's ugly legal exploits. The gang raptly watches an MTV News special about Lou Pearlman's deteriorating relationship with his projects, culminating in a "recent" (at that time -- so, before New Year's Eve) lawsuit filed by J.C. Chasez of 'NSync. In the suit, Chasez attests that Lou puts the "con" in Trans Continental. He is "the picture of an unscrupulous, greedy and sophisticated businessman who posed as an unselfish, loving father figure and took advantage of our trust." MTV, bless it, thinks the word is spelled "sophistocated," proving that network is anything but. One of Lou's flunkies laughs and shakes his head to prove to O-Town that the story is so ridiculous that we can only learn to chuckle and all just get along. Chasez's statement continues, saying the boys in 'NSync feel they're not getting their financial due. "We are painfully aware that our careers may be brief… however we cannot work with people who have lied to us and taken advantage of us, and we will not be puppets on a string held by Lou Pearlman." Standing in a corner somewhere, Ranger Marc sheds a tear and curses the iron-clad thirty-year deal he signed that made him Lou's bitch.
Mike is on the phone with "woman," according to the helpful closed-captioners. I'll wager it's his mother. "Everyone's pretty much badmouthing Lou Pearlman." Hey, what was that, Mike? I didn't catch it. "Everyone's pretty much badmouthing Lou Pearlman," he repeats pointlessly. "So it's a very sketchy situation." The drama builds.
Like so many people, I've always sworn that the day any running-shoe company made an ad depicting a cumulus cloud urinating on a house, I'd hustle out there and buy six pairs of sneakers. So hang on a sec while I go pay through the nose for some Nikes.
Paul arrives at the studio to chat with Lou. "What I'm thinking now is that I should probably not be here," Paul says. "I'm not happy with the way I'm going in it, and I need to maybe figure something else out." Lou's knee-jerk reaction is to wonder if he or Trans Con did anything to upset him, or if the contract problem pushed him over the edge. Paul shakes his head. In a black-and-white flashback-style segment, we see Lou on the phone at his desk. "Paul called me over the break asking me if I could give some kind of assurances that he would be able to definitely be in the group," Lou's voice-over says. "At that point I didn't have an answer, and couldn't make Paul any guarantees." This seems strange to me -- they only had one week left before making the cut, so if Paul didn't make it he'd be going home anyway. But then Paul makes it even more befuddling by adding that "if I made the five and was still feeling this way" -- WHAT way? -- "it would be unfair to the other guys and you and the whole company." Lou thanks him for his honesty, for "coming clean," and agrees it would indeed be terrible and tough if Paul dropped out after being selected. Paul tells Lou he hopes he hasn't burned any bridges by quitting. "I want to be in this industry, I need to be in this industry. This is where my career is gonna go," Paul tells the camera. "Just not in a group like this at this moment." Far be it from me to editorialize, but at first, it sounded like if he wasn't guaranteed the money, he needed to find another job smart-quick. Draw your own conclusions, bearing in mind my depiction was an epic, sweeping masterpiece richly colored with all the shades Crayola can make. Something that starts with "p" and rhymes with "tregnancy," maybe? But on second look, I suspect he's just conflicted because part of him wants the easy shot at financial freedom and fame, and the rest of him -- joined by almost everyone else in North America -- lacks any shred of respect for the freakish singing spectacle, the dancing debacle, that is O-Town.
Trevor, Ashley and Jacob are talking in the Trans Con parking lot. Ashley's astounded that after coming so far, Paul can simply stop and change his mind. Jacob agrees that Paul's decision floored him, and Ashley repeats in the confessional that Paul's one-eighty is a total surprise. Obviously they didn't read their TV listings.
Jabba is holding court with O-Town, crammed into a chair half his size and peeking his bespectacled eyes out from behind his heaving belly. He pulls out a dog-eared, coffee-stained copy of his stalwart speech entitled Il-Lou-mination: Why I'm Good and the Media are Unscrupulous Bastards. He begins. "On 20/20 or 60 Minutes" -- and you can be sure he's been hammered by both -- "the first half is always going to be good, and the last quarter is where they like to have the controversy," says Lou. Well, this IS comforting. Lou's so familiar with tell-all newsmagazines that he's gotten the formula down pat. "The bottom line is it was all settled, everything worked out and we're moving ahead with the groups," Lou says. "I'm the same as I've always been. I do fair deals, or I wouldn't have been in the business for twenty-five years." The camera pans across the listening bandmates, all of them nodding. Bryan looks perplexed, Jacob's got a sweet blonde Afro and Erik-Michael Estrada looks like he hasn't showered since his namesake's show CHiPS went off the air. Brimming with overconfidence, Jacob notes, "If it wasn't Trans Con, it'd be another record company. They're gonna hand me the same contract. So you've been working for so long to get as good as you are so they'd want you, and it's like, who am I going to let tie me up for the ten years." Lou hopes desperately that none of the guys wise up and realizes a bondage clause isn't standard in record contracts. An aide crosses Lou's huge fingers for him. "Let's get through this so we can put these lawyers to bed and move forward," he says. Paul perks up at the idea of bedding some attorneys and briefly reconsiders leaving.
"Hey. Aloha!" Lou says to Ikaika, who has called Lou's cell phone. Small talk ensues. "My instincts always have told me a lot, and my instincts are not good right now," Ikaika says in a voice-over. The two of them hash out contract fears. "At the end of the day, this could be a very profitable and big career for you guys, and we want it to be a win-win situation for everyone," Lou tells Ikaika, adding that he won't pressure anyone to sign a document that's not satisfactory. "We'll talk about it, massage it and then sign it," Lou euphemizes, trying to hide his tingly glee. Ikaika expresses worry about whether there will be time for the guys to go home and spend a few weeks relaxing. Lou reassures him that the group will make that decision themselves, and everything will work out smoothly. "He basically said, 'You're going to be big, kid, I'll see to that,'" Ikaika tells us. "He's a cool guy and I like him a lot." Right. We see Malia engaged in one hell of a brood.
Lou has comforted Ikaika enough to get him en route to Orlando, but he's not returning alone. "I feel a lot more comfortable with my brother around, he's family and he's there to make sure I don't get the wool pulled over my eyes." Man, even his family thinks he's an incompetent naïf. Ikaika and Haku -- a far less compelling version of actor A Martinez from General Hospital, The Profiler and others -- deplane clad in Hawaiian leis, you know, in case we weren't totally sure of their origins. In the Man Van, Ikaika jokes with Haku and Ranger Marc as his voice-over informs us Haku has been his barometer for what's good and bad -- for instance, money is good and not having money is bad, or family pressure is good and forming your own opinions is bad. Piacenza, Florida Ranger tells Ikaika he's the last one back, and there's jolly joshing about Ikaika's lateness. It's the feel-good Man Van trip of the season.
A camera peeks in through the house window at activity in the gym. Ikaika and Haku are either kickboxing or engaging in a martial art, and Mike gawks at them. "Look at how they work out, bro. They fight to work out," he says to Bryan. "See how they actually hit each other? Ooooh, that's hurting right now." Psst, look at the islanders and their strange combative ways. They stare a little more at their oddball foreign friends, then turn to leave, secure in the knowledge that it's right to giggle at Hawaiians. "Bryan!" Mike whispers. Bryan turns around and Mike takes a karate stance, while Bryan puts his hands together and bows. "Yeah, right!" Mike laughs. They guffaw and walk away.
It's Paul's last night, and the party is raging with all the power of a Yugo that's running low on gasoline. Atop a nicely frosted chocolate cake, Bryan is scribbling, "We'll Miss You, Paul," in whipped cream. That is a blatant violation of the chocolate cake's right to taste good. The guys all agree they want to send Paul off in style, and what better way than to sing the song they've been practicing and which Paul will never get to perform? It's only natural. So everyone croons Love Potion No. 9, letting Paul be the lead singer. They sound hideous -- Paul acquits himself respectably, but whoever let the other guys tackle the high notes should be forced to sit in a room and listen to it for ten hours straight. Bryan is grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "This is a tough decision, because you rock, you're like brothers," Paul says, clearly moved. Ashley shares with everyone that it's doubly tough because the only person anyone thought would leave on his own volition was Ikaika. "I could see it in his eyes that he didn't want to leave, but he had to for some reason," Jacob says in the confessional. Paul says he is leaving out of respect for the guys and because he didn't want to hurt the group by not being at his best one-hundred percent of the time. Mike points out that only Paul will ever know why he really left. True, he IS clearly cagey about revealing his reasons on-camera. The goodbyes begin: "Mike, mah black friend Mike!" shouts Paul in a heavy southern drawl. "My first black friend ever!" They cackle and embrace. "Come here, you Puerto-Rican freak!" Paul booms cheerfully at Erik-Michael. "I don't even LIKE you!" Paul's an equal-opportunity offender. up is Jacob. "Justin, come on, I love you!" Paul says, hugging him and laughing -- they must have a running joke likening Jacob to 'NSync's Justin Timberlake, unless perhaps Paul's been sniffing glue again. Speaking of being high: "To see one of my five leave was heart wrenching, because he was my brother and I planned on spending the ten years of my life with him," Jacob admits in the confessional. Someone's getting a little cocky about making the final five. Paul's voice-over informs us he desperately doesn't want people to think he's quitting as a preemptive strike in case Lou doesn't pick him for O-Town. "My heart wasn't in it," Paul says, staring cross-eyed into the camera. "That really was it." The last embrace is for roommate Trevor, who is -- wait for it -- crying. "I never sat down and talked to him to tell him how I really deeply felt about it all," Trevor sniffles. Paul departs.
The world would be a better place without the women of The View. I'm convinced of this. Lisa Ling is the poor man's Lucy Liu, and even a tragic genetic accident is no agreeable excuse for Meredith Vieira. Two words: Oscar telecast. Yikes.
"7 Finalists Remain," the caption tells us. At rehearsal, Jacob wants to make sure we all know how tough and unexpected this event was. "He was in my five," Jacob said. "He was in my five, too!" pipes up Ashley. Not to be outdone, Jacob blurts, "Oh yeah, well he was in my BED!" but it comes out sounding like, "I wanted him in my five and now, it's like, he doesn't want to be a part of this." They chat with Anonymous Flunkie in Glasses (he appeared at the airport in the last episode and he remains nameless), and Ashley points out that "that's why there's a whole different vibe into things now." AFG nods sagely. Jacob says it's tough because "tomorrow, we have to say goodbye to however many people -- five or two." We see shots of everyone morose and moping, staring at the ground and wallowing in the knowledge that Paul's at home romancing Carrah while they're stuck singing to the sickening synthesized rhythm of All For Love. "Look man, I know that was hard, but you gotta try to put it past you," Mini-Lou says not-at-all reassuringly. The guys take a stab at rehearsing and they sound terrible, with no energy and no real sense of the difference between on-key and off-key. Ikaika looks like he's not even trying. "Come on, Ooh!" Mini-Lou shouts pointlessly. Ashley acknowledges that Paul leaving lowered the odds of getting cut. Bryan says in confessional mode, "The final five right now? Mike, Jacob, Ashley, Ikaika, myself." That makes exactly one person who thinks Bryan has a chance. Even his family bet the farm on somebody else. Trevor's five: "Mike, Jacob, Ashley, and myself or Erik." Remedial Math hangs its head and bites its tongue, wishing desperately that Trevor understood the difference between Four and Five. "All I can do in this ride is to do my best and be me," Erik-Michael says predictably and rather poorly. "If I get picked, I get picked, but if not, I'm not stopping there."
Jacob, sitting in Lou's office, gets an attorney on the speakerphone and announces they have a draft of the final contract. Mike is shown Xeroxing a fat pile of papers, collating and stapling the packets. "I think the contract as a whole is bringing people together, we have to think about it as a group and really decide," Jacob's voice-over shares. "Our main power in this is if we as a group decide not to sign it, we have leverage." Lou arrives with mixed pieces of news. The good word is that everyone's mostly in agreement about the contract, he says. "The bad news is, tomorrow's a holiday, so they won't get around to finalizing this until right after the weekend." Mike's concerned voice-over says the wait is what's hurting most right now. Lou says the extra time means all seven guys can attend a big New Year's Eve shindig and relax together. This fails to appease Trevor. "I think the whole contract thing sucks, it's delaying us!" he says, impassioned, in the confessional. "We should KNOW already, the five should've been PICKED, we should've been WORKING together already." Lou proposes that the delay is a chance to party and bond one last time, and "extend this thing I've been dreading until week." Cut to Ikaika, who's without expression since no one's told him yet what he should think.
Outside Trans Con, Haku stands near a car and talks on his cellular phone. Ikaika is leaning against the wall looking away. "My brother is the diplomat of the family," Ikaika tells us, pointing out that Haku is the family's first college graduate and has a Master's in business administration. "He's really really smart, watching him and Lou talk is like seeing two savvy businessmen going at it," Ikaika notes. Imbued with a self-important swagger, Haku haikus: "So Mr. Pearlman // Ikaika is to fly home // There's one more exam." Lou is shocked when Ikaika reveals he has a test the day, proving he's working as hard as he can to preserve Haku's status as the only Kahoano college grad. In pursuit of his biology degree, Ikaika apparently persuaded one teacher to give him a tardy test, so Haku says his brother needs to "take care of business." I'd like to know who gives an exam on December 30, but Lou would rather find out when Ikaika will return. "There are things to do // We don't know when he'll return // We can talk later," Haku intones. Lou insists Ikaika needs to be back right after the weekend so they can hit the studio. Ikaika confesses to the viewers that he's going home because of the contract, but to Lou he says, "I love this, this is a lot of fun, and I like everybody here...but my family's looking out for me and its hard because I'm up here." The more we see and hear of Clan Kahoano, the more likely it seems that Lou will awake with a bloody horse head in his bed if he fails to name Ikaika to the final five.
Paul shuffled out and inexplicably, Jacob rotated right into his bed in Trevor's room. They're having a late-night gabfest, at which Jacob laments he feels stuck in limbo -- Trans Con can't make the cut until they get the contract signed, and they can't sign until the lawyer okays everything. Meanwhile, Ikaika's in his room with Bryan, saying his own attorney thinks not a lot has changed with the contract, so, "I have to go home and be on my home turf when the contract finally does hit." So much for bringing Haku -- he's wary of the contract, and yet he's assuming he'll sign it anyway. That's good business. Jacob is bending Trevor's ear about how irritating it is that Ikaika's skipping town. "We still don't know what's gonna happen with the contract, but we're here working our BLEEP (read: asses) off so what gives you the right to feel like you can go home and come back if you make the final five, while we're still here working?" Jacob rants. Trevor acts like he's more understanding of Ikaika's plight. "He's lived on Gilligan's Island all his life," Trevor says, trying his best to offend Hawaiians everywhere. "Picture Gilligan's Island, growing up there, knowing nothing but that. Nothing." Thank you, Trevor, for teaching us that Hawaii is the armpit of civilization. Gilligan tells Bryan, "I would totally love to do this, it's a lot of fun, singing and dancing and stuff, but I'm not going to be anyone's slave and I'm not going to end up owing people money." Huh? "I got to keep it real no matter what anybody says," Ikaika insists. We see Gilligan leaving, suitcase and the Skipper in tow. "The five were supposed to have been chosen by today," he tells us. "Lou's seen what I can do, if they want to be here that's their choice. I'd rather be home." In bed, Jacob says under his breath that Ikaika had better come back to make it easier on the two that get cut. "If he comes back, two people will leave together. If he doesn't, one person says goodbye alone." Ikaika, comfy in his cocoon of immaturity, looks tired as he and Haku sit in the Man Van en route to the airport.
Taking stock, I should point out that we had five shots of Malia looking sullen, versus one confessional trip for both Mike and Erik-Michael. They should just add her to the credits. week, all hell breaks loose at the Millennium bash and Ranger Marc tells Jacob he's a lab rat. Finally.