Jewel: "I'm Jewel. Apparently I've never talked before and recently found out from Lord Of The Rings how people talk to each other. I was born in a van."
Opening Credits, in which we learn that somebody is named "Blessing," there's a mom in this show, and... Oh, Christ. Is that Jackie "Enduring American Idol Season Eight Nightmare" Tohn? I don't know if I can handle Jackie Tohn again, I should have done my research. Frankly it seems unfair to us both. She's just such a bastard.
A guy who thinks that he's going to be the Michael Jackson, and then Jackie comes in talking about how she's just so interesting and she just rocks it so hard. Apparently now for this show she's from Long Island and not Silver Lake anymore. The things about Jackie Tohn that I remember like it was yesterday, I swear to you. I can't remember the names of more than eight people that were ever on that show, but I still have dreams about this monster.
Imagine if you will Mayim Bialik's character from Beaches, crossed with Jill Zarin, plus a luxurious helping of hipster nonsense. Singing her Weird Al songs and tossing her hair around inside her cloud of affectations and feather earrings and doing constant weird accents and goblin moves and begging, begging, begging you to love her.
I probably made half of the facts up just from the raw materials of things I hate about people, but I'll tell you this: The hugs she's so liberally handing out on meeting her housemates are getting just as many rolled eyes as one might like. And the worst part is she's super talented so, if she's the villain here, and how could she not be, we can be double sure she's not going anywhere.
Nevin, who is cute but not cute enough for this shit right here: "I've been very influenced by Billy Joel, Elton John and Bob Dylan. My songs are a reflection of my life. I sing for the widow, I sing for the orphan. I sing for the person in this world that doesn't have much of a voice. I am a leader of men and people look to me for direction. And I try to give it to them as honestly as I can."
He sings for the widow, y'all. A leader of men, y'all. Dumbstruck.
I think also he sings for The Guy In Every Reality Competition That Falls In Love With A Girl During The Show.
Which equals that he is gay.
Whoever that guy is, there's going to be one and he's going to be gay. The whole thing, the whole coincidental (500) days of love story, is always so compromised and grody and creepy and sad. And even if he's not gay, he's gay about maybe being gay, which is worse.
Anyway. Similarly impressed -- not to say shocked -- with herself is Sonyae, who can't believe how great she is at most things. Then a blonde overbite named Karen comes in and, in what context we don't know, tells Sonyae that she's a Southern Girl. This causes a sort of record-screeching reaction that we'll have to see how it plays out.
Blessing comes in with his dog and compliments Sonyae on her name -- which, coming from a person named Blessing -- and says also it is sexy. That's weird, and also he is blind, so they all talk about his dog.
Johnny is sort of the Miles: He does computer stuff in the daytime and then at night it seems he is a John Mayer impersonator. I change my vote for Coincidental Love-Faller. It is clearly Johnny who will be coincidentally falling in love with one of the boring girls with bangs.
Oh, here she is now: Jes is what Jackie would most like to be, and will be the slightly vague, good-hearted Dream Girl that whichever guy falls in love over the course of the three weeks or whatever will fall in love with. She describes herself as "quirky" but seems likeably boring instead.
Johnny, meet Jes. Enjoy being in love slash not being a homosexual. I'm sure those guys back in high school will change their tune now. He decides to be in love with her before he even sees the rest of the talent, is how intent he is on making this happen. Lucky, lucky girl.
Jewel comes out and waits for them to recognize her but they don't recognize her so she tells them who she is and then shaves her legs and sings about it and they finally recognize her. Then she explains what a Grammy Museum is, and why they are standing in one.
The rules of this show are like this. First they will each write a hook, and she smarms and explains what that word means just in case they don't know what that word means, and then second they will turn that hook into a song. Then they will win money and also the right to get screwed right in the butthole by RCA.
HOOK CHALLENGE
Okay, if you need a refresher on how this works: First they will write part of a song, and then they will write a song. That's how it's going down. But the hook part is only half an hour, and in this case it has to be about the City of Angels, and so everybody looks worried except for the guy Nick -- mohawk, eyeliner, insufferable -- who hates Jackie already. The second Snagglepuss stops talking about how they only have half an hour he raises his hand and yells, "Done!"
Sooooo everybody hates Nick now, which is fun. I couldn't make it through even half an episode of that Isaac Mizrahi show that happened after Runway went to Lifetime, because all the people seemed like mental patients and their conversations made no sense. In the case of this show that we are watching now, it seems like they all have the disease of being assholes.
Everybody jogs around the museum so nobody can steal their hook, and then Jes explains to us again what a hook is. I hope they tell us eleven times in every episode what a hook is.
Scotty, who is the New Michael Jackson, informs us that you cannot write a hook in your head as quickly as Nick claims to have done. As we'll see, Scotty has delusions of his own, but it does make it more exciting to wonder what Nick is up to.
Sonyae writes a hook about her sunglasses that seems to be mostly about screaming as though you have been stabbed in the abdomen.
Jackie and Jes do their writing things; Jackie makes horrible faces and is horrible while writing. Possibly there are several girls that I think are Jes. Maybe there are ten. I think one of them is named Amber?
Karen writes some folk song about homeless people because she is from the south and she's a southern girl and guess what Karen is going to be talking about. I feel like she's like on every cooking show that one blonde overbite one that's like, "I'm Southern, I learned this from my momma and I love food" and they're like, "Can you make seafood or tofu or a delicious stirfry or something, anything that's interesting" and she's like, "No, but I can make biscuits."
Nevin refuses to rush himself, because he is a great artist. He says that out loud. To us. I'm kind falling in love with his total oblivion. He's a leader of men! He sings for the orphans! He cannot be rushed!
Everybody looks stressed, except for the ones that are jerkoffs, which are most of them.
Jewel calls everybody back in, and I think Blessing's dog is howling when she introduces my girl Kara DioGuardi and they all start crapping themselves because she's actually famous.
The Top Four Hooks will get some sort of advantage, we're told; I hope it's Weapon of Choice. That's the only advantage that ever matters.
Scotty the New Michael Jackson is Jordin Sparks's Creative Director so he knows what it's like to be a star. I think being Jordin Sparks's Creative Director is not something you should discuss about yourself because she is not noted for her creativity at all. She is first of all a pretend person, and second of all she is noted for singing songs that go, for example, "Why does love always feel like a battlefield?" and "I am woman!" But I bet he means he picks out her pyro effects and smoke effects and the giant stringy-haired demon skull of Eddie that comes jerking out of the stage halfway through her show and then sparks go everywhere. Or her dresses. Scotty sings his hook and it sounds like a song Kara would write, so she loves it.
Johnny plays a song by John Mayer. Not very hooky. He's kind of just cute. That's kind of what he's got going on. Blushing whenever Jes does anything and then being cute and boring and singing songs in the key of John Mayer. Could be worse, he's pretty charming.
Sonyae steps up -- Jackie talks about how affected she is, because ask an expert -- and sings her horrible hook and looks like desperation personified and everybody laughs right in her face, and it's awesome. Blessing sings his song and it's boring, but he's blind so they all cry and stare. Amber, who is apparently not Jes, sings a song about doing it. Jackie does her Bonnie Tyler thing and it sort of falls apart at the end, but she knows that.
Melissa, the mom one: "I grew up very sensitive to the power of the ocean, you know, the sunsets, and with a sense of awe of the universe."
BIGGEST ASSHOLE OF ALL, I THINK
Just kidding, she doesn't sing for the widow. She doesn't sing for the orphan. She might have some mental problems and possibly needs help with her day-to-day, but she's not an asshole.
So Melissa flames out immediately and does that process thing that's so annoying where instead of just doing a good job or gutting through it with any dignity whatsoever, she starts whining to the judges about how she fucked up, like they're going to give her a hug. Jewel looks really sad for her, probably because they look identical to each other. Kara just wants to punch her in the neck, which is the only appropriate response.
The rest of everybody hates her, but Mohawk Nick the Two-Pump Dick makes such a camera-mugging show of how ridiculous she is that it just makes him look bad instead.
Jes sings her song about how LA starts in your nose and goes to your toes or whatever, she's wearing a pink crocheted knit cap and cannot be trusted based on that alone. All the boys who are practically gay already start falling in love with her... He typed, just as the camera shot to Johnny falling in love with her. I know my shit. You might say I am a leader of men.
Brian, who is hot in a soap opera way, sings some kind of breathy piano guy thing, and one of the identical girls -- Amber? Is there even one named Amber? -- notices how hot he is. His voice is swallowed up by nerves, but whatever. These people are a mess, just a damned mess, so he ends up better because he's not worse.
Karen sings her song about making biscuits for homeless people in LA, and everybody's really nice because they can't tell if she's kidding or not. Jewel's like, "I'm glad you're pretty." Kara tells her she is a joke, and it's awesome.
Nevin sings a total Elton John song, poorly, and when he's done he drops his hands from the keys with the grodiest self-satisfied smug little grin like they're going to fight over his dick. Like Kara's going to shove Jewel in her giant boob and Jewel's going to be all, "Some men fear my snaggletooth, some love it, but they all get it. They all get the tooth."
Instead, Jewel and Kara just point at him and laugh and immediately sing how that was absolutely an Elton John song, and he acts appalled and -- to his credit -- a little embarrassed. I was assuming he would tell them about the widows.
Nick! He tells us that he is Michael Jackson a bunch of times and then pulls out his electric and plays it unplugged and it sounds okay. Okay if you think a sentence like "My references include blink-182" is okay, I mean. Not that he said that. He said it with his music.
TOP FOUR HOOKS & THEIR RESPECTIVE HOOKERS
In fourth place is Jackie, which is a little disappointing because she's so good, but makes sense because her song was not that great but neither was it Sonyae's or Karen's song.
Scotty comes in third, with his inspiring Kara-sounding song.
Second goes to Nick, so suck on that. In life, but especially in this world they all live in, it's okay to be a self-trumpeter as long as you can back it up, and he did okay. Too bad that he is a monster person. Kara praises in depth his understanding of music and hooks and everything; we'll see if that same punky-brewster riff is still blowing her mind in three weeks. I'm guessing no because I remember this happened to her on Idol one time, she'd never heard somebody do a radically stripped-down cover of a given song and she thought the dude invented it and then weeks later she was vengeful and awesome about it.
The best hooker this week, though, I'm guessin' is Blessin', because he is blind and we can get it out of the way... But no! It is Sonyae! I don't understand this game show at all. I thought she sounded like she was having a stroke, but apparently that was what they were looking for.
Jewel congrajewelates the hookers and sends them to their hotel. My question about Jewel's speaking voice was always "Does she have three of them" because if you've ever heard her sing, she's got like three entirely different voices: A little baby, an old gay man, and Pee-Wee Herman. And it turns out that in regular talking, all of them get a chance to shine too. She's kind of amazing.
Johnny: "We're going to have insane house parties here, bros."
I THINK HE'S KIDDING
day, it's time for the studio. Everybody geeks out about the equipment and instruments, and then Brian talks about how he is the reincarnation of Elvis Presley. Like it's not a metaphor. He died the same week that Brian was born, and sometimes there's an eerie resemblance -- Do you see it? I don't see it -- and so probably what happened, we're meant to infer, is that Elvis died and then came back in Brian's body and that's why he's so good at music.
I DON'T THINK HE'S KIDDING
So Jewel shows up in her sparkliest child outfit, and tells them the second part of the rules, which is that for the songwriting part of this songwriting competition, they have to write in teams. Nevin loves it, because he is a leader of men and loves to give direction; Brian loves it because I don't know why, I think maybe he's just kissing ass. Scotty makes a hilarious face about how uncool he finds this concept and whines at us about it.
Being a Great Hooker -- Sonyae, Nick, Jackie and Scotty -- means your hook is the seed of the song and the hooker also gets to pick their songwriting team. Up against the wall, so the hookers can see you. (This part takes Johnny back to when he was fat.)
Sonyae, since her only skill is screaming and being the best hooker, decides she would like somebody with a musical skill of some kind, so she picks Blessing, even though everybody but her plays instruments.
Nick picks Jes, because quote "she'll be easy to write with." (Case: Rested.)
Scotty picks Brian, I guess because he's one of the better performers, and Brian seems really surprised by this.
I am surprised they are not all clamoring for Nevin, given his leadership experience and advocacy skills.
Jackie does some annoying words and talking -- like, A) the concept that she is a detector of who has "soul" and B) the concept that Johnny is where she has detected it -- and then chooses Johnny. They are both trying one million times too hard and most certainly are the smartest ones, so it makes a certain amount of sense, but damn does the "soul" thing go down pretty rough. I wonder if Jackie has detected also that Johnny is gay for Jes and if she will make a problem about that now that she is 30 years of age and suddenly from Long Island.
ROUND TWO
Sonyae picks Amber, who is so horrified Jewel has to give her a little shove to go join Sonyae and Blessing.
Nick picks Karen, who hates being on the punk team, and then privately informs us that Jes and Karen are both ungrateful bitches if they don't understand that he is the best person on the entire show. I'm glad he has that mohawk so you know right away.
Really, it's just because The Power Of The Sunsets Melissa and Leader Of Men Nevin are the only ones left. Between the three of them, you also would pick Old Biscuits. Literal biscuits would be easier to write a song with than those two.
Scotty picks Nevin, which is everybody else's problem according to Nevin. He said some poetic shit but I accidentally erased my notes and it's not important to really reproduce because everything he says is total gold. There's not like downtime with Nevin.
Last-pick Melissa apologizes to Jackie & Johnny for being alive, and everybody goes to their practice rooms.
SONYAE'S LA
Screams and screams and Blessing eats some chips and then Amber and Blessing help her with the lyrics a little bit, and Sonyae and Blessing have this weird psychic connection. Amber makes the mistake of opening her face, which pisses Sonyae off. Other people having thoughts seems to really be a trigger for her. Or maybe it's shit like:
Amber: "Sonyae's LA is not my LA."
Which sounds just terrible until she clarifies that it is also not Blessing's LA, and her problem isn't the song or Sonyae, it's that they will both look like fakers if they try to get in on her whole screaming thing. Obviously you should just do those wordless En Vogue la-la-la harmonies and play the keyboards and not worry about it, but what do I know? That would be my answer to 99% of these people's problems.
Instead, they decide to take no part in any of it and just set something up for her so she can go for it. I mean, the fact that the judges chose her hook out of the twelve hooks, that's bewildering and I guess you could just lose track of what's going on and say, "I admit that I no longer understand what they want or why I am here."
YO RAIN MAN
While Jackie and Johnny get their folksy minds around each other, Melissa plays with a keyboard and her hair and the concept of things and like the power of the ocean and kicks her feet up in the air and poor Jackie's finally like, "Hey Melissa? Let's not fuck with the keyboards right now?" Melissa's response is amazing, because basically she just says "I just feel like it" and then wanders the fuck out of the room.
Johnny: "What is that noise?"
Jackie: "Yeah, she's brewing tea."
Melissa sits down on the floor and rolls around and tickles herself and then out of nowhere she sits up and plays/sings this beautiful verse for the song and both Johnny and Jackie's jaws drop and Jackie goes, "Yo Rain Man, where's that been?" It's pretty satisfying, altogether. Nice little setup there.
Okay, so can we name them all at this point? It's Sonyae the screamer, Nick with the mohawk, Blessing is blind, Brian is Elvis 2.0 apparently, Johnny's the generally perfect one that has really really ever really ever loved a woman, Nevin is the Leader of Men, Jackie has apparently mellowed with age because she's being super awesome, Scotty is the giant one with all the feelings, Melissa is Rain Man, Karen is... Karen's the country one, and then Amber and Jes are two separate people. Good.
HATERS & THE WACK
Nick and Jes or Amber pound their chests with feelings about the conversation they are having, which seems to be about how there Haters and there are also places that are Wack and then I think Nick is going to be talking about his goddamn childhood at some point, so that'll be terrible.
In the other room -- Scotty, Nevin and Brian -- everybody is being a Hater and it is totally Wack. Mostly because Nevin is nuts and a con artist and has clearly coasted on being a big fish for a very long time because he is straight nuts in terms of real life. He's like one of those aristocratic family secrets where they pay off the cops and families of his victims but allow him to keep killing, but instead of being a serial killer he's just this Emperor of Douche.
Duke? Duchy of Douche. No, Emperor. It's all made up in his lunatic head anyway.
Black Velvet: "What if your whole song wasn't just whining about how you deserve to be a star, and everybody should just understand that you are unique and special, and without working or trying at all you should be handed opportunities and instead we sang a song that, like, a person who respected himself would sing? Maybe at the end, as a little twist?"
Scotty: "I don't know what you mean."
Black Velvet: "Okay, maybe I'll just sing something pretty."
They sing pretty together, and the problem is solved, so then of course Nevin backtracks to them and sings random words at them, all of which the other two hate. Like at point he sings, for the Widows one would imagine, some kind of nonsense about the neon energy of LA burning you alive. They tell him to stop saying clichés and he leaderships them on how sometimes clichés are okay, and then tells us separately about how he believes in clichés as a Sometimes Food.
Nevin: "You have to sing paranoia words about how 'they' want to destroy you and 'they' want to make you live in a van."
Scotty: "I don't understand the words that you are saying."
Nevin: "But Jewel will like it. She is paranoid like me."
Scotty: "Fine. I still have no idea who that is."
Sonyae yells at her team to "make a Sonyae hit" and then is shocked that nobody knows what the fuck she's talking about. Amber explains to us that Blessing is not holding up his end of the bargain of being able to read Sonyae's mind, and then very sensibly points out that they need to just record a track and let Sonyae scream and whatever over it. But there's no time to do that, and Blessing possibly is not understanding how close Sonyae is to losing it on him.
Nick is awful and punky some more and Karen tells us that he's actually a great and respectful collaborator, and it turns out that the three of them, with Jes, are actually a good team. And not because he's running them over, either.
Jackie's got some bullshit hanging from her ear, but whatever. It's fine.
MORNING
Johnny sings a little heterosexual song to himself; everybody practices their songs and prays and whatever. I wish every reality competition were like Missy and they would just leave you in a parking lot. Even like tennis or golf: Parking lot.
Trevor Jerideau from RCA is also a judge. He says "yo" a lot so you might guess that he's the Nina Garcia, except as it turns out he is super boring and you can't trust A&R guys for anything in this whole world, so mostly just keep your eye on Trevor.
Guest judge for this week is Jermaine Dupree, which makes everybody legitimately and cutely nervous and giddy, which was nice to see.
Jewel explains that they will be judging the songs in this songwriting competition based on how well-written the songs are, so that clears that up. Kara reminds them that they're listening for the song, not for the quality of the performance, which is very brave of the show, I think, to just be like:
"This singing part might suck and be unlovely to watch, but guess what, you're not watching a show about people singing. But also think about how this show is on Bravo, which you're watching because you are 100% into trainwrecks."
LIKE A PLASTIC BAG
Nick, Jes, Karen: The song is yelly but prettier than the straight-up strum-strum of the punk hook whence it came from, and Nick's gay Metro Station Scene Aesthetic boyband voice is sounding great, and I don't know. It could be a single but I wouldn't personally like it. Mostly these days I just like songs about plastic bags. Their feelings and whatever. It seems like it will win, because it is so super boring.
Jackie, Johnny, Melissa: The way the performance parts are filmed is pretty amazing. It's like a cross between shots that look like every Bravo show, and then these weird cinematic effects. The song itself is pretty standard stuff, I mean, Jackie can do anything so what really comes through is the Jack Johnson vibe from Johnny. Melissa just sits there on the stage vibing or something.
Scotty, Brian, Nevin: Scotty tries to cheat by being a good performer, which makes the song sound better, and making it very Kara DioGuardi song, which I guess is about trying to make the song sound commercial. But then Brian starts playing the drums and it starts sounding like an actual single, they're harmonizing and there's piano from nowhere, and everybody else stares. It sounds pretty, in a Coldplay or OneRepublic kind of way, but that is probably just the execution.
Sonyae, Blessing, Amber: Sonyae leaves her teammates in the audience because she doesn't need them for this part, and then sings her song over herself and a spare electric guitar track. It's very simple and I think very pretty, but sometimes a complicated thing can sound very simple and vice versa, and I can't tell which this is. Either she's a genius, which she doesn't seem to be, or a very boring person, which she radically is. Either way the song seems unlikely to grab the judges.
Amber worries that either they just didn't do well, or her absence from the stage will reflect poorly on her given the song, or whatever. I believe that Sonyae, while appalling in many ways, might be one of the best ones. However, she better win Hooker of the Week every week, because I doubt so very much that she can be of help to anyone, and also maybe this is her one trick she can do. For her part, Sonyae makes it clear that she's planning on blaming Amber.
I'M OKAY WITH THAT
Jackie's group and Nick's group take the stage... And it turns out their punk and melodic, respectively, songs did the best. RCA dude calls Nick's song "edgy" which it wasn't, but he liked the lyrical metaphors and Kara liked how immediately the songs grabbed the judges. Nick, Jes and Karen win the night; all six of them go home for some rockin' house parties bro.
So now it's down to Sonyae's group and Scotty's group, who sang the two songs your recapper actually liked. Jewel, however, thinks they were terrible. Scotty's was unmemorable and unemotional; Sonyae's was trite, confusing and uninspiring. And then Scotty's team loses, and Kara sings their hook at them weirdly, in her way, and Jermaine yells at them for taking too long to get to the hook.
Leaving: Creative Director, Leader of Men, and Elvis.
Scotty explains that he wrote the melody of their loser song but that Nevin's constant onslaught of clichés didn't make it in there. Which Nevin thinks is a bus throw, and maybe Scotty thinks that too, but I mean, the song lost. So whatever reason you have for randomly saying that Nevin didn't contribute to the songwriting process, you failed it.
Kara tries to explain how Scotty was selling the vocal, not the song. Not the lyrics, not the melody, just his singing and attempting to put magic into the song that is not in the writing. They ask Nevin how he leadershipped the song this week and he says that he wrote the line about how "they" want to fuck with you and break you and all that, and both Kara and Jewel are horrified by that line because it's off-putting and aggressive. Once again, Nevin is ashamed for a moment as he realizes that this is going to be on TV and he's racking up a considerable number of misses for somebody who never misses, but then he just bitches at Jewel. Right in her face. So angry.
Jermaine tells them that they are boring and their songs should go out the window. Brian admits that he and Nevin were forced to build on Scotty's hook and that he is amazing, and Jewel jumps on him like a hawk and it's beautiful. She's like, "What the fuck is your selling yourself right now, what does that have to do with the question at hand?" And he mumbles for awhile and then she supplies the correct answer -- that he tried to protect the hook with his hand like a baby bird and was unsuccessful -- and she literally makes a hmph sound at him, and but no, he just keeps barreling forward throwing words at it.
Jewel: "You know what, shut up and explain to me whose fault this crappy song was."
I kind of love Jewel. She can write some songs, that song "Racecar Driver" is one of my favorite songs, but I didn't know that she could scare Elvis. "How about whoever didn't actually collaborate and tell the other ones to stop sucking? That's who I think is the problem. Figure it out. I live in a van, I'm hardcore. Don't make me show you it." She tells them to leave so suddenly and sharply she's like Betty Draper for a second, and they run away screaming about how they love music and scarves and whatever is stupid. Orphans.
If you activate Shazam while you are reading this recap, probably nothing will happen.
NOISES AUF
Kara: "All three of you losers are losers. Your lyrics are embarrassing, Nevin. Brian, you didn't help Scotty save his own ass. Scotty, our trust in you was misplaced."
Jewel: "Scotty, obviously you are fine. Scarfy McStupid and Orphan Whisperer, let's talk."
Oh damn and then she cuts Nevin. That sucks! He was so amazingly oblivious and dumb! And untalented! He was the best! Halfhearted hugs from a bunch of strangers, and then Nevin mourns for the world for not having access to the songs inside of him, and that's Nevin all over the place. That bites.
Jackie's being pretty great, turns out Nick is a generous collaborator, Sonyae and Melissa might be talented, and they just got rid of the Leader of Men? The trainwreck potential is leaking out the bottom and leaving us with what. Reincarnation Of Elvis's crazy eyes and an army of vague girls with bangs.
This season: Sonyae sings songs, somebody raps, and Johnny wears pink pants and kisses one of the girls with bangs, exactly like I said would happen. Gay.