Mario and Khloe are coming to us from a photographer-lined red carpet outside! What major event could be going on in Hollywood on the same night as the X Factor finale that was willing to let this show come and film on it? A black SUV pulls up, and Khloe walks right up and opens the door, revealing L.A. and commencing the kind of content-free red carpet interview that I normally avoid at all costs while they're walking toward the camera. Mario does the same with Demi, and then Simon steps out of a Rolls Royce, which might almost make up for the fact that Khloe Kardashian-Odom touches and comments on his chest hair. Almost. Mario smarmily hands Britney out of an SUV limo, and the to arrive in the last two SUV limos are Pitbull and One Direction, both of whom will be performing on tonight's show. Presumably Tate, Carly, and Fifth Harmony all took the bus.
After a surprisingly succinct pre-credits sequence about how it all comes down to this (and the actual credits, of course), Mario and Khloe come out onstage, having quickly gotten back here from wherever that red carpet was just a few minutes ago. The judges enter to the strains of The Final Countdown, but if I'm hearing that song on Fox I expect to see Will Arnett doing bad magic. Do not toy with me.
The hosts make another speech and introduce the top three. And then they stand there awkwardly for a minute because the entrance cue got missed. After a minute, and some lame, barely-heard excuses from Mario, we cut back to the red carpet, where Tate, then Carly, then Fifth Harmony get out of SUV limos after all, all singing a terribly poppy version of the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" broken into sections. Meanwhile, we watch them make their way from the carpet, into the building, past the season's voted-off losers, all the way to the stage. I guess The X Factor proved me wrong: that red carpet really is right outside. Too bad it took an embarrassing minute of dead air to pull it off.
Coming back from the ads, there's a montage of L.A. air-conducting his protégées' performances from the judges' table all season long. This is the kind of thing it takes to fill a two-hour show designed to convey one piece of information. L.A. takes it in good humor and introduces Tate to sing "Please Come Home for Christmas" with a foursome of slutty elves chair-dancing upstage from him. And then it gets worse as they come out to circle him and he tries not to leer. There's the trouble with having the unflagging support of his wife: he knows she's watching.
After he's done, L.A. gives him some words of support from the judges' table. Then we all get to watch a bunch of clips from Tate's hometown of Belton, Missouri, made up of messages from Tate's friends, in-laws, coworkers, parents, townspeople, kids and wife. Of course it all moves Tate to tears; the only surprise is how long it took. He must be pretty coked up to hold it together that well. The bad news is that we also learn that his nickname back home is "Tater," and Mario makes almost immediate use of that information.
After the break, we're "welcomed" back by a Grinch-themed montage of Simon's meaner comments over the course of the season before he gets to introduce his favorite group "at the moment," Fifth Harmony. They sing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" with some shaky, poorly mixed harmonies, and dance awkwardly with candy cane props while dressed in red and white like some mall Santa somewhere is going to get a lap dance shortly. It ends up being Simon instead of Santa, though. Given the theme of the final three's songs so far, I think we can assume Carly will be singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas."
Then there's a series of supportive video messages from the girls' family members, a surprising number of whom have accents. Khloe of course asks how this all makes them feel. Alas, none of them says, "Meh."
Then there's a montage of Britney's wackier faces because it's not like she's ever uttered any interesting words since coming on the show. Then she gets to introduce Carly, who's doing Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You." Okay this I should have seen coming. She's singing from a fake living room set and joined by a small army of dancing nutcrackers, and she's more or less phoning it in. She alone among the finalists seems to have realized that there's no more voting.
Afterward, Mario gets a reaction from not only Britney but also Simon, because Britney never says anything interesting and we want to watch Carly squirm uncomfortably with Mario's arm around her for as long as possible. Then, during the video messages of support from her peeps back home, the shot of her in the picture-in-picture is pretty fun to watch, as she frequently forgets that she's on camera as well and occasionally looks bored and irritated. Then Mario grills her some more without taking his hand off her shoulder, to the point where Carly Rose Sonenclar becomes the first person in history to start wondering where Khloe Kardashian-Odom is already.
As it happens, Khloe's outside canvassing the noisy crowd and collecting some screams from the fangirls. By the time we come back to the stage, Carly has escaped Mario's clutches, at least for now.
When we come back, Khloe has either changed her outfit or been dipped into black latex, but never mind that; it's time to find out who came in third.
The hosts bring out Britney and Carly, L.A. and Tate, and Simon and Fifth Harmony. Mario commences his long pause, but there's no pause long enough to make it suspenseful, or surprising when the third-place act turns out to be Fifth Harmony. They're finally out of surprises. Mario lets Ally gush into the microphone, and Khloe artfully phrases a question: "Best friends for life, huh?" Camilla pithily answers, "Wait, what?" Simon takes the loss pretty well, and then there's an unusually long farewell montage. Which is also unusually punctuated with excited screams, of course, because look who it's about. So long, Fifth Harmony. You lasted a lot longer than anyone expected, but tonight we learned that even Simon's power has its limits.
Khloe is now backstage in the still-red-draped space, interviewing Carly and her family and Tate and his family. Nobody says anything interesting or new, because that's not what this is about, but I'm sure someone in the control room is freaking out over every second that Khloe lets Tate's slow-talking mom have the microphone.
There's a season-long retrospective that's like watching it all in fast-forward, beginning with the auditions, continuing through Boot Camp, on to the judges' homes, and all the way to the live shows clear up to last night. Man, I could have saved so much time. Mario asks L.A. about his favorite moment, and he recalls Tate Stevens coming out in his cowboy hat at his first audition and cracking that he was a rapper. Britney's favorite moment was the whole season because God forbid she be asked to stop daydreaming for such an inane question, and Demi enjoyed every night sitting at the table. Simon's just pleased to have gotten a group into the final after last year's "disaster" with that category. Heh. In your face, Paula Abdul.
Then we cut to Khloe backstage with Vino, CeCe, Diamond, Emblem3 and Paige. She talks to only a few of them, Emblem3 says they should all rent a cabin and go snowboarding. The amazing thing about those guys is that after watching the whole season recap just now, we were reminded that they used to be even douchier-looking.
After Mario and Khloe welcome us back from inside the audience talking about how close the competition is, there's a performance from Pitbull that threatens to stretch into a whole set, with lots of half-dressed dancers and yelling and smirking from the man himself. But fortunately, what sounds like a second song mercifully cuts off early. Mario says something in Spanish without subtitles, so I assume it's absolutely filthy.
The fourth judge montage is a collection of Demi fucking with Simon, including a moment I don't remember when she spit a mouthful of mints or something into his hand. Of course the clip coincides with Simon's latest bathroom break.
Then One Direction sings "Kiss You," with an '80s videogame-themed production design. Remember how '80s video games all had big red lips in the middle of them like this stage does? What was that about? Anyway, they're not my thing, but I enjoyed them a lot more than I ever did Emblem3. In fact, I think I got through that whole song without wanting to punch any of them, which is more than I can say for their Pepsi commercial (which, to be fair, makes me want to punch Drew Brees even harder). Mario ushers them out "in front of these big lips here" to ask them to draw on their own experience on the U.K.'s version of this show to tell us what the finalists are feeling right now. As if we haven't heard it enough from the finalists themselves tonight. And, you know, for the last three months.
We come back to Khloe in the audience, trapped between a faction of Carly fans and a faction of Tate fans. Presumably the Fifth Harmony fans have already left. That explains the half-dozen empty seats I saw earlier.
Now it's time for the duet by the top two because there's nothing awkward about a thirteen-year-old girl singing a ballad with a guy who probably has a kid her age. Fortunately they're doing the safe, anodyne "The Climb" instead of something like "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" or "Afternoon Delight." Which also explains why they're singing on stairs. At least it's the wrong key for both of them. This time she's the one making it count, getting all emotional while Tate bops along stiffly. Mario asks L.A. for advice to other artists who are over 25, who L.A. hated, early on, and says Tate's a lesson about not giving up on your dreams. Britney makes a brief comment about how proud she is of Carly. She's already working an additional hour this week, so I don't know why she's still even here.
Plug for the 2013 auditions, which is always such a harsh reminder that there's going to be a Season Three, and after a few comments from Simon, we're on to the last ad break before the final announcement. Carly makes a disappointed face like she was expecting it to happen now.
We come back for the last time with Khloe in another new outfit, this one the result of some kind of metallic paint and glitter explosion, and they bring out the remaining finalists and their mentors once again, as though this whole ceremony didn't already happen once tonight. Once Britney, Carly, L.A., Tate, and Britney's latest goofy face are out onstage to await the verdict, there's a long pause, and Mario announces the winner: Tate Stevens.
Fireworks go off and Tate's name fills the entirety of the projector screens, and after Britney says something in Carly's ear the runner goes over to graciously hug Tate and congratulate him. Tate gives an emotional speech thanking God, his family, and the country fans before saying this is the best day of his life. I missed the part where he thanked his family at first, in which case this would have quickly become the worst night of his life.
Mario congratulates Carly and Britney on coming in second, and L.A. gets to congratulate Tate on behalf of himself and the other judges. Then Mario and Khloe do one last awkward walk across the stage to introduce Tate's last song. By now, he's pulled himself together enough to be able to solidly sing "Love You Like There's No Tomorrow," although he's a little smilier than the lyrics would seem to call for. But who could blame him?
As his song continues, out come Fifth Harmony, followed by the all the other top twelve acts, all wearing their same outfits from last night. I guess there was no money for new clothes for them after blowing the last of the budget on the confetti. Mario reminds us they'll be back year. Right, Mario. Ask Steve Jones about that.
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.