AMERICAN IDOL

Season 4: I Think I Love You

Ryan Sleazebag stands on the pod of the Thunderdome and talks about his hellish week. Oh, the pain when they stuck the liposuction tubes into the wrong part of his body! And then, when he was rendered too sedated to cry out in protest, six horrible ten-year old fat girls sneaked into the clinic and started smacking his face while screaming that they hated ugly clowns! And when the surgeon heard the commotion and ran in to save Sleazie from the monster children (who were there to get face-lifts so that they would look just like Mikalah), he tripped over a wire and accidentally triggered a switch that caused that probe, stuck in the painful part of Sleazie's body, to release a powerful jolt of electricity that made Sleazie feel burned-crisp in and out. No, actually he says something about 100,000 people journeying so far and only 11 remain and other boring nonsense. I'm sure you know what kind of nonsense I'm talking about. I don't know whether to be in awe that he gets paid so much money to be a completely crappy host or be glad that he has set the standards so low for the rest of humanity. And with that, credits.

Ryan Sleazebag comes out from the sliding doors of the Thunderdome to show off his tight, tight jeans (recommended only for people with no penises that would cause any unsightly bumps in the crotch area - people like Sleazebag, naturally) and a tight red T-shirt emblazoned with "I (a word that I can't make out) Expensive T-Shirt". Maybe the missing word is "Am" because Sleazebag is a well-known big girl's blouse and even more so, I hear he's as expensive as they can come. Amidst a sea of vapidity spewing from his mouth about the Eleven and the Judges, he sees King Tut grinning at him with eyebrows lifted high and grins back through gritted teeth. I don't think he's as amused as King Tut when it comes to live flirtation anymore. The FCC must have threatened to ban Sleazie from every Botox branch in LA, perhaps.

What is today's theme? Cut to a faked, staged "flashback after the previous Tuesday", where the Eleven walk back into the Red Room (to dehydrate after a hard day's work with a bottle of carbonated, preservative-filled Diet Coke, says the Coca-Cola people, so all of you kiddies watching this show better start drinking today or Conty Bint won't love you and he won't come steal your virginities when your mother isn't looking because she is too busy exchanging Kewpie sex fantasies on some message board with her fellow Kewpinities - DRINK COKE NOW, BIATCHES!). They find wrapped-up books waiting for them. Uh, yeah, that's a book, Conty Bint, you read it. No, no, you don't pout and give your trademarked date-rapist-loves-you stare at the front cover, you silly dolt, that is what a mirror is for. Oh, I give up.

Sleazebag walks in with a man who looks like Uncle Les (Neil Sedaka). He's Fred Bronson. He's the guy who writes the book each of the Eleven is holding in his or her hands, The Billboard Book of Number Ones. He's also the guy who has a weekly column in Billboard where he gushes adoringly over everything Kewpie does. I think Uncle Les and Freaky Bronson must be related. Freaky Bronson tells the Eleven that they can sing "any" of the 938 songs that have topped the Billboard charts. Of course, out of the 938 possible titles, 898 are no doubt blacklisted because the show is too cheap to pay up the money for the performance rights of these songs or the artists balk at having the contestants of this show butcher their music. Why else would the same freaking songs keep coming up again on the show, right? The Eleven try to look excited at being given a stupid, useless book for a present. (That is, if the show doesn't take back those books after the camera stops rolling. You know this cheap skinflint crap show will do something like that!) Yes, Vonzell, I believe that your happiness is real. And Conty Bint, the book is not for you to - oh, never mind.

So that is today's theme, folks. "Billboard #1s". Or in terms that we can all understand, "Whatever, just sing."

So hello Trachea Boi. He's opening the show with I Knew You Were Waiting For Me, previously performed by George Michael and Aretha Franklin. He says that he can relate the song because he knows that someone will be waiting "there" for him. I hope that someone is not some dirty old pedophile in a raincoat, that's all I can say to this twit who will no doubt claim to relate to even The Banana Song. The first few moments of the song sounds like the theme song of a Nickolodeon show. Then again, this performance is just that: a theme song performance of a Nickolodeon cartoon about babies and animals getting lost in some jungles and returning to Mommy and Daddy after having plenty of inspirationally courageous adventures. Trachea Boi looks exactly like the kind of manhood that little girls at the brink of puberty will love: he has the head of a ten-year old boy on the body of a vaguely muscular young man. The jeans cleverly hint of a well-endowed package (come on, admit it, you stare at it too) but the side profiles suggest that the illusion of a package is just that - an illusion caused by the creases of his jeans. An uninspiring performance only for little girls, Trachea Boi's wretchedly flat performance will be the bane of anyone with a functional adrenal gland.

Randy Randy insists that Trachea Boi is "back", which is the first sign that the judges will be a complete mess today. How is Trachea Boi "back"? Has he gone anywhere that I should be aware of? Miss Paula, who is obviously more stoned than usual because her eyes are filled with tears and she is fidgeting up and down on her seat, declares that Trachea Boi has made both Aretha Frankin and George Michael proud. Good for her, at least she has the drugs to use as an excuse when the men in white come to arrest her. ("Be nice, dear. She had a traumatizing time recently, what with her crashing her car into other cars and then running away to Kuala Lumpur - she must be feeling that the world is out to get her and took a higher dose of Vicodin than usual tonight," says the always understanding hubby of mine.) King Tut opens his mouth and Miss Paula immediately starts jumping, hitting, and interrupting him. This pattern will continue through the show, so when I use "the howler monkey shrieks" from now, that will be my shorthand way of saying that Miss Paula is acting up. Anyway, as the howler monkey shrieks, King Tut compares Trachea Boi's attempt at being "sexy" - oh yes, he can't take his eyes off the crotch either - to Randy Randy on Baywatch. The howler monkey rabidly shrieks that Trachea Boi is sexy and demands the "girls" in the audience to back her up. Needless to say, nobody pays her any attention. Randy Randy stands up and demands that King Tut remove his shirt. King Tut heckles him back and Sleazebag steps in to calm things down before King Tut and Randy Randy both get shirtless and people start dying from shock and horror.

Cattle wants to prove that she can sing a rock song too (everyone wants to be Bo now, after all) so she will tackle Heart's Alone. Now, I want to dislike her. I am ready to dislike her when she steals Kimborlee Caldwell's poodles and cold-heartedly rip off the poor doggies' heads with her fangs before sticking the carcasses over her head. She looks like a Stepford pop tart modelled after a thinner Alicia Silverstone and a less bony Reese Witherspoon. She stands there and sings like a lifeless robot. But despite her ridiculous appearance and wretched lack of stage presence, when she sings, I remember why I liked her so much when she first appeared on the show. Sure, she has problems on the lower register, but when she starts belting, everything is forgiven. When she hits the upper notes, I actually feel chills running down my spine. Are those Ann Wilson's vocals in the background harmonizing with Cattle? I miss the Wilson sisters. Heart has given me plenty of great memories in those days, sigh.

For the first time, I feel that the judges' adulation is warranted. But I won't go as far as that crackho howler monkey in calling this performance "risky". Please, Cattle knows that any song with belting choruses is made for her. King Tut insists that Cattle is the one to beat in the competition and thinks that Cattle will sell more records than all the previous Idols combined. How nice of King Tut in getting the vindictive fans of previous Idols to gang up on Cattle! I won't even touch the absurdity of that proclaimation of his, other than to say that it confirms what I always suspect of King Tut and those rumors of him being prone to premature ejaculations. As for that guy in the audience holding a sign saying "Cattle + Me = Us" complete with photos pasted under each word, I have a new sign for him: "Right Hand + That Idiot = His Life Story". And to that guy who holds up a yellow cardboard scrawled with marker pen "We *Heart* Cattle", talk about CHEAP.

Hey, hey, Sleazie's Hot Boy Radar pings on everyone's cutest My First Boyfriend action figure among the audience, Donny Osmond. Hey Donny, how's your sister - or is that wife? - Marie? Both men, so similar in the sense they will never grow old, although in this case Sleazie is better off getting the number of Donny's plastic surgeon, discuss Donny's 51st album and they joke about how Donny is actually 152 years old.

Ape Boy will sing Phil Collins' Against All Odds because he is ugly and therefore, everything he does on this show is a Lifetime melodrama of fat ugly special kiddies coming in first place in some Special Olympics event. Oh, and he is sure that his father can relate to this song too because Dad had a tough life. I'm sure I will relate to this song too, because I not only don't get to hear this song often enough on the show, I love it every time I hear it being butchered on karaoke machines everywhere. Ape Boy, Mariah Carey, Phil Collins - they are all the same in this performance because all three deliver faithful copycat renditions of that freaking song. Why should I care about an unimaginative mimicry of an unimaginative song that has been overperformed to death in and out of this show? As for his performance skills, it amounts to him standing there or waddling around and, in the climax of the song, taking off his shades to glare at the audience, wanting them to acknowledge that Yes, He Has Overcome All Odds And We Love Him From Afar Because We're So PC That Way.

The two judges - the man who says something and the howler monkey who just says she agrees with him because she is too far out to think - think that Ape Boy has improved. I don't see how. He is the same week after week, performing paint-by-numbers standard over-karaoked anthems. King Tut thinks that Ape Boy has a "fantastic voice" but is glad that the song isn't long enough for Ape Boy to progress into a full striptease. Sleazebag persuades Ape Boy to let him wear those shades and then comments that the glasses are "greasy". But since I've seen how he enjoyed wiping Ruben's sweat-soaked towel over his own face in season two, I think Ape Boy can safely take Sleazie's words as a compliment. The camera zooms in on Ape Boy's eyes and I can see why he is wearing those shades. His eyes are bloodshot red. I think he is about to turn into a monster anytime soon. Just what do these contestants do in that private apartments that they are currently living in anyway?

Bo bought Jim Croce's Time In A Bottle album when he was a kid in a garage sale and both he and his mother fell in love with the title track. Therefore, he feels that it is apt for him to perform Time In A Bottle today. How did that song go?

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
Till eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

In a sea of mediocre singing and cynical manipulation passed off as genuine in this episode, that is exactly how I feel when Bo performs the song. For a moment, with Bo accompanied only by an accoustic guitar as he tenderly makes sweet magic with his voice, I seem to be lost in a transient calm as I listen to and watch him.

This is why I get really annoyed when Randy Randy says that he finds Bo's performance "sensitive" but complains that the performance didn't show off Bo's "range", because seriously, what the heck is "range" to this stupid man? What is "range"? It's not just the ability to blast a high C for ten minutes straight like this stupid oaf is suggesting, it's how Bo sings as if he lives through every painfully poignant moment of the music. It's how, in that brief moment of song, he makes the audience believe that he means every word of what he is singing. It's how Bo takes a song that is normally out of his routine and range and perform nonetheless a sensitive, tender, and heartrending performance. That is range as much as some lifeless robotic blasting of high notes at predictable moments in a typical power ballad. The howler monkey is of course irrelevant, let's ignore her. King Tut thinks that Bo performs like someone who has "made it". This earns him a kiss from the howler monkey. He actually looks disgusted as she giggles away, oblivious to the spectacle that she is making of herself.

Nikachu will be performing Sisqo's Incomplete. Sound the alarm, I think this is the first time in the finals of any season of the show that a song that isn't at least twenty years is performed. Out comes Nikachu in a ridiculous gangster suit, overly-padded at the shoulders, and Vegas-tycoon hat. I see that someone has watched way too much MTV and miss the point about how you have to actually have some self of irony to wear those ghastly outfits outside an MTV video. Still, the performance is smooth, soulful, but like everything Nikachu does so far on the show, completely forgettable once it's over. He's a polished singer, that's obvious, but at the same time, I have to go, "So what?"

The judges think that they have seen the "real" him and he is great. Or something. Miss Paula whines and moans like a howler monkey in heat, and when King Tut compliments Nikachu, she straddles him and gives him another smooch, this time on the lips. I don't know whether to be embarrassed for this out-of-control junkie or laugh at the grotesque spectacle she is making out of herself.

Vonzell and her father listened to songs like the Emotions' The Best Of My Love back in those days so it is with pleasure that she will perform that particular song today. Now, she and Nikachu make an interesting study in contrasts, especially since they appear back-to-back on the show. Vonzell's singing is absolutely horrid here. Maybe it's because she's moving around so much on stage and down the stage, but her sense of pitch is all over the place, so much so that she's shouting out the chorus with barely any melody holding the song in place. Her breathing is just as all over the place. But, watching her is fun. Never mind that she takes the same path as Bo did in his Spinning Wheel performance last week (down the stage, up onto the stage behind the judges), she moves and generally makes love to the camera in such a vibrant and fun way that it is hard for me to stay aloof from her infectious stage presence. She comes off like a tone-deaf Trenyce in this performance. She has the stage presence and sense of fun of Trenyce and their voices are eeriely similar at times but Vonzell has no control over her voice.

Who cares what Randy Randy and Miss Paula say, right? King Tut thinks that Vonzell has finally stood out tonight. Miss Paula moves in on him and he quickly lifts a warding hand. Back off, Miss Paula. Nobody is that desperate.

Conty Bint will be performing the Patridge Family's I Think I Love You. Oh no, there's Donny Osmond vowing to renounce his religion and running off to lose his virginity to Paris Hilton as a result! Conty Bint, as to be expected, is completely ridiculous to watch as he keeps flashing those date-rapist "smouldering" looks at the camera. I give up. He's so shamelessly excited to be on the camera that he will bend over and stick his own head up his ass if it means that he will be on camera a little longer and he has no filter at all as to when he should and shouldn't put on that ridiculously constipated face to the camera. It is as if his facial muscles are programmed to mimic the mugshots on America's Most Wanted whenever he sees a camera on him. But how can I not like a freak who claims to be a rocker but sings freaking I Think I Love You? And sings it he does with the flamboyance of a reckless Freddy Mercury performance! Somehow between the previous performance and this one, his shameless exuberance at being on TV has taken on a lively verve that I find infectious and charming. My sense of absurd is also tickled pink by this performance because it is just perfect. How do a self-professed rocker who is actually a substance-free off-Broadway hound pull off a Patridge Family song? Conty Bint performs it like Freddy Mercury's graphic deflowering of a giggling Marie Osmond while the chorus line from The Little Shop of Horrors squeals in delight. It's totally over-the-top, this performance, and brought on with the right amount of defiant "Yeah, laugh at this, won't you? So what? F**k you, man! I'm on TV anyway, not you, yeehaw!" bravado, so much so that I have to give him a mental standing ovation when he's done. Conty Bint is a freaking genius. I need a drink.

The judges miss the brilliance of the spectacle of Conty Bint - as to be expected. Randy Randy disapproves of the over-the-top elements of the performance. Miss Paula just wants more drugs and someone to shag her while she's in a senseless stupor. King Tut compares the performance to someone ordering a guard dog into his house only to get a poddle in a leather jacket instead. He misses the point completely because he keeps insisting that Conty Bint is a rocker. Conty Bint isn't a rocker, he's a spectacle. Miss Paula, in the meantime, is screaming at King Tut and telling him to shut up. It's a good thing that she is incapable of feeling shame because she is really embarrassing to watch tonight. Conty Bint smiles indulgently at King Tut and I am horrified that my heart skips a beat at that sight. That must be the onset of a heart attack. I refuse to believe otherwise so please, be kind and let me drop the subject and move on to Nadia.

Nadia laments the fact that she likes "artsy-fartsy" songs and these songs never make it to number one in her opinion. Nadia, I like you girl and I adore Cyndi Lauper to bits but even I won't pretend that Cyndi is high art. Nadia comes out with a mohawk wig that makes her look like a mutant peacock/bird of paradise/Klingon Queen from outer space, but I'm sure that's just Nadia being artsy-fartsy, with the fartsy part being a little louder than the artsy part. Maybe I would love the funked-up version of one of my favorite songs if Nadia doesn't perform it like the first remix effort from some kids messing around with the equipment. Nadia could have given an interesting performance but the end result is a flat, uninteresting chaotic mess.

Randy Randy and Miss Paula love it like they love everything and anything. King Tut compares the performance to a cabaret show in a cruise ship. The other two judges boo and shut him up.

And now, Sleazebag asks America to "brace yourselves" for Mikalah. Thanks for the warning, dear. Mikalah says that she had a lovely view of the audience from the Bottom Two last week but this week she intends to stay out of there. But her version of Taylor Dayne's Love Will Lead You Back won't do the trick, unfortunately. Everything about it is an exercise in painful and conspicuous wrong pitch.

The Gruesome Twosome pan her for not being unique (read: not acting like the hyperactive loud-mouth like she did last week) while they panned her last week for being unique but... whatever, really, they can drive poor sixteen-year old Mikalah crazy if they haven't already. King Tut calls the performance a mess. Never mind that Miss Paula has said outright that she doesn't think Mikalah is good, now she and King Tut argue, with her deciding that King Tut is wrong even when he has said the same thing as she did. My head hurts. I really wish someone would put Miss Paula out of her misery because she is JUST FREAKING HIGH ON DRUGS TONIGHT and BEING SO ANNOYING and I JUST CANNOT STAND WATCHING HER. Please, gag her, shoot her, ship her to Iraq, anything, just make her go away. Mikalah tells King Tut that she still loves him. Oh, Mikalah. Doesn't she know? Cattle's the one he wants now. He always goes for the blondes.

Anwar thinks that Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobody will be a good choice for him. I don't think so. Miss Paula's advice on contestants tackling songs from artists of the opposite gender is disastrous because it encourages people like Anwar, pleasant people who aren't exactly the lifespots of wild parties, to imagine that they can do justice to a song that requires the powerful voice and verve of the divine Chaka Khan to make it work. This performance feels like a karaoke rendition of the usually timid dweeby accountant guy, who after a few drinks too many, decides to "let everything hang out" for the evening. He's so awkward to listen to and watch. Anwar knows all about voice modulation, graceful melismas, and elegant glissandos but he doesn't really inject any genuine passion into his performances. He is reminding me more and more of Latoya London - a good singer but egad, so lifeless; so beautiful but so, so passionless.

Randy Randy thinks Anwar isn't being true to himself. (Surprise, surprise.) Miss Paula loves the fact that Anwar took her advice because she now thinks that he will sleep with her too. King Tut once more has to speak over Miss Paula's screamfest and he thinks that the performance is inconsistent. He wants Anwar to do an uptempo song but he finds this particular attempt "wasn't that good".

Jessica has always wanted to sing Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse Of The Heart so she will do so today. I don't know. She comes out on stage and again poses in that ridiculous buffalo stance of hers. Jessica needs a stage presence even more than Cattle. Her performance is decent but as the crescendo builds up in the song, it becomes apparent that her voice isn't up to the job of delivering the glory notes. The performance starts out very strong but eventually peters out into a shouted overly-nasal mess as a result of her voice's inadequacy. Maybe if she has scaled down the notes or offer a different interpretation of the song, the performance would come off as more interesting. As it is, she looks like Cattle's dowdy sister that crashes the sleepover party and embarrasses poor Cattle to no end.

This will be the right time for King Tut to bring out the "bringing home a tarty, busty barfly only to find that she's a poodle pretending to be Bonnie" anology but the judges decide to overcompliment her. I don't know why, actually; maybe Jessica's being propped as an alternative to Cattle. These two ladies look practically indistinguishable now thanks to Mary Roach's skill with cheap cosmetics. Still, I'm glad that it is Jessica who is receiving some overpraise as once because I think she's a better performer than some of the teenybopper-friendly jokers on this show.

Without ado, Sleazebag stands with the Eleven, pose for the camera, and outs himself for the grand closing of the show. This has been a vast improvement over the wretched previous episode as I've quite enjoyed myself tonight. Best of the night? Cattle, followed by Bo. Worst? Trachea Boi, Anwar, and Mikalah are tied for the honor.



Whoops, they messed up in the display of the phone numbers for Jessica, Mikalah, and Anwar so Sleazebag announces on the Wednesday show that they are scrapping the results of the voting on Tuesday post-show night as well as the charges for those text messages and what-nots. Instead, for that Wednesday night, they will postpone the results show and have instead a chit-chat "recap" special where the phone lines would be opened after this show for another round of voting. I'm not going to touch this one because I can't bear to waste time basically repeating the recap of the show on Tuesday night. Highlights worth noting include Nadia's explanation that her mohawk is a shout-out to Mario (apparently many people are "horrified" that she shows up with a mohawk - only on this show, I tell you, that a mohawk is considered some heinous transgression worth throwing a minor scandal over) and Mikalah wearing a shirt emblazoned with "I Live To Annoy". Oh, Mikalah. She can't sing but I really like that silly gal.



Thursday, results show. Ryan Sleazebag stands behind the audience (because he doesn't want King Tut to see the wet spots on his trousers) and talks about what a "controversial week" they have had. Controversial, huh? Is that a new euphemism for "we screwed up"? After the credits, he continues to milk their screw-up as if it's some exciting twist of some sort. I love this show. If Sleazebag ever ends up in hospital with a gerbil stuck up his ass, the show will pass that off as a dramatic and unexpected twist that I should care about. "The judges' meanness has driven Sleazebag into taking gerbils up his ass! Come find out next week just how mean the judges will be and what they will do to Sleazie this time! Watch American Idol on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and the filler specials to find out! And drink Coke, y'all. Miss Paula loves Coke. So should you!"

That idiot among the audience who is holding the sign "Don't fire the camera guy" must (a) have received the sign at the door from the show producers, and (b) a bloody moron related to the camera guy in question, which I hear is supposedly Justin Guarini.

Sleazebag shows up in a dark shirt under dark jacket. Maybe his underwear is fluorescent. Anyway, he continues to milk the "controversy" dry, proclaiming the show a dramatic one and promising more drama to come. I don't think he means that the show will start airing ten-minute behind-the-scene dramas between Sleazie, King Tut, and Miss Paula though, alas. He reveals that 31.5 million votes poured in on Wednesday. I don't know which is worse - that so many people actually tuned in to watch that Wednesday filler show or that people actually cared to send so many votes to the dullest Eleven since the first season. Then again, people liked some TV shows I could mention when these shows have jumped the shark (Buffy, The X-Files), so I guess this is one of those People Are Like That moments.

In keeping with the "Butchering songs for charity" event that this show is throwing for the finalists, the Eleven now sit on the stage to butcher He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother. Bo starts out the performance, remains a prominent vocalist throughout the performance, but I can't in good conscience even want to listen and watch one more time this horrendous mess which descends into a screaming competition among Cattle, Jessica, Vonzell, Nadia, Anwar, Nikachu, and Bo to see who can outscream the others. If these idiots care about charity, they can start by stop singing immediately. Oh, and Trachea Boi should stop with that creepy "I bend over a little and pretend that I am jiggling the 36DD manboobs that I don't actually have, thank goodness, while singing into the microphone" posturing of his. He does that in every performance and it's getting tedious because it's an obvious attempt to mimic Kewpie's posture when Kewpie is performing.

And then there is a clip where the Eleven are shrunken down in size to terrorize a poor fellow when all he wants to do is to get dressed, have breakfast, and drive to work in his shiny Ford vehicle, all the while the Eleven are singing Smash Mouth's All Star, as if the song isn't irritating enough without having to accompany it with an insipid video clip. Sleazie makes fun of how Conty Bint holds the toothbrush in the clip but I don't know. I think we can all agree that Conty Bint will screw a giant cucumber on stage while wearing a cow get-up if he thinks it will keep him on TV so it shouldn't come as a surprise that he throws himself into the act of creepy-straddling the toothbrush. Heck, he pretends that the mic stand is that cucumber in question every week.

Finally, Sleazebag drags out the three with the lowest number of votes. Nikachu is safe because the show and the judges are still protecting him by overcomplimenting him. Conty Bint is safe, as is Cattle, and if you expect otherwise, you have plenty of time to become jaded so welcome onboard. Bo is safe as well. Nadia isn't, because having a mohawk on stage disgusts the sensibilities of the electorate and she mentions how much she loves Mario on Wednesday, thus earning her the ire of the show producers. Let this be a lesson to Nadia - Mario is dead on the show, so she can expect worse if she ever mentions his name ever again! Jessica is safe because the show is protecting her too with overcompliments. Mikalah knows what is coming and she accepts her fate with grace. She smiles and goes "Hey baby!" to Nadia as Nadia goes "Hey baby!" back at her when they meet at the dias. Ape Boy once more looks up at the ceiling dramatically like he does every week because he thinks that he being safe is a Hallmark drama in itself, and when he is safe, he raises his hands as if he has just received the Life Goes On Corky Thatcher Award for Best Emotional Manipulative Portrayal of Mentally Wonky Folks on TV. Anwar and Vonzell are safe, leaving Trachea Boi to join the two ladies on the dias. He punches fists with Sleazie on his way down. That guy really should stop trying so hard to be Kewpie. He's not fooling anyone. He doesn't sing as well as Kewpie but he has a better body so why not just ditch those loose nerd clothes and those glasses that he doesn't need in the first place and become the albino babyfaced freak with a hot body that he actually is?

Sleazebag asks Randy Randy who that stupid oaf wants to save in the Bottom Three if Randy Randy is given the ability. Randy Randy without hesitating says Nadia and quickly adds that it is a tough decision for him. Yes, I know. It's just alright with him, dawg, it is just okay but it is not his favorite thing to do but it is alright with him, man. Did I miss out anything? Miss Paula doesn't see a penis in the Bottom Three that she wants to reach out and grab so she just shrugs and says that she loves everybody. Sleazebag doesn't even bother to ask King Tut of his opinion.

Mikalah is going home. Jessica immediately bursts into tears. By that, I mean that she is litterally sobbing pitifully into her hands in an unguarded, vulnerable manner that cannot be faked for the camera. Hmm, then I remember that she is that drama queen Tammy Wynette Nash's best friend so I'm not so surprised anymore by her closeness to Mikalah. Mikalah's eulogy clip is actually sweet. When Mikalah sings Love Will Lead You Back one more time to close the show, Jessica keeps sobbing, while in contrast Mikalah is calm and gracious. I suspect that Mikalah knows all along that she is going but it is rather disconcerting to see her so calm and sanguine while Jessica is literally breaking down just a few feet from her. In the meantime, the camera catches Cattle staring in a zombefied manner at Mikalah for a few seconds before Cattle spots the camera and tears miraculously starts falling down her cheeks. Man, she is so fake. Ditto Nadia, who is dry-eyed until she too spots a camera and quickly wipes away at a non-existant tear on her cheek. Miss Paula is positively gloating at Mikalah's exit. And then it's back to Jessica once more sobbing piteously for Mikalah. It is quite reassuring - to me - that there is at least one person out there who is as genuinely sorry as me to see Mikalah go. Sure, Mikalah can't sing too well but she isn't that bad. I've grown to appreciate her personality and candor, even her weird "Fuck!" outburst in the previous result show, because she has something that the finalists of this show on the whole really need: a memorable personality, good or bad, to stand out as opposed to being bland.

Goodbye, Mikalah. I'd miss the interesting song choices (Billie Holliday, Candy Stanton, West Side Story, Dusty Springfield, and Taylor Dayne - she has easily covered some of the most important entries in the encyclopedia of contemporary music enjoyed by the gay community) and I will definitely miss the flamboyant gay man living inside that sixteen-year old Fran Drescher body. When she's bad, she's being outrageously bad in a trashy PG-rated Tallulah Bankhead/Mae West manner, complete with skin-toned bras underneath fishnet tops. When she's good, her smoky voice reminds me of a classy, decadent part of music that is all about bad girls seducing men for all the gloriously wrong reasons and revelling in the act. In a way, she and Conty Bint bring on the high camp onto the show. And just as I am starting to appreciate what these two wonderfully wrong singers are doing to this show, the Stupid Little Girls get rid of Mikalah because she is just too complicated for the show. And now I have to watch Nikachu and Trachea Boi survive to bore me some more, hmmmph!