AMERICAN IDOL

Season 5: Oh Boy!

Don't snicker, people, but Ryan "I've Got You Under My Skin" Sleazebag is wearing a blue-purple tie today. As three women in the audience with the biggest honkers I've seen turn to stare at him and the camera in rapture - ladies, he's taken, okay? - Sleazie talks about how the fate of the Eleven is in your hands and many other things he has said many, many times on this show before. Oh, and I decide the destiny of the Eleven, he says. Isn't that easier said than done? If I control the Eleven's destiny, Kellie will back at that trailer park diner she used to work in, screaming at the customers whether anyone wants to hear the story about her sad daddy going to jail for the seventy-seventh time. Sleazie cups his crotch in case those women with big honkers get any funny ideas and announces that the show has begun. Credits.

Woosh, the doors of the Mothership open wide and out from the artificial mist generated using Coke comes Sleazie himself, looking resplendent like he's as expensive as the cosmetic surgical procedures he pampers himself with every year. The camera zooms in one of those Mothership pillars - is it just me or they look way too phallic to be on a family-friendly show? - and back, revealing all those eye-like dome thingies on the stage. Really, the prop people have outdone themselves this time around with the Mothership. It has phallic erections rising out of the stage while all these circular body orifice-like dome thingies hover over these phallic erections like a subliminal message to get the impressionable kiddies watching this show to start having sex. It's true, people, Satan is the biggest sponsor of this show now. The camera pans in to the signs among the audience. Many are hard to make out thanks to the bright white light shining on them, but of course the first sign I can make out has to be "Pick Pickler". As in "Pick Pickler and Throw Her To The Curb", perhaps? Then some twits have gotten together to each hold an R, then a Y, then an A, and an N to make "RYAN". Won't it be funny if they get it wrong and end up holding up "YARN" instead?

Sleazie welcomes everyone and talks about how good it is for him to see everyone's face again tonight. Wow, look at me, I'm blushing. I'm so glad I put on lipstick tonight just for him. Ahem. He says that the Eleven are ready backstage, the band is ready, so he wants to know whether I'm ready. Hold it, hold it, let me get the black spray that I intend to use on the TV monitor the moment Kellie Pickler shows up and then I'll be ready. Sleazie says that there was a "commotion" across the country when the Bottom Three of the previous week was revealed. I think the "commotion" was the huge yawn the country gave when the most expected boot of Melissa was announced. Sleazie blames the "commotion" on all those people who didn't vote and says magnanimously that all is forgiven if all those slackers that refuse to give AT&T and Uncles Nigel and Ken more money will get their fat asses of the couch and start dialing at the end of this episode. You see, if everybody votes, everybody will be happy and then there will be no idiot teenyboppers and their mothers acting like overidentifying crazies on the Web over the contestants.

Is it just me or Sleazie is opening his mouth extra-wide today whenever he speaks? Maybe he believes in practice makes perfect, maybe he's just hoping to let out more hot air than usual from his windbag self.

Ryan trots out the Eleven today, marvels over Taylor's "duds" - that will be Taylor's shoes, not his attempt to act like an overexcited teenaged kid at the brink of an epileptic seizure - and then introduces the judges. Randy "Mr Bojangles" Randy! Miss "You Don't Understand The Pain I'm Going Through Or Why I Need My Pills Desperately, Haters!" Paula! And of course, King "Mrs Giggles fell asleep early into the first episode of American Inventor" Tut! Sleazie reveals that the songs performed tonight will be from the 1950's so he asks Randy Randy what we can all expect tonight. Er... songs from the 1950's? Just a hunch. Randy Randy says that he'd like to think that this week is easier than "Stevie Wonder Wishes He Was Deaf Too" night last week. He says that there are not so many runs in music from the 1950's but he still thinks this will be a tough night for the Eleven. Is that Randy's way of saying that the Eleven can't sing? Wow, look, he's being honest for once! Miss Paula however thinks that tonight will be "stellar" because there is a "masterful man" working with the Eleven. Hmm, who can make the Eleven sing well? Nah, it's not likely that God will show up here to make the Eleven sing well.

Sleazie tells King Tut that he watched King Tut on TV over the weekend - only for a few minutes, of course, and he definitely didn't hump the TV or anything - and apparently King Tut picked three people he thought would last to the end. Hey, who did he pick? Sleazie doesn't elaborate (the answer, by the way, is: Ace, Kellie, and Taylor OHMIGOD I WILL REALLY VOMIT IF THEY ARE THE FINAL THREE) and asks King Tut whether King Tut thinks it's too early to make such a pick. Duh, King Tut has already made a pick, so why is Sleazie asking him whether it's too early to make picks? No wonder Sleazie's talk show tanked like his first attempt to date a girl in high school. King Tut tells Sleazie, "No." He is rubbing his wrist while looking at Sleazie through lowered eyelids all this while. Don't ask me what that wrist-rubbing gesture signifies - I'm just reporting what I see on TV. Sleazie barks, "Why not?" King Tut tells him that it's because he can spot the good ones from the bad ones. You know, it will be nice if King Tut actually spotted the good ones from the bad ones when he was, oh, I don't know, deciding those people who would compete in the semifinals? Sleazie wants King Tut to think about what the other contestants would feel with King Tut playing favoritism like that. There is nothing about this show that is supposed to be unfair, after all! King Tut doesn't care. And me, I stopped caring since season two, about the same time that I stop believing that talent matters on this show. Sleazie concludes that the weekend apparently hasn't changed "anybody". What, did something about Sleazie change over the weekend? Wait, don't tell me. I'm afraid to ask.

Sleazie now reveals that DaddyKewpie (Barry Manilow) is the mentor of the Eleven in this episode. As the montage of his contribution to music plays, it is revealed that Debra Byrd, the vocal teacher who obviously isn't doing a good job even if she has four seasons to pull her socks up, is a regular singing partner for DaddyKewpie. How apt that the contestants of this show are being "coached" by someone who hones her craft performing with the Grandfather of Cheese and Jingles. Singing Copacabana is a no-no on this show but we should respect the spawn that miscarried and purged that song onto us all. Anyway, the Eleven were flown to Vegas where when DaddyKewpie wasn't selling exhorbitant tickets for his Muzak... I mean, Music and Passion show to his tattooed and overweight hausfrau fans, he took time to "give advice" to the Eleven. "The clue to making yourselves original is to find your own take on these songs that you choose," he told them. Okay, that's the clue. So what's the answer then, DaddyKewpie? As DaddyKewpie "taught" the Eleven for the camera, he says that should his career end tomorrow, he'll teach other people how to sing. He then says that people can approach him anytime for advice. Yeah, I don't believe that at all.

Mandisa is once again kicking start the show. She may not be as heavily pimped as some people but she is being pimped nonetheless, make no mistake. After blabbering in her introductory clip about how she has "newfound respect" for DaddyKewpie now (translation: she now knows how to say his name correctly) and other canned lines, she steps out to perform Diana Washington's song from 1954, I Don't Hurt Anymore. DaddyKewpie wants her to open and end on a high and loud note but Mandisa prefers to start soft and end big and loud instead. DaddyKewpie thinks she's right about what she wants because she has a big range. Well, Mandisa is on to something good, at least. She sings with a sassy verve about her that is entertaining to watch. I'm a little worried about the singing though. Like her last few performances, Mandisa often substitutes volume for melody, and the later parts of the performance threaten to degenerate into a sonic meltdown. Thankfully, Mandisa knows how to control her volume and pitch so this is still a very entertaining performance indeed!

Randy Randy is wow'ed and is speechless, although that won't stop him from gibbering some more. He thinks that Mandisa has set the mark for tonight. Miss Paula says that she's taken back to the fifties and Mandisa is a "thoroughbred". When Miss Paula is on the roll, she hears even the horses singing to her, I suppose. King Tut thinks that Mandisa is "blossoming" because it was a "very sexy" performance as well as a vocally superior performance from her. "It's like a great stripper song, that song!" he tells Mandisa. Cut to a sign in the audience asking Mandisa to marry the sign bearer. Miss Paula asks King Tut whether he's been to many stripper joints and King Tut tells her, "A lot!" He's honest, I love that. King Tut tells Mandisa, "I absolutely loved it!" Methinks he will play a recording of that performance when he steals Mandisa's dress and puts on a show in the Tut-Sleazie boudoir tonight, bless him. Sleazie tries to make Mandisa more press-friendly by coining her "Mandiva". Get it, "man diva"? You'd think Sleazie is supposed to be nice to her instead of giving her detractors things to call her on online forums.

Bucky is next. He announces in his clip that he's doing Buddy Holly's 1957 song Oh Boy!, a song that he thinks is right up his alley since he thinks Buddy Holly as one of the first rock-and-rollers ever. DaddyKewpie thought that Bucky's performance was "repetitive" and I get this feeling that he and Bucky really don't care much for each other. DaddyKewpie introduced some key change here and there, according to Bucky. I don't know whether to blame DaddyKewpie or not but Bucky is too soft for most of the performance and there's something disconcerting about seeing a honky-tonk guy like Bucky trying to sound like a Vegas cabaret singer. This is a forgettable performance indeed although I still think Bucky is smoking hot. Oh well, Bo has his Corner Of The Sky, Bucky can have his Oh Boy!.

Randy Randy thinks that the song choice was great and Bucky looks like the old Bucky again. He bizarrely says that the vocals weren't too good but the song choice was perfect. Huh? How can the song be perfect for Bucky if he tanked in performing it? Miss Paula asks Bucky how it was to work with DaddyKewpie and Bucky's answer is pure gold gibberish: "When you meet a celebrity... you hope you're not and many times you're not!" He laughs when he realizes how silly he is coming off as and Miss Paula laughs with him. Ah, Bucky, he's not the best singer around but I love his voice and I love especially how honest he is compared to a two-faced liar named Kellie Pickler. Miss Paula thinks that the performance was a "good solid" one. King Tut feigns a cough and says that it's time to give Bucky a "reality check" - he calls the performance a "pointless karaoke performance". He calls it a "So what?" performance and the other two judges argue with him. Sleazie "interviews" Bucky by slamming King Tut and asking Randy Randy to tell Bucky what Bucky should do in the next performance. Randy Randy asks Bucky to find the correct song. Like Bucky supposedly did in this episode? When Sleazie says that Randy Randy has given Bucky "constructive criticism", it's more like a deconstructed babbling we're talking about here.

"What can I do to sing well, Randy Randy?"

"Choose the right song, dawg."

"How do I know if it's the right song, Randy Randy?"

"When you sound good, yo."

"How do I know if I sound good?"

"If it's the right song, alright."

Paris has given up on pretending to be eighty-nine and she wants to be a femme fatale now, which is why she squeaks that she's singing Peggy Lee's most famous song, Fever. DaddyKewpie says that the song is "such a mature" one for a seventeen-year old. Tell me about it. Does Paris even know what kind of "fever" she is going to be singing? DaddyKewpie adds that Peggy Lee is "cool" while Paris is "hot". See that? That's DaddyKewpie telling lies and selling his soul to the devil. No, wait, he sold his soul decades ago when he inflicted Mandy on the world. He's reaffirming his contract with Satan, more like. Paris thinks that DaddyKewpie is impressed when her voice "came out like that". Like what, the queen alien exploding out of a body in the movie Aliens? DaddyKewpie lies about Peggy's depths and voice and her future career. Lies, lies, all, because Paris may understand a little about the song to sashay around on stage like she's a little minx wanting to take Kellie Pickler's place on the laps of Uncles Ken and Nigel, but she is just blasting the song out without any subtlety. Maybe when Paris grows up, she'll understand that it takes more than a voice to make a performance work, it's how the performer puts a piece of herself into her performance. Paris comes off like a precocious brat trying a little too hard to be Fantasia. Oh, and look, there's Conty Bint in the audience clapping for Paris along with Ryan Cabrera. When we have illuminary VIPs like these two, it's a clear sign that the show has it made.

Randy Randy thinks the performance started fine but Paris blew the song "out the box" by midperformance. Here I am thinking that the performance lost all subtlety and meaning when Paris started blasting out the notes. Miss Paula is all hearts and kisses while King Tut thinks that Paris and the song went well together. Sleazie praises Paris for being so poised on stage and Paris squeaks and squeaks in a way that surely can't be normal. It's bad enough that she's squeaking, she's babbling inanities like she's ten year old or something.

Sleazie and a member of the audience, Sandy, demonstrate how I can use my Cingular wireless phone to download ringtones by these contestants. What are you waiting for? Download ringtones like I'm A Lying Fake Bimbo Determined To Be Famous At Any Cost by Kellie Pickler (it comes with voice effects like "Hey, come back here, Daddy! You haven't paid for the milkshakes yet!") and Sugar Sugar, Honey Honey, See See Me Me Jump Jump Around Around Hump Hump Stage Stage Wee Wee! by Taylor Hicks today! Sleazie "jokes" that there are some "subtle" product integration on this show. Sometimes I feel that Sleazie secretly hates this show and he'd have some juicy things to tell if someone ever gets him drunk enough to spill what he really feels about the show.

Oh, and now it's Chris taking the stage with Johnny Cash's I Walk The Line. Hey, just in time to celebrate the movie's bagging some Oscars! That's nice. Anyone finds it amusing that we have DaddyKewpie telling Chris how to perform that song? That's like Johnny Cash teaching people how to sing Mandy, heh. Chris likes the song because Johnny Cash wrote the song to his wife Reese Witherspoon about how he will be loving her even when he's touring - just don't mind the gossips about the groupies, honey, those people are just jealous - and Chris subtly apologizes to Johnny Cash about trying something "different" tonight with that song. He respects Johnny Cash, he says, so obviously if everything goes wrong it's Mr Copacabana's fault. DaddyKewpie says that Chris is original and Chris shares the reciprocal self-love with DaddyKewpie. DaddyKewpie gushes that Chris knows who he is and what he does best. Maybe because Chris isn't some 17-year old? I'm just guessing. Okay, so let's blame DaddyKewpie then for my heart nearly stopping when Chris starts singing. A snobbish part of me tells me that I should perhaps be horrified by Chris' sacrilegous transformation of this song into a freaking emo band version of the original but when Chris is using his lower octaves, I feel like I'm a teenaged girl again feeling my first boyband crush. The magic is gone when he starts shouting later into the performance, where he then becomes an ordinary emo band frontsman performing a so-so cover version of this song, but damn, Chris' brooding voice is sexy. May I suggest that he take any opportunity available to perform Chris Isaak's Wicked Game just for me?

Randy Randy doesn't think the vocals are that good but he likes Chris' spin on it and praises him for being who he is. In a way, I agree with him - I like how Chris knows what he is good at and adapts his style to a song just as he adapts the song at the same time to suit his style. In this instance, the parts of the performance that I adore are the parts that are faithful to Johnny Cash's original performance (the parts that Chris sang in his lower octave) but I'll give Chris props for attempting to improvise in his performances even ifthe improvisations don't always work. I can't honestly say I've been blown away by any of Chris' performances but I like that he tries to make every performance his own instead of imitating the original performer's style. Miss Paula babbles about Chris growing and growing each week (yikes) and how Chris should be touring. King Tut agrees with Randy Randy: he thinks that vocals schmocals - Chris made the song his own and King Tut goes as far as to say that Chris is the first "artist" (snort) on this show that refuses to compromise. Yes, yes, let's all pretend that this show has any artistic merits to be compromised in the first place! Sleazie points out to Chris that credible rockstars Conty Bint and Ryan Cabrera are big fans of Chris. That will surely make Chris feel good.

Sleazie and Katharine seat on stools where they discuss King Tut being interviewed by his beard. Apparently King Tut couldn't remember her name and settled for "Katherine McVee". That's understandable. Kellie Pickler has all his attention and more, after all. "As long as it's McFever, we'll all good," Katharine announces. She will be performing Come Rain Or Come Shine by Ella Fitzgerald. DaddyKewpie reads aloud the "I love her, we're all good!" lines and Katharine dances the party line about what a legend DaddyKewpie is. He tells her to find some guy in the audience to sing to for best effect. Katharine takes the stage like a professional. What I really like about her is how she seems to grow each week as a performer. Her first performance sees her putting all those awkward facial expressions that put me off, but subsequently, like now, she's actually emoting appropriately when she is singing. Her performance still comes off a little like a pretender trying to be just like Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holliday, but I think I'm liking her more and more each week. But sheesh, can someone dress her in something that doesn't make her come off like she's a few months pregnant?

Randy Randy repeats the same old "not the best song but dude, that was the bomb!" line he has used a hundred times in this episode alone. Miss Paula of course gushes about how much she loves the "exquisite" performance and how Katharine will be a "contender" in this competition. What, Katharine isn't a contender yet? Damn, she must be some back-up singer that sneaked on stage! Security, grab her! King Tut says that "something happened tonight" and that something is Katharine "turning into a star". Kellie can't be happy hearing this. King Tut calls the performance akin to that of a "great seasoned performer." "Loved it," he says. Sleazie and Katharine bond as sisters because they're both loved by King Tut.

Taylor just has to sing Mandy when he walks into the room to get DaddyKewpie's attention in his introductory clip. He's like that guy who keeps mugging for attention, screaming and hollering and caressing himself without realizing that the people around him are already exhausted two seconds after he has entered the room. DaddyKewpie loves Taylor and vice versa. Taylor will be singing Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away because he will not fade away. He'll just keep jumping and making weird facial expressions until someone deigns to notice him out of pity. Oh, and Taylor thinks that he's like DaddyKewpie, a "performer" rather than a "singer". That explains Taylor's I Dance Like The Monkeys routine on stage, I suppose, he's just performing. Watching him is truly embarrassing, it's like grandpa trying to dance with the teenagers without realizing how corny he is being. This performance is all about the dancing because the singing is limited to a few repetitive lines ("Not fade awa-aaa-aay!"). On one hand, I admire the fact that Taylor loves himself so much and thinks so highly of his abilities that he chooses to ham it up instead of actually singing. On the other hand, I have to watch him, sigh.

Randy Randy repeats the "not good vocals, but good performance nonetheless" line he's stuck with tonight. Miss Paula thinks that everyone will lose weight if they dance to Taylor in this performance. Yes, we're all losing weight because we're constantly throwing up. King Tut however finds the performance akin to a "hideous party performance" and believes that Taylor can do better. Randy Randy insists that the 1950's were a hideous party performance and Miss Paula slams King Tut for not being able to dance, which makes him unqualified to condemn Taylor. Or something. Sleazie wonders why his "normal" family is now punching each other and all. Miss Paula is giggling like a banshee now. Yes, the drugs are working up now. I hope you guys are enjoying the judges behaving like undignified squabbling children scenes more than me. Sleazie compares Taylor to "George Clooney, Jay Leno, and a little bit of Phil Donohue" while Miss Paula can be heard still shrilly giggling and cackling off-camera. I love her. She's single-handedly making the show interesting by being a complete crackhead on the show while everyone tries to pretend that she's just easily excited by things. Any idea when she'll tell the papers that she's back to being addicted to painkillers because her back is still killing her?

Lisa joins Sleazie on the stools. Because she was in the bottom three last week, she vows to do her best this week. Her performance is Frankie Lymon's Why Do Fools Fall In Love?, which she claims to want to do very badly the moment she hears the theme of the song. DaddyKewpie says that Lisa surprises him by how "musical" she is. Naturally, DaddyKewpie loves Lisa too. He's very liberal with the love today. Her performance cracks me up because this is the first time I see the band struggling to slow down so that the performer can keep up. Lisa must be having some problems with the tempo and key shift because she sings everything within the same vocal range when by the right the song has many shifts in key and pitch and she should be singing to reflect those nuances. This is a robotic performance which seems to prove that apart from her ability to perform vibratos in slow motion, Lisa doesn't have much to offer when it comes to range and anything else. By the way, who's that hot guy seated among "Lisa's family and friends"?

Randy Randy loves the performance even though he thinks that the vocals weren't the best. Gosh, I never expect him to say something like that! Miss Paula babbles about the song making Paris look and feel young again. As long as we look and feel young, that's okay. This message is brought to you by Miss Paula, Sleazie, and other Friends of Botox that want you to be as young and happy as them. King Tut sarcastically asks Miss Paula whether he should judge the singing or the dancing. The singing was okay to him but he feels like the performance belonged to some "cutesy" high school musical.

Where is the tantara? The stud is here. Kevin is now taking the stage and please, people, stay out of the way because that train is going to crash with a spectacular kaboom. DaddyKewpie hilariously tells Kevin in the introductory clips to sing louder because he can't hear Kevin. Still DaddyKewpie thinks Kevin is "sweet", which isn't the most ringing endorsement if I think about it, and believes that Kevin's song choice of Nat King Cole's When I Fall In Love is perfect for him. Kevin tells the camera that he hasn't fallen in love before. The next time he's in the same room with one of his middle-aged soccer mom fan, oh, he'll know what it means alright, love. Maybe he'll even write a song about it. And look, here is the stud on stage. Look, look, and do not listen because he may start out in tune (if a little wobbly) at first but he completely derails and crashes when he starts trying to belt the song out. Man, that is hilarious. His singing is like a jelly wobbling all over the place. This is a sweet performance if Kevin is playing some sixteen year old kid in a movie singing to the girl next door, I suppose, but Kevin is really out of his depths here. What is he doing here?

Randy Randy goes... yes, great song choice, not the best singing, but he likes the performance. Why he even shows up tonight, I will never know. Miss Paula gushes about Kevin's "moxie" and how people adore him because of that. King Tut says that he likes Kevin because Kevin takes everything like a man and also because Kevin knows who his audience is (read: deaf old people looking for surrogate grandkids to love via the TV in their nursing homes) and how to pander to that audience. Kevin thanks him. I have to say this before it's too late: I kinda agree with the judges in that I actually like Kevin as a person on TV in the sense that he takes things thrown his way with a disarming smile and very subtle wit. If Kevin is a character in a sitcom, I'd adore him. If Kevin is a kid that I know, I'd probably have fights with him because of how precocious he could be, but I'd adore him. I think. But as someone singing every week on American Idol, Kevin makes me want to cry.

I like what Elliott is wearing - that untucked shirt and big loud tie ensemble isn't original but I like it. I like him more when he confesses to Sleazie on the stool that he isn't fond of most of DaddyKewpie's works. And then he ruins it by saying the predictable "but I'm now a true fan after meeting him!" line. Elliott thinks that DaddyKewpie is a songwriter as much as storyteller and he respects that. Okay, that makes me like him again because that reasoning is more palatable than a straightforward infantile "I hate him but after he touched my hand I am his fan forever eeeeeeee!" gushing. Elliott will be performing Al Jarreau's version of Teach Me Tonight although he thoughtfully plugs DaddyKewpie's new CD Songs For Your Grandparents by saying that the song is in that CD too. DaddyKewpie introduces Elliott to the technique of backphrasing and Elliott takes that to heart, which shows when he gets on stage and backphrases the life out of that song. Okay, you really want to know I like the clothes he is wearing tonight? It's because when he's singing that song, I can't help thinking about teaching him all kinds of wonderful things. That tie will have to go though - let's rip it off - that kind of thing, if you know what I mean. I think this guy is putting on weight because his face seems more pudgy now when he was leaner in the preliminary rounds, but that is some fine singing indeed.

Randy Randy is in awe over the modulations and key changes that Elliott went through in the performance. Miss Paula has all but fallen into a dead faint, although whether Elliott or the drugs did that to her, I am not sure. King Tut simply declares that this show is a singing competition (lies, all lies) and therefore he'll just say that the singing was "fantastic".

Oh good, Kellie the stupid lying twit is up now. She chooses to perform Patsy Cline's Walkin' After Midnight, which she claims her grandfather told her to sing. DaddyKewpie claims not to be familiar with the song but he's familiar with it nonetheless to tell Kellie to remember that the song is about a desperate woman who is abandoned by her man. Please, as if Kellie doesn't know that, as if that isn't the reason why she chose this song in the first place - to remind people that her daddy is in jail and she feels desperate and abandoned. It is a good thing that her performance is decent this time around, with her injecting some halfway convincing sass and huskiness into the performance when everything else about her - her fake tan, off-putting put on accent, and her dumb blonde persona - comes together to become the most repulsive thing I've ever seen on this show. She's the embodiment of everything I despise about this show - the manipulations, the pimpings, the lack of talent to back up the hype - rolled into one overtanned and overstupid hairball from hell.

Randy Randy catches Kellie winking at King Tut during the performance and Kellie once more plays the "Ooh, I didn't how how my hands got into his pants, I swear, I'm just an innocent country bumpkin, tee-hee-hee!" act. I can't take this. I can't take her pretending not to know what a minx is, I can't bear to see King Tut drooling over this trailer trash honky-tonk nightmare, I don't want to talk about her anymore, so can I please just move on to the final contestant of the night? Oh, and yes, Pick Pickler, people, and throw her to the trash bin now because I read in her hometown paper that her father is scheduled to be released on the same day as the finale. When the finale approaches, Kellie will never be booted because the "Let her see her Daddy, let her make him proud of her!" pity-party hype machinery will be in full swing by then and we'll get a winner in this appalling example of a contestant. Wait... is that bad? She'll be open to ridicule, this show will never recover and will probably get cancelled, and I don't have to recap this stupid show ever again. Pick Pickler! Shoot Pickler! Either way, I'm just glad that I'm not her, because if I see the way King Tut is staring at her ass when she is walking away, I'd think that dealing with all this nonsense is not worth the pretense and the energy of having to pretend to be near-retarded just so that people will love me for something that I am not.

Look, I understand if she really wants a way out of her hometown and her existence that she sees this show as a way for her to be rich and famous so that she will never have to think of her broken home again. If that is the case, really, because the inconsistencies in her stories about her broken home are adding up the more she opens her mouth. What I find objectionable is how she chooses to portray herself as this braindead slut that will gyrate on stage and breathe sexily to you if that's what you want her to do while insisting that she really doesn't know what she is doing. She's Britney Spears gone retarded, Jessica Simpson without the creepy father to rein in her excesses, and a walking Jackie Collins novel. If she has the talent, I'd respect that, although it's hard for me to be sympathetic. Melissa McGhee, for example, has both her parents jailed many times but the show refuses to let anyone know about that in case she threatens the sympathy-driven popularity of their Braindead Britney Barbie robot Kellie. Gedeon single-handedly raised funds to audition for this show after his house was wiped away by Hurricane Katrina and he had a bereavement in the family early in the preliminary rounds, but the show will never let anyone know that because the Uncles don't want anyone upstaging their precious Kellie. (And of course, those two choose not to exploit their sad stories and prefer to let their talent speak for themselves, which obviously didn't work for them but I respect them for doing that nonetheless.) But Kellie wants to portray herself as a victim to climb her way to the top, which I find pretty offensive actually, and the show abets her in sensationalizing and exaggerating her sob story so that people will love her for all the wrong reasons. It's like, look, never mind that we have many teenaged single parents or people from broken homes out on the streets every day, we should give Kellie lots of attention, fame, and money because she is a blonde stupid girl and therefore she deserves all that.

Even more puzzling is why Kellie is chosen to be the golden girl of this show. She's not nearly as beautiful as Cattle Underwood, for one, and she oozes this skankiness in her fashion and stage moves that many stupid little girls overlook because she's blonde and she has a sad story to tell. Kellie is only an average singer. She is not beautiful. She comes off as transparently contrived and fake. So why is she the favored one? I don't want to think that King Tut's lascivious stare at her ass has anything to do with the reason she's so favored by the show, but right now that's the only direction I have to go.

Okay. There's Bucky, there's Chris, and there's Elliott, but this show just has to put the biggest girl of all the men on the show, Ace, in the spotlight position. DaddyKewpie and Ace warn everyone that Ace is going to be warbling in falsetto through a jazzy version of the Five Satins' In The Still Of The Night. Why is Ace choosing all those songs that seem to be marked by the Uncles as "For Girly Bois Only"? I suppose Ace is at least being honest in selling himself to the audience as a mere substance-free boyband material that will have little girls like Sandy and some boys dreaming of marrying him and adult men in business suits paying him cash to bend over for them in private showrooms. His performance is hideous. The last few notes are the only ones that are on tune while everything else is either a key switch gone awry or a pitchy mess.

Randy Randy is predictable. I'm sure you can guess what he says. Miss Paula just wants to sleep with Ace. King Tut says that the performance is better than the one last week - please don't remind me of his performance last week, shudder - and Ace should be safe this week. Eh? What happened to "this is a singing competition", King Tut? I guess that only applies if you're not Ace or Kellie.

With that, Sleazie recaps the performances and then it's the insipid group huddle nonsense. Ace, Kellie, Taylor the pimped ones. Ace, Kellie, Taylor. Lord have mercy on us all. Best performances of the uneven night for me will be those of Elliott, Katharine, Chris, and Mandisa while Kevin, Ace, and Taylor stank up the joint tonight.



Results night. Sleazie babbles about one person leaving and how it's all our fault and we should pay penance by sending checks to the Kellie's First Out-of-Wedlock Pregnancy Watch movement so that they can keep Kellie well-stocked with pregnancy test kits always. Credits. Sleazie then walks out looking like a complete dish in a suit all in maroon and velvet. He's like the show. I hate it. I hate him. But sometimes he is so adorable and cute that all is forgiven. Like this show is when it introduces some fine contestants for me to listen to with joy and root for. I know, I said earlier in the season that I would not be sucked in by the show. I'm trying not to, people! I'm trying!

Anyway, Sleazie welcomes everyone to the show and says that the "gig" is up for one of the Eleven. He announces that 35 million votes came in yesterday. That's reassuring. The show is still going strong and it will never ever die. God help us all. Sleazie then introduces the judges - Randy "One Note" Randy, Miss "One Dope" Paula, and King "One Joke" Tut - and gets King Tut to reveal that he's at least back to speaking terms with Randy Randy, presumably because Miss Paula couldn't speak as she spent the time spanning from last night after the show to three hours before this day passed out in her hotel room with empty bottles strewn carelessly around her comatose body. Speaking of sad people, I notice when the camera zooms in on Sleazie's face that he seems to have aged considerably since the last season. Maybe it's because Piggy Di Guano isn't doing a good job as the make-up artist of this show since her last CD tanked, I don't know, but under the cake of foundation Sleazie has on his face, the wrinkles are showing around the eyes and the lips and there is a zombie-like greyishness around his eyes. What happened, Sleazie? Did he spend too many sleepless nights keeping watch over his Hollywood Walk of Fame star to keep people from getting their dogs soiling it? Did he spend those nights weeping instead because Kellie Pickler is stealing his man from him? Or maybe he didn't sleep because he was busy playing "Mrs Sleazie Teaches" with Elliott instead? Hmm. Anyway, don't neglect the Botox, Sleazie. We don't love you if you're not beautiful because frankly, there's not much else to love.

The Ford clip is the Eleven at the beach while butchering the Go-Gos' We Got The Beat, guest-starring a T-shirt with "Love Machine" that Kevin is wearing. The Eleven run into the sea and get eaten by sharks, the end. Then out walks DaddyKewpie to a standing ovation that the show ordered the audience to give. Sleazie compliments DaddyKewpie for being talened and DaddyKewpie compliments the Eleven for being so talented and so "beautiful" to work with. Ah, this show, the lifeline for has-beens trying to rejuvenate their careers by establishing symbiotic relationships with the Uncles. Sleazie and DaddyKewpie proceed to spend five minutes lavishing each other with self-love - I know it's five minutes because that's what the timer tells me when I am fast-forwarding through the scene - before DaddyKewpie deigns to perform Love Is A Many Splendored Thing even though he claims to be rushing to meet his adoring carbohydrate-addicted fans waiting for him in Vegas. It's a slight above two minutes moment of pure cheese, a cautionary tale of what happens when actually listenable voices are abused and misused to perform songs that can turn milk into cheese. Oh look, at the end of the performance comes Bobby, the guy who was bounced in the first preliminary round for singing Copacabana, to meet his idol.Aww, that's very sweet of the show to allow Bobby to meet DaddyKewpie. I may even believe that sometimes this show has a heart. Now where's Patrick? I want to see him again. Can this show have a heart one more time?

Quickly, Sleazie runs through the list of those who are safe. Shut up, Kellie. GOD. "What's a ballsy?" GOD. Oops, Lisa is in the bottom three again, this time with Bucky and Kevin. The audience boo because the world will be a much better place if nobody ever gets eliminated on this show. Miss Paula starts to cry, although that could easily be her meds kicking in early again as usual. Lisa is declared to be safe. So it's Bucky versus Kevin, shorty versus hickweed, and Sleazie turns to the fount of wisdom among the judges, Miss Paula, for advice that she can give to the bottom two. Miss Paula says that it is proven that people will achieve greatness after leaving this show, citing Kewpie and Bo as examples along with J Hu who is starring in the musical Dream Girls. Of course, Miss Paula didn't mention that Bo and Kewpie finished second, not eleventh, while J Hu is generally accepted by all as someone who can sing and was booted for reasons that has nothing to do with her actual talent. A better comparison to use would be Lindsey, Mikalah, Princess Tinkerbelle, and Fatt Gross Bowel. And yeah, I don't think Miss Paula remembers who those people are. Dramatic drumroll plays as Sleazie now reveals the person booted tonight and it's... Kevin! Oh no, the sky is falling on Chicken Little after all. Kevin is appropriately classy in his farewell and reminds people why they vote him off by singing When I Fall In Love again. I do like him, in a way, but I'm glad he's off the show, for the sake of my eardrums as well as for the fact that Kevin is lucky to leave at this early stage and avoid the media tarring that Rank Sinatra and Ape Boy received in previous seasons for outlasting media favorites.