AMERICAN IDOL

Season 5: Suds in the Bucket

Ryan "Il Adore" Sleazebag cups his crotch as he stands among the audience. He talks about this night being the most demanding night of the Ten's lives because we all decide which one of them is the best. Still, he says that the Ten won't want to make it easy for people to make that decision, which is why so many of them tonight decide to impersonate broken-down vacuum cleaners and suck the life out of this show. By the way, Sleazie, how's the beard deal with Teri Hatcher going? I'm sure that will make King Tut jealous and ditch that trashbag-faced Kellie for you again. Su-uuu-ure. And with that, credits.

The doors of the Mothership open and out walks Sleazie in what looks disturbingly like the same ensemble he wore last week. Oh dear. He must have not slept, he must have ate very little, and his heart must be broken because he, the beautiful and glorious Sleazie, has been displaced from King Tut's lap by a mere hussy from some backwards cow-shagging watering hole in redneck country. And the wounded ego takes a long time to heal, oh dear. He smiles at the audience and the camera pans on the signs in the audience. The signs are pretty unimaginative this time as they are mostly of the "We Love" variety. Sleazie looks like he's swallowing a sigh - another day, another tedious episode, that kind of thing - as he nods fiercely and welcomes the audience to the show. "You can feel the energy tonight, it's going to be a good one," he says with a frown and then smiles when he realizes that he's being ironic. Or something. As he speaks, I frown when I notice the bags under Sleazie's eyes. Has he been crying his heart out over the phone to Kewpie because of King Tut's dalliance with Kellie? Anyway, Sleazie announces that "some of the best songs" from the last six years from all kinds of genre (snort) will be "coming at" me in this episode because the show tonight is "celebrating" the music of the twenty-first century.

Sleazie then introduces "the three". Randy "In The Shadows" Randy! Miss "The Dope Show" Paula! King "You Can Never Be Too Straight" Tut! King Tut rolls up his eyes and glares at Sleazie playfully. Sleazie bites back a grin as he tries to concentrate on babbling inanities to the audience. Poor Sleazie. His heart is always a fool for love. Sleazie announces that Lisa is kicking off the party. Woo-hoo! Lisa!

Lisa announces that she'll be singing Because Of You by our very own Kelly Cluckson. She has that song on repeat in her CD player and says that the song is an inspiration for her. Maybe Lisa and Kelly share the same daddy issues if Lisa obsessively listens to a song all about Kelly whining and blaming him for all the things that went wrong in her life. Lisa starts off with an "Ooh" refrain that is as unsteady as an elephant trying to balance itself on a tightrope while a hurricane is blowing around her. Maybe Lisa is unable to listen to herself because this performance is seriously close to being completely off-key. Or maybe she's nervous. Either way, she's toast. She needs a spectacular performance to survive this week since she's already in the bottom three two weeks in a row but this performance has some really obvious bad pitch moments that will make even Vonzell wince.

Randy Randy says "honestly" that the performance was just "alright" for him. "It wasn't that good," he says as the audience behind him starts to boo. Miss Paula is a little more sober today than usual as she enunciates clearly that everyone knows Lisa can sing but she feels that Lisa needed to do something to make that song stand out as her own if she wants to pick a song by a popular artist, especially by Kelly. King Tut says simply that there is nothing wrong with the song, it's just that the song is "too big" for Lisa's voice. He adds that there were parts in the song that were painful to listen to. Here, Lisa makes a face like she's about to burst into tears. As King Tut insists to a protesting Randy Randy that the painful moments will be very evident when one watches this show on TV, the audience subtly telegraph their tacit agreement with King Tut by not booing. Lisa holds back tears and turns to Sleazie who comes out to comfort her. That silly young lady doesn't cry when she should have because we all know from the past how effective tears could be in moving the electorate into voting for someone out of pity. Sleazie and King Tut argue about whether or not Lisa is "painful" to listen to, but they are really arguing about the actual conditions of the prenup agreement Sleazie has signed three years ago and what exactly does "open relationship" means in that contract. Sleazie puts his finger over his lower lip in a hurt gesture as he and King Tut keep going and forth whether "it" was painful. To the kiddies in the audience, "it" refers to Lisa's performance. But to those two men, "it" is something else altogether. Poor Sleazie, he hadn't slept, he hadn't shaved, he was still wearing the same clothes as last week, and he tells people how to vote for Lisa.

Sleazie shakes hands and pats the heads of two blonde little girls in the audience because children are beautiful and innocent and they don't cheat on you, betray you, or shack up with a trashy blonde fake who probably has a collection of fake spider and rose tattoos stashed in her trailer. He takes a deep breath and says angrily, "So who is going to get your vote tonight?" What he's really saying is, of course, "Bastard! Bastard! How could you!" And now, it's time for the charming guacamoli-brained ballsy airhead Kellie herself to take centerstage, babble about what a vapid dumb blonde she is, and proceeds to turn Sara Evans' cute ditty Suds In The Bucket into a flat and even atonal performance. It's better than Lisa's performance but the song isn't suitable for this competition because Suds In The Bucket is a song that can only be fully appreciated if you listen to the entire lyrics and smile at the story that the song is presenting to the audience. In its truncated version, Kellie can only perform a vapid love song. Since she's not exactly the best singer around, she comes off as pretty flat in her singing.

Randy Randy doesn't think that the song choice is appropriate for her. Miss Paula insists that Kellie is "way better" than that song choice. Yes, give Kellie a few years and she'll be as good as the soul legend Miss Paula herself. Kellie whines that she's sorry. Please, bitch. King Tut also slams the song choice as "some gimmicky rodeo-lassoing whatever" while Kellie whines fakely that she's so sorry. I really don't mind Kellie when she sings, in all honesty, because she's a decent singer, but I wish she'll stop with the fake precious-poor-dumb-me act. Sigh. Who's next?

Oh, it's Ace. It looks like this show wants to do away with the worst ones first so that I can sit down and have a pleasant time for the rest of the episode. How thoughtful of them! Ace wants to show people his "rock" side by singing Train's Drops Of Jupiter. Does Ace listen to himself? Does he honestly believe that his girly-boi voice can actually do any emo/alternative/whine-rock song justice? He goes off-pitch two words into the song and it's downhill all the way. He tries to keep people rivetted by caressing his hair, thigh, and even his scar on his chest, giving me a sickening feeling when I can't help thinking what kind of Drops Of Jupiter is this parody of Conty Bint is wheezing about.

The judges pretty much tell him that the song wasn't right for him. Ace shows off his scar to Miss Paula. Between his greasy hair, his 45-year old face, and his tendency to caress himself and show off his scar, Ace comes off as really sleazy. Miss Paula thinks that Ace did a good job and asks Ace to explain to her how he got that scar. King Tut and the audience go "Wooh!" as Miss Paula pulls a Kellie and wails that she has no idea what the man is talking about. Yeah, and neither do I. Ace tells Sleazie that he has no regrets about choosing the song because he "felt" the song. Yeah, I can see that from the position of his hand on his thigh during his performance. He explains to Sleazie that he got the scar when he was a kid and the bigger kids beat the crap out of him at some basketball court for singing out loud while they were all trying to play in peace. Or something. It's Ace. I don't care.

Sleazie sits with Taylor on the stool, which is a smart move because when compared to Taylor, Sleazie can actually pass himself off as eighteen and all-natural. Sleazie says that Taylor is "changing the youth of America". Oh, he is, definitely. He's trying to redefine the word "youth" to encompass fortysomething men wooing desperate hausfraus too young for DaddyKewpie and too old for Rank Sinatra and Kewpie. Sleazie points out to a boy with grey hair apparently at the age of ten among the audience and Taylor hoots that he loves it when little boys age prematurely. Is this the show's way of pointing out that Taylor is going to impregnate all those desperate hausfraus and sire illegitimate grey-haired tykes all over the country? Men, hide your Kellie posters and keep a close eye on your wives whenever Taylor's sashaying in town! Taylor also talk with Sleazie about "Soul Patrol", his fans since his days of performing in Las Vegas. Las Vegas, hmm? How appropriate. Taylor will be perform a song that he says has never been done before on this show - Ray Lamontagne's Trouble. It's a perfect slice of cheesy adult contemporary fare that Taylor is born to perform and he sounds very nice indeed. I make a mistake of opening my eyes and looking at him in a half-hump/mid-squat posture with his thighs pressed close together like he's trying to control himself because there's no toilet nearby. He remains in this posture throughout the entire song! I prefer that he stands still like he is doing now instead of twitching on stage like a spastic buttmonkey but he's still someone that can only be pleasant to listen to if I keep my eyes closed while he is performing.

The camera zooms in on the 42-year old Huff Granddaddy, the first age-shaver on the show, as Randy Randy complains about Taylor's wrong song choice. Huh? I will be most interested to know what Randy Randy considers a fine song choice for Taylor because I have a hunch that Taylor has performed Trouble many times in his stint as a poor man's DaddyKewpie in Las Vegas. Taylor, obviously told by Uncle Nigel's minions that read the web for better ways to make the chosen ones more likeable to electorate to control his lazy eye and his tendency to cheer for himself, says that he wants to "sing" tonight. Miss Paula agrees with Taylor because Taylor has a penis and Miss Paula is chemically and socially programmed to say yes to anyone with a penis. King Tut likes the song but thinks that Taylor is too much like Kewpie. Is that a bad thing? Desperate hausfraus part with their money easily, as the whole Kewpiemania has shown. Desperate hausfraus will let their husbands and children eat stale bread and drink plain water just so that they can save up for that ambulance they intend to rent and decorate with huge posters of Kewpie before they drive it to his concert. They will lock their children up at home with a month's supply of canned food while they take off across the country and use up the family nest egg to attend every one of Kewpie's concerts across America. If I am going to control Taylor's career, I would want his fans to be composed of thousands and thousands of such desperate hausfraus. Heck, if one of them ends up stabbing Taylor to death or something, I'd be glad to reissue all his CDs as commerative collectible items while auctioning his audition tapes on eBay for a huge amount of money!

Back to the show, anyone laughing at Miss Paula saying that Kewpie couldn't have pulled off that song? I know, I know, she's on dope and even when she's sober she can't find her way out of a plastic bag, but the idea of someone actually stupid enough to say on TV that Kewpie couldn't pull off that song is hilarious. The camera keeps zooming up and down Taylor's body and I find myself thinking that unlike Kewpie, he'll never get his fans saying that they know he has a twenty-seven inch penis just by staring at a photo of him on the cover of Rolling Stone. Maybe that's something to be glad about. Sleazie defends Taylor by saying that if Taylor's Kewpie then King Tut is Kelly Cluckson. Everyone acts like Sleazie has told a great joke when all Sleazie actually implied to King Tut was, "I know about you and Kellie, I know you made a cuckold out of me, you son of a bitch!" King Tut raises an eyebrow at Sleazie, conceding this round to Sleazie, as the man happily tells Taylor that he just has to stand up for himself, er, Taylor.

Mandisa is next and she'll be performing Mary Mary's Shackles (Praise You). Or, according to this show, Wanna Praise You. Anyway, Mandisa says that she has performed this song many times in church. She then comes out to tell people that they can be free of their addiction, lifestyles, and situations - not the wisest thing to say on TV when she's already drawing some minor fire from some quarters for being affiliated with a church well-known for its anti-gay stance - before performing up a storm. She mainly freely ad-libs while the background singers perform the chorus. I know many people would understandably find this performance too loud and too much of a screamfest for their taste, but I love this performance. Mandisa has a lot of energy and her performance actually makes me stand up and sway my shoulders along to her. The performance is quite pitchy at places but it has plenty of raw energy and bounce to keep me entertained to no end.

Randy Randy's theme of the day is obviously "I don't get the song choice" and he dutifully repeats that line again. Miss Paula babbles that there is "a new religion" and "forty million people have joined the Church of Mandisa". But won't that be wrong, as worshipping a false idol is a sin? Hmm. Cue some guy in the audience holding up a sign that says "Go Man Diva!". See? He doesn't get the potential insult in that nickname that Sleazie coined for Mandisa. Some people are so blissfully ignorant that way. Or maybe that guy is holding up the sign for Sleazie, hmm. Miss Paula wants Mandisa to show some "vulnerability" next week. Is that a subtle way of saying that Mandisa needs to perform Rush Rush for Miss Paula? King Tut finds the performance too indulgent for his liking. That's fair, I suppose. Sleazie takes over from Miss Paula and tells people to vote for Mandisa if they go to church to worship her. Mandisa is starting to look like she's worried about being ex-communicated by her church.

Sleazie , on the stool with Chris, gets Chris to admit that his version of I Walk The Line is more of the band Live's version than Johnny Cash's. I don't know why this is such an issue but I guess there are always weirdos that make issues out of nothing - these weirdos are part and parcel of the fandom, after all. Chris kills all of my love for him when he announces that he will be singing Creed's What If tonight. Eeuw, Creed. Sleazie really wants to get Chris in trouble, it seems by asking whether Chris "worship" Creed. Chris, like Mandisa, looks like he'd love to set Sleazie straight about the sins of worshipping false idols but he tactfully says that the audience doesn't need to know about him and Creed. Damn right they don't! Now I am feeling some of my Chris fangirlishness die because he likes Creed so much. Eeeuw, Creed. Sleazie subtly makes a dig at Chris about whether he can ever perform a non-rock song. If you don't keep tab on the fandom (I don't blame you if you choose not to), Chris is drawing fire from some quarters because he always perform rock songs on the show. You can perform R&B songs week after week or sound like DaddyKewpie day in and day out, but that's okay, but being a rocker however is a no-no. These same people that root for Kewpie or Huff Granddaddy to sing songs in the same way week in and week out will rag on Chris and Bo for doing what they do best. But like I've said earlier, you can never overestimate the overall stupidity of a huge slice of the Idol fandom. Chris promises that he has some cards up his sleeve.

Back to Chris, he has to perform What If when there are many songs that sound alike to Higher to choose from Creed's backlist. This performance sees him rocking things out but it's not a competition song. Chris ends up singing the same melodic refrain again and again. Do I enjoy watching this? Yeah, I do, if only because Chris looks so much hotter than Scott Stapp. I don't like the song but I do enjoy this performance because Chris in his element is a nice thing to behold. But I have to agree with Randy Randy about the song choice and Chris' vocals not being the best. Miss Paula insists that she's his biggest fan. Chris must feel really validated now. King Tut calls the performance indulgent and I agree with him on this, but King Tut then goes silly when he says that Creed wouldn't be seen dead on this show. Please. At the rate Scott Stapp's career is going, he'll be first in line to make a guest appearance on this show. King Tut then says that Chris should start doing something different.

See? It's the same bizarre argument. Cattle and Kellie can countrify everything and be praised for it, Ruben and Huff Granddaddy can do soul and R&B day in and day out and be praised, but rockers apparently have to conform and start being soul singers and what-not. And when they flunk at that, they'll be slammed for not being true to themselves. Sometimes I wonder why rockers even bother with this competition since they will never be seen as anything but a novelty. But then again, being on this show is better than being on Rock Star, I suppose. At least people know Bo's name while many people can't remember the name of the guy that became the new frontsman for INXS. King Tut thinks that Chris has gone too far by performing Creed. Considering how Creed was once a bestselling band in America and not, say Iron Maiden or Ozzy Osbourne, I fail to see how Creed's music is "too far out" for this show. Why is the Allman Brothers okay but not Creed? I don't get it. Poor Chris. The Live debacle is bizarre enough and now this.

Katharine is next and she announces that she'll be performing Christina Aguilera's The Voice Within. She's a fan of Xtina and she thinks this song is appropriate because she personally believes that we should all trust our inner voices. Or something. Katharine's performance is however pretty painful to listen to. The volume of her voice feels inconsistent as she dips between being loud to being almost inaudible without rhyme or reason. Her pitching is all over the place and when she tries to do all kinds of runs towards the end of the song, she ends up bleating like a goat into the microphone. This is definitely not a song that she should attempt.

Randy Randy however thinks that the song choice is great. Huh? He feels that she could have done more to make the song hers instead of sounding just like the original performer. Miss Paula however insists that Katharine shouldn't change a thing about the performance. Say it with me now, people: she's on crack, she can't help babbling that way. King Tut says simply that Katharine is the best tonight and she sounds nearly as good as Christina Aguilera. Yes, and when I sing, I sound just like Jessica Simpson.

Bucky announces that he's doing Tim McGraw's Real Good Man because he wants to try something different from his usual Southern rock sounds - and yes, the country genre is another different world altogether, snort - and also because he loves this song. He comes out with a tragic cowboy hat and proceeds to perform a decent version of that song. The thing about Bucky is, I like most of his performances so far but he always seem to be performing in a way that is too controlled. I can't help feeling that he can let loose and perform something really wild and crazy that will make Chris come off as a poseur. But will he ever bring that part of him out on this show, that is the question.

Randy Randy blabs about correct song choices, the usual phoned-in things he always babbles about whenever the camera is on him. Miss Paula agrees with Randy Randy but points out the problem with Bucky's diction. Miss Paula should know about diction, since most of time nobody understands a word she is slurring out on this show. King Tut says that he can't understand a word Bucky sang and he'd leave if he paid to watch this in a concert. He thinks that Bucky was "winging it" in the performance.

Next is "Princess Pee" - snigger - or, if you're not Sleazie dishing out backhandedly complimentary nicknames to everyone because he secretly despises this show, Paris. She squeaks that she'll be performing Beyoncé's Work It Out. Why? Because she wants to dance and act like a kid to this song. Oh Paris, first Midnight Train To Georgia is about her family in Georgia and now Work It Out is about dancing like she's seven again. Is Paris really intellectually stunted or is she just trying to be cute? Her performance is predictably bizarre, like that of a trained monkey that will perform on cue without knowing what she is really performing. Is it possible to be talented but at the same time completely vacuous? Paris comes off like some stage child robotically going through well-rehearsed sexy-moves that she barely has any understanding of on some Mickey Mouse Club type of performance, singing lines like "But I get a knock on my door/I know it's yours for sure/We can't wait for the bedroom/So we just hit the floor" like she's genuinely convinced that those lines are all about dancing like happy kiddies.

The metamorphosis of Paris from a squeaky helium-voiced girl dressed up like she's playing the daughter in a G-rated family sitcom to this child-like creature gyrating her hips suggestively and singing about her lover knocking on her door at night is too disconcerting to me. Paris is a lot like Kellie in a way - they are both putting on an act when they are performing, only there are some calculation and intelligence behind Kellie's charade while I'm not sure that there is anything going on in Paris' brain that isn't put inside by her parents. I can easily see Mama Bennett ordering Paris around like Paris is some vacant-eyed dumb bunny: "Alright, girl, now shake those hips and Momma will buy you a big teddy bear! That's right, girl, now bend over, look at Uncle Tito over there, and lick your lips like you want a big cotton candy. That's right, hmm-mmm, that's my good girl Paris!"

Randy Randy thinks that the performance was the best of the night. Um, okay. Miss Paula points out that Paris said that she wanted to be a kid but her moves on stage might get the Pussycat Dolls calling on her soon to start their show. She says that like it's an "awesome" thing. I love it when this show starts actively calling underaged girls to behave like foxy minxes on stage. King Tut however thinks that Paris is like some little girl pretending to be Beyoncé. It looks like his impending fight with Sleazie after the show ends has made King Tut sober and therefore more sensible than usual. Sleazie calls the dancing of "Princess Pee" that of the "Randy Randy school". See? He hates this show and everyone on it, especially when you-know-who is doing you-know-what to you-know-who.

Hello, Elliott. He's closing the show and he intends to do so by performing Gavin DeGraw's I Don't Wanna Be. Or I Don't Want To Be according to this show as it attempts to teach some of the denizens of its official forums how to spell and write properly. He kind of offers a challenge to Bo by saying that sure, Bo rocked the song but Elliott is going to bring his own brand of soul to that song. Hi-ya! I don't know what's up with his "I am dying while sitting on my toilet" spastic twitchings that he attempt to pass off as "dancing", but baby, this is divine. The band has plenty to do with giving this performance a new jolt of life that will guarantee that no one will compare this performance to Bo's because it is fine in its own right, but Elliott's singing is darned fine. He loses some steam towards the last few lines and croaks out what is supposed to be a glory note finish but I'm in. If I say anything more I'll be venturing into crazy-lady TMI territory so let's not go there. Thank you, Elliott, for giving me a reason to say that watching this episode is worth the time. By the way, if you replay this performance on TV again and again - not that I will admit to doing that, of course - you may see this creepy violinist lady moving her lips and thrusting her bosoms back and forth to the camera. I'm afraid to ask what she is doing.

Randy Randy and Miss Paula are all praises and King Tut agrees about the singing but he points out that the dancing and the arrangement are "hideous". Oh, whatever, as if the arrangement is his fault. Elliott looks like a beefier poor man's version of Adam Sandler but when he sings, I think I'm in love.

Sleazie announces that the lines will be opened soon - keep the money coming in, kiddies! - and the show recaps the performances of the night. Bucky and Katharine sound ten times better in their rehearsals (the recap montage is made from rehearsal footages), hmm. The Ten come out to join Sleazie in the ritual G-rated orgy of self-love and self-congratulatory hugs and kisses and the credits roll. Best of the night? Elliott, Mandisa, and Taylor.



Results night. Whoo-pee. Ryan "My Hips Don't Lie" Sleazebag talks about the Ten facing the "wrath of the judges" the night before (translation: King Tut ran around the house that previous night trying to avoid the things that Sleazie was throwing at him) as the camera pans on the faces of the Ten. One will see his or her dreams of stardom being ended tonight, he says, and the credits roll.

Here comes Sleazie! I think I see Jessica Sierra in the audience when the camera pans on the crowd but I'm not so sure. There's also a close-up on a creepy white-faced guy who looks like Kewpie on testosterone jabs and I don't want to even try to guess who that guy is. Meanwhile, Sleazie pays someone (a woman, of course) to hold up a sign in the audience saying that he's her American Idol. To be nice, I'll pretend to buy that charade for now. Sleazie now babbles about how hard it must be to be booted from the show after the Ten have made it so far into this competition. It must be tougher to know that you are booted because America is in love with stupid blondes rather than you.

To fill up time, out comes a clip of the Ten going to a sneak-preview of that Ice Age 2 movie. Halfway through, a guy wearing a Scream mask comes out and stabs Ace to death. How sad. And next, the Ford clip where the Ten lifelessly meanders their way through Ziggy Marley's Give A Little Love as they act like ambassadors of the street reforming criminals and punks by giving them ice creams. Yes, real ice creams. Along the way there is plenty of spastic dancing from Taylor to push this clip from "mildly amusing" to "cheese overload". But Bucky looks pretty hot playing that guitar. Ahem. Sleazie then walks among the audience and pauses before this ragged-looking soccer mom type of woman with huge thighs that is holding a sign that says "Soul Man Taylor". See? Who says I'm making unfair overgeneralizations about Taylor's fans? Sleazie asks the kiddies watching this show to head over to the official website kellieshipsdontlie.com and watch all the Ford videoclips for a chance to bring their huge-thighed mothers along with them to the finale. Another group of hausfraus, this bunch with big-ass Krystle Carrington silver hair and looking an undignified side of forty, hold up a sign that says "Ace makes me flush". Yes, I feel the urge to flush the toilet too every time I hear him sing. Hey, soccer momsies, shouldn't it be blush or flushed in the face instead of flush? No wonder the forums devoted to this show are overrun with illiterate crazies.

And now, since we have seventeen minutes more to kill, a special "live" performance by Shakira and Wycleff Jean, two people whom Sleazie calls "the epiphany of success today". Yes, they are so successful that Shakira has to reissue her latest CD with a pathetic pandering salsa track that is a watered down version of La Tortura in order to boost its sales while Wycleff Jean... well, who knows what he is doing nowadays. "Live" in this case actually means "lip-synched" because that's what our two epiphanies of success are doing with their performance of Hips Don't Lie. Hey, Paris, see Shakira? Now that is sexy shimmering and gyrating of one's hips. It works better when the performer knows exactly what she is doing and isn't afraid to be honest about it. Still, a part of me is quite sad to see Shakira sink so low as to play the role of a South American bellydancer because she was a jolly good pop-rock artist before she finds herself playing an oversexed Latina temptress to sell her English CDs.

And now, a recap of the previous night. And then, Sleazie takes what seems like ten hours to reveal that the bottom three is Ace, Katharine, and Lisa. Hmm, it seems like Ace isn't as hot as he should be. No wonder King Tut quickly revises his ideal three to Chris, Taylor, and Kellie shortly after he first yakked about his predictions on the last three standing. It looks like gay porn may indeed be Ace's true calling. Or maybe not - yet, heh - as Ace is sent back as safe.

But before Sleazie reveals the boot, he solicits the always useful thoughts from the judges about the bottom two. King Tut now revises his opinion by saying that Katharine's performance was nowhere as good as he thought it was at first now that he has watched it on TV. Sure, he says that now, snort. He thinks that anyone of the Ten could be in the bottom two because they were all terrible. Still, he has no problems with this bottom two because America knows best. Miss Paula babbles. It seems to me like she's blaming the fans of those two ladies for not voting enough to keep them from the bottom two. Maybe Miss Paula will be pleased if the fans of those ladies go on a rampage and force everyone at gunpoint to vote for Lisa and Katharine. As for Randy Randy, anyone cares what he thinks? He's so irrelevant and banal it's not even funny. Sleazie now asks those two ladies how they are feeling. Lisa tells America to drop dead and Katharine says that she now obviously knows that only the deaf and the demented vote on this show. No, really, what do you think they say?

And finally, finally, all that waiting leads to a boot is actually very predictable. Lisa is going home. Come see Lisa's eulogy video, everybody! Come see Lisa perform Because Of You so much better than she did in the previous night! See Paris weep as if Lisa is about to be dragged out and clobbered by a group of thugs, and then see Kellie try miserably to shed fake tears when she realizes that Uncle Nigel has directed the cameraman to focus on her during Lisa's final sing-out! Lisa takes her exit like a pro, no doubt because she has prepared herself for the inevitable since last week, and the show moves on in a season that is fast starting to fizzle out into tediousness.