On last night’s fitful episode, we saw the dreams of teenagers laid out bare and glorious in front of us. And we saw the dreams of a contestant hoisted onto Ryan Seacrest’s petard and bled to completion. As with every major event in life, last night’s show began with a group number. The group numbers are always grim and embarrassing, but aren’t they especially awful this year? I mean because the contestants are so awful. There’s nothing exciting or silly-fun about watching these idiots shuffle and lurch across the stage doing jerky, soap-bubble choreography. It’s just like… it’s sort of aggressive, as if the show knows how bad it is. “Ha ha, and you’re still watching. So here, you pathetic glutton, eat up this slop, c’mon shovel it in, look look, Tim Urban’s snapping his fingers and pretending to sing, that’s it fatty, eat through the tears, choke it down. Oh here’s Andrew Garcia doing a bee-bop routine with a big dumb grin on his face, cram it down that gullet of yours, you helpless slob.” And you’re just sitting on the couch, weeping and weeping, bits tumbling and dribbling out of your mouth. You are a filthy, pathetic creature. But you cannot stop. You have pulled over to the side of the road of life and you are eating that American Idol super value meal and you are crying. Yours is a terrible shame. Life is a terrible shame. And I’m pretty sure that’s not how people are supposed to feel watching American Idol group numbers. But oh well. We can talk for a second about Miley Stinkvirus. You know what she did? You know what she’s actively trying to do? She is trying to rebrand herself, from Teen Sensation to Serious Artist. But Miley was born in a rain barrel, just like her daddy, and really buys into those ads that called Ruby Tuesdays “simple, fresh American dining.” American dining . Sounds classy! To that end, Miley and Miley’s people (read: Dad) believe certain things about what it means to be a Serious Artist that are just hilariously off. You know, because you always see Fiona Apple sitting at a white piano in a white gown while fog rolls around her ankles. So that’s what Miley did and after a spell she got up from the beautiful piano playing and really got into the emotion of the song, doing some awkward head banging and just trying to seem wild and free and just so musical . To call it an epic failure would be to call My Lai an “oopsy.” After Miley got in her very classy, understated half-mile long platinum Hummer limo and sped off and away forever, it was time for Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato to sing. See the two of them starred together in a Disney movie called Camp Rock , and there are maybe dating rumors, but they don’t really mean anything because Joe Jonas is gayer than Olivia Newton-John’s bed linens. They are just a showbiz pair, a platonic Tracy & Hepburn of the New Age. I don’t know what was going on — if it was a strange theme or something — but Joe & Demi also sang a serious song. It was basically the same thing as Miley’s tune, just with less fog and piano and more of Demi Lovato’s singing hand. You know the singing hand. The non-mic-holding hand that’s just all “uhhhuhhhooohhuuh…. this is what singing looks liiiiike…” It was very sad, though I will admit that Demi really didn’t sound bad at all. Joe Jonas is a whispery wimble of a wimp and didn’t leave much of an impact. I mean, after all, he’s more accustomed to people impacting him. (HAM & EGGS!) And that was that. Then Ryan dimmed the lights and began to unbutton Tim Urban’s shirt and a gasp went through the audience and then the Stage Manager came on the loudspeaker and was all “Uh, Ryan. Ryan, no. It’s not that part of the show. That’s your little aftershow thing. We’re still live.” Ryan smiled, embarrassed. He slowly backed away from Tim. He cleared his throat. “Your, uh, bott— ahem — bottom three, ladies and gentlemen.” Then the Jonas Brothers walked out and the Stage Manager said “Goddamnit, no not that bottom three, the bottom three in the competition. Jesus Christ. It’s like Nathan Lane exploded in here.” After Ryan did a hold-for-editing for a second, he began again and announced the bottom three. They were: Joe, Nick, & Kevin Jonas Paige Miles Katie Stevens (yayyyy!) Tim Urban (gasssssp) I was of the mind that Timmy Tim-Tim Urbane would soar back up toward the top after last week’s bottom three scare, but I guess not. I guess I have overestimated the throbbing thumb-votes of teen texting America. I guess teen girls are really more into the whole Michael Lynche look these days. The girls are really going apeballs over your cousin, Phil Dweezy. (Your Aunt Karen tells me he’s talking about moving to California. Can you believe that? Little Philly, in California ? I told Karen, I said ‘Keeks, I think you should support him in whatever he wants to do, you know he’s getting to the age where he ought to be on his own, but California, that’s awful far.’ And I said what about Philadelphia, that’s pretty close and they got lots of music there, plenty of rock groups he could join. But I don’t know if she’ll listen.) Anyway, it seems that Tim Urban’s sexy days are numbered on this show, which is fine. It really is. We’ll just have to gawp at… shudder … Casey… Johnso… NO I CAN’T DO IT. I can’t do it. We will gawp at no one. No more gawping when Tim Oiban goes home. Which will be soon. The Katie Stevens bottoming was punishment for her being awful and boring, I aver. I hope she gets the boot and is put in the robot junkyard, because her model is flawed. But of course in the end it was Paige who was given her walking papers. Good, that’s fine, that’s fair. She sounded good enough in her last hurrah song, though it didn’t matter. Simon had bluntly told her before she sang that no matter how she sounded, they were not going to waste their precious, precious save on her. Oohhh The Save. What an exciting new element it brings to the show! Not! Schwing! I’m gonna hurl! I don’t even own a gun! I don’t think I have much else to say about this. The Miley fog is rolling in across the moors and I’ve got to sit down and play my white piano, here in my gown. I’ll weep and weep and weep, playing the Idol theme tune over and over again until it is next week and I can eat my next delicious meal. Can’t wait to see you there.
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American Idol: Miles to Go Before We Sleep [Recaps]
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