Top 5- Most.Boring.Show.Ever... Until Paula Fucks Up and Causes a VFTW Victory!

This week may be one of the most painful weeks of American Idol ever. Whoever created the Neil Diamond theme week should be boiled alive in Brooke White’s acidic tears. At least last week we had some really fun moments and some decent performances. This week, every single performance was bad or, at best, mediocre. And only one of those “bad” performances was VFTW worthy (of course, from Brooke). The only saving grace to this show was a train wreck of a moment from Paula when she wasn’t paying attention and slipped up that she doesn’t watch any of the performances. Classic! More on that later. But just so we’re keeping track here: The producers want us to pick a current, relevant pop star. To do so, they make them sing Neil Diamond, Mariah Carey, Dolly Parton, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Beatles songs. I cannot stress enough how idiotic the producers of this show are.

The first performance for each contestant flies by in a blur, and none of them are good. Jason Castro sings “Forever in Blue Jeans” in the typical Jason style: pleasant but too boring to be good. David Cook screams “Alive” much worse than her normally does. His growling isn’t in the right key and he slurs all of his words. Brooke White’s “I’m a Believer” is an instant VFTW classic and one of her worst ever, if not one of the worst performances by any contestant this season. It starts off shaky and never gets better, with demented bouncing and creepy smiles to accent Brooke’s awkward delivery. Touchdown! Gaspy Pimpchuleta’s reworking of “Sweet Caroline” is atrocious. Not that I care too much for the original, but he completely redid the melody and made it a Sesame Street 90’s Cosby Show style version with extra cheese. For real, that was just odd and painful. Lastly, Syesha Mercado sings “Hello Again” decently until she starts screeching the chorus in the same off-key manor she always does. I cringe and then quickly fall asleep, missing anything else she does. She might have gotten naked for all I know, But knowing Syesha, she was just eating some dry, white toast while drinking some 2% milk.

What do the judges think of round one? I can barely keep up, but Randy seems to like the Davids and Syesha, while calling Brooke “better than last week” and Jason “okay.” Paula then provides us with the best moment of the season. She says that Jason’s second song wasn’t good enough and that his 2 songs show that he isn’t fighting hard enough to get into the top 4. Wait. What? Is Paula reading off a script drunkenly and not realizing that the contestants have only sung once so far? The producers must be shitting in their pants right now. Paula then keeps going about Jason’s second performance, and no one knows what to say. She basically just outed the fact that the judges take notes at the dress rehearsals and use those to comment without even bothering to watch what happens with the real performances. Paula, you’re awesome! Paula STILL doesn’t even understand what’s going on when Ryan and Simon carefully try to do damage control and explain that the contestants have only sung once. She’s on the sauce, people, and I’m loving it. Too bad this is the only highlight of the night and I have to watch more shitastic Neil Diamond performances now. Paula, at the last minute, tries to cover by saying she was commenting on David Cook’s performance, but then calls David “good.” So it still makes no sense since she told Jason his performances were both bad. I love Paula so much. Simon quickly comments that they were basically all bad, with choice criticisms like Brooke being “a nightmare”, Gaspy “amateurish”, and Jason “forgettable.”

The second performances are no better, but the judges get to comment on them for longer periods of time, thus giving them precedence I guess. Jason Castro sings “September Morn” and it is Syesha-style boring. You can tell he doesn’t even want to be here anymore. Not that I can blame him. I understand, Jason. Randy calls it ok. Paula says he took the same liberty on both songs and he needs to not be so safe. Listen to Paula, Jason. Get totally wasted again. You’re far too alert tonight. Simon says that this is not the Jason they put in the competition. That’s right, this Jason snuck on the set and was mistakenly cast. They let him stay when he provided the crew with free weed. Not a bad deal, honestly.

Cookie is back with “All I Really Need is You.” He’s still just as bad as he was in the first song. And it’s truly awful. I gave him his props when he did a good job with songs in the past, but this week, he’s just excruciatingly bad. He’s a third-rate Daughtry clone with off-key bleating and absolutely no charisma. Surprise, surprise, the judges don’t seem to notice. Well, Paula doesn’t seem to notice anything, but you’d think the other 2 wouldn’t be able to pimp the Large Headed one after that. Guess I was wrong. Randy says that David rocked the house. Paula says she is looking at the American Idol. It’s true, she’s having a staring contest with the Idol logo behind David, but he takes it as a compliment that he is the winner. Simon says that he was brilliant. Simon really overuses this word. I mean, one day in the life of Simon, he must have a “brilliant” breakfast, a “brilliant” walk on the beach, a “brilliant” shower, and a “brilliant” nap. Wait, who am I kidding? Change that to “brilliant” session of staring at himself in the mirror while masturbating and “brilliant” chain smoking binge. That’s better.

Brooke tries to redeem herself with “I Am I Said.” She does do a lot better, partially because she writes the lyrics on her hand. Sneaky Skeletor! But it’s still not great, as her funny faces are priceless and the squeaking she does in the chorus is humorous. Randy says she did a nice job. Paula says the song shows the vulnerability everyone loves. And Simon says it wasn’t incredible but a million times better than the first song.

Gaspy takes on “America” and is just as bad as he was the first time. He should definitely lose any consideration of being the front-runner after this giant dump on the stage. His fake spirit is grating and the American flag behind him is nauseating. It’s not funny and fake like when Kristy Lee Cook exploited patriotism. It’s just kind of… painful. I think his dad is letting him out of his cage too early before performances. After Jeff sees that David is no longer leading on DialIdol, he may have his water and bread privileges taken away. Poor puppet. For some reason though, the judges love it. Randy calls it in the zone and Simon says that David “ticked all the right boxes.” OK, so maybe his dad will let him have the water and the bread, but he might have to sleep in the cage an hour early to think about what he’s done.

Last, and most boring, is Syesha. Her version of “Thank the Lord for the Nighttime” is probably better than most of the other performances tonight, but it’s still classic snoozefest Syesha. She’s doing fine until the chorus when she loses it by doing which of the following:
a) Screeching out high notes she can’t hit.
b) Screeching out high notes she can’t hit.
c) Screeching out high notes she can’t hit.
d) All of the above.
The answer is clearly B. Duh. She’s screeching out high notes she can’t hit. She sounds awful when she does this, but she insists on doing it anyway. “One Rock and Roll Too Many” played on all of her strengths, while this song just makes her seem mediocre again. Randy likes that Syesha is finally realizing who she is (the token black contestant who has only made it this far based on her race?). Paula calls her Brooke and likes her theatrical place. Oh, Paula. Brooke is the VFTW pick. This is Syesha. You are so delightfully wasted! Simon calls this the “strangest show we’ve ever done.” Yep, that might be right if you replace “strangest” with “most pathetic.” He also says Syesha may be in trouble tonight because there are only 5 left and she didn’t have a memorable song. Simon knows exactly what he’s doing, and saying that just earned her an extra million or so pity votes to keep her safe. Interesting. They must really want Jason or Brooke to go.

I would call Brooke’s “I’m a Believer” the single worst performance of the night. I would call Archuleta the overall worst of the night. So who will leave? Cook is safe, even in the death spot (the person who sings 2nd has ALWAYS gone home on final 5 nights). Syesha is safe due to Simon’ comment. And even though I would love to see Gaspy in the *GASP* bottom 2 *GASP* because he’s *GASP* so obnoxious *GASP*, it’s fairly obvious we’ll be seeing Brooke and Jason on the stools. Hopefully VFTW’s entertainment votes will win out and keep Brooke around past Jason. If we don’t, hell we’ll probably be supporting Jason next week anyway, so it’ll all work out. And Brooke’s classic meltdown is around the corner anyway. I’d like to see Brooke stay, but since it’s not likely, I’ll prepare for her collapse and at least cheer that Brooke is partially responsible for Carly Smithson’s wonderful demise.

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