So Paula is the worst judge, is that the takeaway message from tonight's episode? Funny how when Idol debuted, she was the nice one, the one with name recognition. She developed into the softie, maybe the weird clapper. Now she's just the unstable one, and you can read into that however you please, lawyers—you can't touch me, since we were treated to a montage of her waffling over endless contestants. More irritating than that, though, was how she turned one girl's sob story—the recent death of her father—into the Watch Paula Feel hour. We all knew she was going to cry while the girl sang, and maybe get choked up afterwards, but she really outdid herself, running away from the table after the audition.
If Simon isn't the best judge of singing, he's at least the best judge of character. You could tell before she even started singing that he loathed the dead-eyed beauty queen, and then said what we were all thinking: that she's "the most annoying person ever" and that he didn't want her to sing well. But don't worry Simon, we know she'll be a big whore in Hollywood and that will be fun. He also softened for the chick who fell on her ass for him, after he made her reassure the judges that she wasn't a joke. Even Nathan, the smartest 16-year-old on the face of the planet was no match for our Simon, despite his promise of coming readily armed with witty retorts.
While Idol is obviously the only competition of note going on this evening, I am looking forward to Hollywood week, which, according to the ads shown during the Superbowl, is going to be better than ever. Or something.
Grade: C
—That guy who was wearing the rim on a chain must have slipped the producers some cash because he got a lot of screentime for a dude whose audition we never saw.
—The biker nurse (hot) disproved our previous theory that singing Janis Joplin will never get you far. However Joshua the glass cutter demonstrated that singing Queen is never a good idea either. I know he made to Hollywood but I think it was just because the judges felt bad about monkeying around with him so much.
—The kid who lives in his car, I regret to tell you, will not make it past Hollywood. We can hope that someone will make him read Into the Wild and he'll go home to his parents.
—I feel that I must acknowledge the Asian girl who sang "Glamorous" but I'm not sure how, so have at it.