Tonight’s episode of Idol can go straight to hell. I do not enjoy sitting through the tedium of watching Group Night come together if I’m going to be denied the satisfaction of watching the biggest jerks of the night fall apart onstage. It felt like an episode of Project Runway without the runway show. We didn’t even get to see the full clip, teased more than once, of Seacrest panicking and pushing people out of the way backstage. What was he trying to get to? (Fill in your own joke here.)
Picking up from last night’s episode, Symone Black was, of course, okay. She didn’t walk off the stage so much as black out and then fall off. Of all the judges, Steven Tyler was the only one who didn’t come down from the table to Symone’s aid, which is either cold-blooded or simply incredibly realistic of him. In the aftermath of that particular elimination round, she made it through, but Ethan Jones and Lauren Mink were eliminated. I felt bad for Lauren because the commercials for tonight’s episode implied that the judges loved her.
So then it was time for everyone to group up. The producers showed clips of what a hell of a time the singers have had with Group Night in the past, which served as a reminder that nobody from Idol has ever been a notable Group Night pain in the ass and gone on to win the entire show. So you’d think that people like Alisha Bernhart would know better and just go with the flow, but no.
You may remember Alisha for two reasons: one, talking way too much about being a cop (who doesn’t love an aggressive yet defensive member of the police force?), and two, not budging when it came to her song choice. Who loves “Joy To The World” that much? Just quit being an idiot and join a group.
Another pain in the neck from the night was Amy Brumfield, the girl who lives in a tent in the woods yet possesses an extremely unnatural pair of eyebrows. Amy was sick during Group Night, and as a sick person myself, I can sympathize, but as a sick person myself, I just wanted to shake her and tell her to get over it. Being sick and staying up late singing is not going to kill you, girl. Just suck it up and deal with it. The guy who had a kidney stone was less of a baby than she was.
But it wasn’t just the girls who were the flies in the Group Night ointment. HeeJun was part of a group that was being dominated by a Hitler in a cowboy hat named Richie Law. Richie reasoned with everyone by saying, “We’re going to do this my way, and that’s it,” which is disappointing, because he could have said something like “I AM the Law!” His group didn’t seem pleased by his decision, least of all HeeJun, who turned out to be quite the little shit-talker. “Phillip had a kidney stone. Cowboy had a brain stone,” he said. I maybe wouldn’t have minded if the person who took charge wasn’t someone who sang into a pretend microphone. As someone who often sings into a fake microphone (handheld, or, after my husband confiscates that one, a headset), I can say that people who sing into fake microphones should not be trusted in leadership positions.
And there was more of that. Some people stayed up late and cried; some didn’t. Some others bossed; others sulked. But after all the sturm und drang, we were left with no performances tonight, no payoff. We were left with Hollywood blue balls this week. And it makes me want to throw up in a bag.
Stray observations:
- Symone Black’s dad is not a stage dad. He just wants to be a “famous mentor.” Uh-huh.