I have Idol fatigue. Do you? No? Are you panting for more? Well, that's what you're going to get tonight. More. Not better or different. Not fresh or unusual. Just more.

Tonight's theme: Songs that would sound like Christmas songs, if they had Christmas lyrics. Cruise ship standards. Brat pack hits.

Tonight's mentor: Jamie Foxx.



KRIS ALLEN: Let's start out the show with a little hysterical hyperbole. Jamie Foxx loves Kris Allen so much! Kris Allen is his number one. If this doesn't work out, Jamie Foxx will marry Kris Allen and take him away from all this meaningless drudgery. As if to underscore his deep love of Kris, Jamie Foxx stops talking and grabs his own breasts. Kris sings "The Way You Look Tonight" in a super-boring, mind-numbing karaoke way. The judges rip out their hair and canter around the stage, rhapsodizing about his impeccable phrasing and charm. Randy, Kara, and Paula tear their clothes and pile ashes on themselves in humble adoration. They're not worthy. They abased themselves by urinating on each other in shame before him. Simon calls it, appropriately, a little wet.

ALLISON IRAHETA: Jamie Foxx LOVES Allison. She is his favorite, for sure. She sings "Someone to Watch Over Me" in a manner that would be ludicrous and repulsive in a 27 year old, but in a 17 year old is apparently precocious and inspiring? Or that's what the judges say. The judges peel their skins off and create little Allison dolls to sell to the crowd, decorating them with their own teeth and hair. It's an Allison love-fest. She is the best ever.

After the break, Matt Giraud will sing "My Funny Valentine." Can I go to bed yet? I swear I will put my eye out with this laptop if he winks.

MATT GIRAUD: Matt is like, hey, I wore a fedora before a fedora was appropriate. Yeah, that's not a point of pride, fool. Jamie Foxx takes one listen and then tears off his head and fills it with candy for Matt Giraud. That's the least he can do to prove the intensity of his love: create a bloody, brainspeckled candy dish for Matt's personal use. Matt sings pinkly and with a weird forcefulness, like he's trying to convince us of something related to the border with Mexico. Surprisingly, the judges actually manage to critique him. Maybe America will be allowed to actually vote him off this week! He was brought back and selected in the wild card show, then saved by the "save," and now... oh... wait. Simon calls him absolutely brilliant. I have a feeling Matt will be back to wear his Fedora yet again, maybe during techno-pop week or "white guy brawling songs" week.

DANNY GOKEY: Ace mentor Jamie Foxx needs to creepily violate Gokey's personal space in order to make him be more pure and real. Seriously, he like gets right up in his grill. He reports that Gokey's breath is fresh. Weird moment. Awkward. Gokey looks like he feels hit on, the opposite of pure and real. He sings "I'm Gonna Love You" and sounds like an old man. At first I think he will be denied his favorite technique of shouting his way through from the chorus to the end, but then he gets hollering about "rain or shine" and peels his lips back for the big ending as usual. Randy pulls out a record contract and begs Danny to sign on, eager to do an entire album of just minutely diverse versions of this same song. Kara wraps her neck around and around a stripper pole, seductively mouthing, "Gokaaaay." Paula demands that Danny suckle on one of her teats. Simon looooooves Danny.

DUDE, AM I CRAZY: These performances are just so completely unremarkable. Are they just setting us up for Adam Lambert? What can he possibly do to top the way the judges perceive the other contestants have performed tonight? What adjectives and analogies are left to describe him?

ADAM LAMBERT: Adam is going to sing "Feeling Good." Jamie Foxx predicts that our heads will fall off. Adam wears a white satin suit, rides in on the glowing red stairs, and delivers the only performance of the night that couldn't have been found on any cruise ship in the Caribbean. A little Freddy Mercury. The judges' heads all fall off. And the show is over.

Best performance: Adam Lambert
Worst performance: Matt Giraud
Going home: Matt Giraud

Or whatever. Seriously, the relentless lovefest is getting so old. Am I wrong?

Labels: adam lambert, american idol, idol, recal, top five

Ryan introduces the show by pondering aloud whether anyone will have a nervous breakdown on stage. I think they have an loony bin paddy wagon on standby for Brooke at all times, just in the hopes that she will start foaming and slapping at people. Ryan reminds us how Neil Diamond is, in the words of the montage voiceover, "relentless." And of course, with songs like "America" to choose from -- well, can I skip tonight? No?

At the mentoring sessions, Neil Diamond is not wearing tinsel fringe. Downright weathered. Almost In fact, he looks a little bit like Neil Young. Now that would be a mentor. Glarp! Neil encourages the Idols to be joyful.

JASON CASTRO: First up to be mentored by this strange new Neil Diamond who wears tasteful brown suede is Jason. He shows us he's bringing his M game by immediately forgetting the lyrics to "Forever in Blue Jeans." Forever in oh, crap, my dreadlock fell off in my duck confit. Jason puts in a competent performance with his acoustic guitar and tonight the string section is in business casual. During this song for the first time I can kind of imagine Jason Castro having a future on the adult contemporary charts. Of course, he is wearing blue jeans. Never one to miss a visual metaphor. Tonight the idols will be judged after their second performance, so we don't get to hear from Snip, Snap and Snape until after the second song.

DAVID COOK: Slinging his electric guitar (the white one with the letters AC on it), befriended by a sweet-looking amp stack, and wearing a black business suit with AC appliqued on the front, David sings "I'm Alive." Neil Diamond liked him alright, and the song went fine. However, when Ryan leaps up onstage and addresses him as "DC" -- and I realize that *that* is what all of this AC nonsense is about. I am flattened into powder by the sudden crushing volume of his toolishness. I mean, he had AC emblazoned on his lapel, with, like red gothic letters. Has there ever BEEN such a vile chunk of excrement on this stage? I mean, I can't even look, people. ACDC my dog's puckered bung.

BROOKE WHITE: Brooke asks Neil if he's a hugger or a hand shaker. Uh, he's a serial decapitator. Step up. Brooke sings "I'm a Believer" in such a happy, schmappy, favorite-eccentric-aunt-singing-karaoke way that I feel bad already, just anticipating what vicious criticism will be leveled by Simon Cowell. It was a pretty bad show -- the key too low, the arrangement too reminiscent of the end credits of Shrek, and she played the guitar like she was trying to saw a log in half.

DAVID ARCHULETA: Neil Diamond looks at David Archuleta like he's a lemon bar lightly dusted with powdered sugar. Calls him a prodigy. And David sings "Sweet Caroline" just like you'd expect. There's a point in the middle somewhere when he attempts a fancy run on "they never would" that kind of gets away from him, and I'd almost swear it was edited just then. Like they let him have a tiny bit of a do-over or clipped out some of the mess. I'm sure not, I mean, this show is nothing if not authentic, right? Evidence that DA is a great big green healthy plant notwithstanding.

SYESHA MERCADO: In her mentoring session, she had Neil Diamond clapping and hugging. She sings "Hello Again" with long straight hair, a simple navy dress, and bare feet. She looks beautiful, and she actually delivers the words of the song as if she speaks English and understands what she's singing, unlike the last four screechers who might as well have been reciting "LA LA LA Neil Diamond wrote this song and we all know the words!"

After this round is over, Ryan brings out the contestants and lets the judges give their thoughts to this point. Randy burbles incomprehensibly. Paula apologizes for not being able to read and write, and then critiques Jason Castro rather harshly on two separate songs. When reminded that she was supposed to critique the first song only, she says, "I thought you sang twice!" Then she gets confused and starts rubbing her crib sheet under her armpits. Randy and Simon jumped in to helpfully say, "WHICH WAS YOUR FAVORITE, PAULA? YOUR FAVORITE?" as if she is deaf and ninety. Simon blasts them all and warns them they'd better improve on round two. Can't wait. I hate this episode, it's dreadfully boring. The commercials for "So You Think You Can Dance" are more interesting than this show.

JASON CASTRO: Jason sings "September Morn" on the "special moment" stool. I think he does really very well. Not that he interprets the lyrics or anything, but again, I can see that kind of Harry Connick Jr. audience going for him all of a sudden. This guy could be, like, absolutely mainstream. PLUS I had another brainwave on my endless search for who Jason Castro looks like: Emily Watson. Believe it. Randy didn't like it. Paula thought it was too safe and recommends Jason start to fight for this. Simon calls it forgettable and tells Jason they don't know who he is.

DAVID COOK: Douchey McToolerson sings "All I Really Need is You" with an acoustic guitar and does a fine job. Bit much on the "this microphone is made of opiates and I melt before it" pantomime. Nobody cares about this song. It gets loud, it gets quiet, it is executed by someone who is wearing a girly necklace. Randy is a big fan. Paula feels like she's already looking at the American Idol. Simon thought the first song was okay, the second song brilliant. Could have been on the radio this year.

BROOKE WHITE: Why aren't they letting them change clothes? Brooke's clothes were awful the first time, now they're practically offensive. I don't even know how to describe the grey, damaged, multilayered moist towellette she's got on top, but I do know it's belted. On the interview stools, Ryan reveals she has a lyric written on her arm. She sings "I am Myself" changing "New York City" to "Arizona" on the advice of Neil Diamond. Randy thought it was hard and she did a good job, Paula thought she connected with the audience and made herself vulnerable. Simon said that this the Brooke we like, a million times better than the first song.

DAVID ARCHULETA: This time up, Archuleta sings kind of a Sting-ish version of "America." His voice squeaks once. He says "of thee I sing" twice. Then he ends with "let freedom ring." I have to go outside now and take a wire brush to my eyes and ears. If I try and do it in the living room, my husband will stop me. These images and sounds must be eradicated. The judges crawl up on stage and try to grasp the hem of his garment. Look, I'm not saying his arrangements weren't well managed tonight. But remind yourself: they're not his arrangements. Nowhere is this "make it your own" fallacy so apparently fallacious as with David Archuleta's "choices."

SYESHA MERCADO: She sings "Thank the Lord for the Nighttime." Still in bare feet. Reminds me of her Andrew Lloyd Webber performance. The judges approve, but Simon predicts that she's in trouble tonight.

Here's the truth: The only performers who are actually comfortable on stage are Syesha and Jason. To some extent, David Cook seems comfortable and confident, but I think he's just doing a good job masking his worry that he will be exposed as a fraud. David Archuleta and Brooke White are white quivering ganglions of fear in the spotlight. Therefore they should go home. I'm tired of watching them tremble and quake.

Best Performance: Syesha with "Hello Again."
Worst Performance: Brooke with "I'm a Believer."
Going home: Brooke.

This show could very well come down to the two Davids. If it does, my boredom may reach out of the grey miasma that surrounds me and strangle me in its cool depths. But I will try to persevere.

Labels: american idol, neil diamond, recap, summary, television, top five