American Idol S8 Ep 9 Cry and Cut

Darlings, were truer words ever spoken by a less talented reality TV contestant than the ones above? And last night’s AI proved yet again that while the tears may flow, the damn show must go on. Allow yourself the luxury of a breakdown and you risk winding up like our now not so dearly departed Red Weave, Bikini Girl, or Rose “Filthy Feet” Flack. So long, girls. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

In honor of awards season, kittens, I’m going to give out my own bests for this Hollywood week group sing episode. Overall, I’ll give last night Best Coulda Woulda Shoulda award. It had the makings of greatness. Would Filthy Feet really be able to turn her group of Divas against Bikini Girl in a festival of carnage and eyebrow wax? Would the combined crazy of Red Weave, Our Nathaniel of the Holy Piercings, and some overbearing blond chick that we don’t know be so combustible that the entire hotel would collapse under the weight of all that ego, drama, and concealer? Would Randy crush Kara Diodammittohellshe’sstillhere under a jeans clad buttock, thus reclaiming his rightful slice of the air time? But for the most part, it came to naught, and we were left to rejoice in the fact that at least some of the more annoying contenders got kneecapped. Let’s jump in, shall we?

Best Snippet of Audition Footage That Could Have Gone On Forever – Did y’all love the montage of He-Man Oilman (Jeremy Sarver)/Mr. Wicked (Adam Lambert)/Crazy ugly bartender dude (Matt Breitzke)/Some awesome girl I’ve never seen before (Jesse?)/and random others being awesome as much as I did? I’m not even mad at any of them. Some kind of wonderful, indeed. Did we really need thirty minutes of stupid people staying up way past their bedtimes and then acting like cranky toddlers when we could have had more of this amazing singing, noodles? I daresay we did not. If this is what the producers meant by promising us more backstory this season, then I will politely say, “No thank you.” I think Mr. Wicked has some serious legs in this competition, y’all. He already looked slightly better than his initial audition. And with a little Pro-Active and that golden voice, kid could go far.

Best Obviously Good Group that Turned Out to Be . . . Good – Danny and friends for the motherfucking win! Queen a cappella. Take that, bitches. And Taylor was there, being tall and Samoan and incredible. And Jamar showed that he actually can sing a little bit, all prior evidence to the contrary. They ripped it, no doubt. I think all three have a shot at making Top 36.

Best Obviously Good Group that Turned Out to Be . . . Shitty – Emily Hughes and friends. You could see the judges’ hearts break and their wallets shrink three sizes when this girl turned out to be exactly the no-talent poser that she appeared to be all along. Even if she hadn’t biffed the lyrics all to hell, her voice still would’ve sounded like crap. I don’t even know what to make of Nick/Norman Mitchell/Gentle and that crazy loud kid from the Puerto Rico auditions (which don’t even exist in my universe) making it through. This group was just on the BS express from the jump. They aren’t singing anymore. They’re doing choreography!

Best Efficient Dispatch of Nice Contestants Who Were Never Going to Be Factors Anyway – Bye bye, Toothy Osmond. School's out, Lame Class President. Deanna, I never really liked you anyway. I did appreciate the speed with which the show dismissed some neverwas folks last night. Even some that were my favorites from earlier rounds – like that gorgeous, bald, dancing naked girl? I loved her, but seriously, she was never gonna win Idol. Kittens, I’m just as happy to let her go now without having heard her sing a single note since her first audition. I like ruthless Idol. Now if the producers could only bring that editing eye to the endless drama factory that is Tatiana AKA Prom Dress Girl, we’d really get somewhere. Which brings us to . . .

Best Example of an Annoying Contestant That Is Never Going to Provide Entertainment Value – The show may be pushing Tatiana, and maybe somebody somewhere finds her enchanting. But y’all know doggone good and well that no one will pick up a finger to vote her annoying ass through the Top 36 round. She grates. Look up grating in the dictionary, and there she is shucking and jiving. And she’s not even Mikaela Gordon annoying. She’s not smart enough for that. Nope, she’s straight up entitled and insufferably annoying. Careful, Tati. Dick Cheney is available and discrete and knows many, many ways to make fools disappear and I am not above making deals with the devil to get what I want.

Best Kill Two Birds With One Stone Booting – Thank all that’s good and pure Filthy Feet and Bikini Girl are gone. The fact that only Jasmine made it through from this brokedwon tragedy proves that there is still a spark of good left in this show. And I’m really sorry that the lovely girl in the yellow dress went down with this sinking ship, but she really wasn’t all that great, was she? Jasmine, however, continues to be money in the bank.

Best Shut Up and Sing Contestant – Pssst , India. Lemme holler at you for a sec. This is a singing competition. I’m glad that you can rap and all. That’s real cute. But, well, remember what I said? About Miss Rap Supreme? Sing something, dammit! Darlings, let's be serious. She got through because her group smoked it. I don’t know any of the other folks in that group (and really, Sexshul Chocolate has already laid claim to the best use of chocolate in a name for this season, so that attempt was neither needed nor warranted) but they laid it down. It was like Blake Lewis-ian, How Deep Is Your Love all up in there and I enjoyed it. But on the real, kiddies, India has to sing. Really. No, really.

Best Wasted Potential – Team Compromise. Take a bow, kids. You had all the makings of a Three Mile Island style meltdown, one that would stand for the ages and even rival the greats of the past – Antonella, the Brittenums. But instead, it was all sound and fury, signifying nothing. And Nathaniel, as the brilliant and sorely missed Miss Ali used to say, save your prayers because “God is in the tub.” (And if you don’t know ‘bout Miss Ali, hie thee over to TWOP and read any of her The Amazing Race recaps – this one’s a classic: http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/the_amazing_race_1/its_okay_run_them_over.php. Get schooled in how recapping is really done)

So, c’est tout, non? We didn’t see nearly enough of what I wanted. No Lil Rounds. No Anouk. Very little Alex. Maybe a second of Leneshe. But, I await next week with great anticipation because my very own Indian hottie is going to be singing My Prerogative. What, what? I think I love him a really lot.