American Idol S8 Finals Ep21 After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want What You Wanted At All

Noodles, I have just seen the most perfect hour of TV ever.

Glee has plenty of time and opportunity to lose me . . . plenty of time for the sassy, fat black girl with the big voice to become a Mo’nique cliché; plenty of time for the redhead, neat freak teacher and our intrepid Glee Club moderator to sink into every bad will they or won’t they dynamic known to sitcom-dom and drag mini-Idina Menzel and the jock hunk down with them; plenty of time to keep stuttering Asian girl, roller boy, butch female gym teacher and cheap ass Indian principal firmly in the realm of caricature. But for now, Glee was a slice of perfection and it’s own unique snowflake and I loved it more than I can ever articulate and if I believed in this magical thing called TiVo, I would be rewinding that Rehab number right now so that I could master that dance. Pure love.

Oh, also, Kris Allen totally just won AI.

Kittens, I love Adam more than my luggage. And tonight, for me, for AI, the alien boy/girl glittery sex god was on fire. He even made me swallow that hideous coronation song. (And can we deal with the song? I mean, Judge #4 couldn’t even do a better job than Tamyra Gray. Something is very, very wrong with that) The voice was pristine all night long. Flawless pitch, amazing range, power and tenderness. Adam did just about everything that I wanted tonight vocally and overcame song choices that I think were not designed to show him off to his best advantage (except Mad World which is one of the rare, undeniably perfect things in this world). And he did it all in full make up: base, eye shadow, more liner and mascara than an army of Covergirls, blush and orange shimmery lip gloss. Toma! I mean clearly, he was better than Kris tonight, despite the fact that the beautiful one remained sexy as all get out. And yet, darlings, I have almost no doubt that our lovely and talented honey dip will pull the upset tomorrow and waltz away with the AI crown and rights to record that suck-tastic song as his first single. Why? Americans love spunk (Lou Grant notwithstanding). Kris Allen refused to go gentle into that good night. He brought it on Ain’t No Sunshine, though again, not the song I would have had him repeat. (Falling Slowly? Hello?) He tried to do his Mraz-y thing on Marvin which was not, in my humble opinion, entirely successful. But he was in good voice on that second song. And he totally fell apart, off pitch and screechy on the last song, but dammit he fought the good fight. And he will be rewarded accordingly because, as I may have mentioned, kiddies, we are not a merit based society. Believe that. But let’s take it from the top, no, because whoever wins tomorrow night, the AI-lettes have given incredibly good season.

Flashback, Warm Nights

I loved the opening flashback to Kris and Adam in the season’s infancy. I mean, Mr. Wicked was back with all the flair there, but needing a case of exfoliating facial scrub and a good haircut. And there was Kris who, rocking that tired denim cap, made it abundantly apparent why they did not feature him all that much in early audition rounds. Did he think he was auditioning to be in Our Gang? They were so cute, y’all. Can it be that it was all so simple then?

And then out came the world’s favorite wee closet gay. And kittens, Ryan has killed it all season long. Let’s just give it up for the dominant sexy that he brought to Season 8. In a season of overwhelming contestant pretty, Ryan showed and proved week in and week out. Strangé, sir. Strangé. As for the other judges, I see that Randy has gone completely color blind, Paula, having soundly defeated the Breast Liberation Front at least for the night, looked surprisingly normal, and Simon wore a sports coat for the special occasion as per usual. The trannys in hair and make up used all of Lil’s left over weave on Judge #4. May she choke on it.

And then, there were the two who are the two. Hello, salty goodness! Those boys are beautiful. It was almost too much, no, kittens? And on top of that, they tried to kill us with adorable baby pictures, adorably clueless families. Even the monkey faced wife was doing her level best. Prettiest F2 ever!

Make It Like It Was

Adam Lambert/Mad World (Repeat Song) – This was an excellent choice to repeat. And Adam didn’t disappoint, pulling out the black trench, the fog machine, the drama lighting and just being totally over the top and theatrical. I thought it totally worked and, as Paula pointed out, served to differentiate this performance from the first Mad World which was so intimate and broken. It was a smart play and took me all the way back to the SF auditions when I tagged this kid as Mr. Wicked. It may not play in the hinterlands, but I loved it a really lot, noodles. Score one for the kid in the pancake make up.

Kris Allen/Ain’t No Sunshine (Repeat Song) – It was right here where I first got the inkling that this fool could pull this off. Unlike Adam, I don’t think this was the best song Kris could’ve chosen to repeat. As I said the first time he sang it, his voice really is a little too light for this. You need a voice with more grit and more heft. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but Goat Boy has the kind of gristle that would really make this song sing. That said, Kris is perhaps the best contestant that’s ever trod the Idol stage at knowing how to work within himself. He knows his instrument, knows what he’s got, knows his strengths and consistently plays to them. And this performance was totally on point. He did much better with this song tonight than he did the first time he sang it, and the first time wasn’t bad. And I’ll be damned if he wasn’t sexy as fuck. Let’s have a hotter than the sun for the road, kittens. Because really? Hotter than the sun.

I refuse with the round by round ridiculousness because this is not a boxing match, but I will say that Adam and Kris came out of this first song very, very even.

Doing Nothing for the Fun of It

Adam Lambert/A Change Is Gon’ Come (Producer’s Pick) – Darlings, is Clive Davis dead? Why did we get Simon Fuller picking? I wouldn’t trust Simon Fuller and Cecile Frot Coutaz to pick grapes in the San Joaquin Valley, so why would I trust them to pick songs for the finale? Yuck. Protest songs? Really? Bring back the penguin song. So anyway, Adam lucked out by getting the far superior song for him in this Sam Cooke classic. And noodles, do I have to tell you how much I love Adam in a suit? Our little glitter bomb turned it out on this tune. He did the soft open and the scream-y end, and if you don’t like that then you don’t like the magic that is Adam Lambert because your heart is a blackened lump of coal and you might be dead inside. But, you know, to each her own. I thought it was flawless. Was it Sam Cooke? Obviously not. Was it magnificent? Need you even ask?

If you’ll notice, kiddies, I’m not even bothering to recap the judges. They were mostly useless. If you want to know what they said, seek help. Moving on.

Kris Allen/What’s Goin' On? (Producer’s Pick) – Much less successful song choice for the honey dip. Don’t get me wrong, noodles. I love Marvin and I love this song. But Kris doing his folk/rock thing on this joint just did not quite work. It was fine. He sang it well from a technical standpoint. But just after saying that I wouldn’t recap the judges, I have to go back on that because Simon gave his one good critique of the night here by noting that this performance was kind of like sitting around that cute guy’s dorm room in college and somebody pulls out his guitar and somebody pulls out some bongos and all of a sudden, you got yourself a hootenanny. WTF with the hootenannies, white people? You can’t hootenanny Marvin. I’m just pointing that out. Therefore, this performance, while technically fine, was not successful.

Adam did better here on the producer’s pick song, but Kris held his own.

Coronation Song – No Boundaries

I hate Judge #4. She ruins everything.

Both of the kids sounded like country fried ass. Adam oversang and actually sounded off pitch at the beginning of the song. (And why were the back up singers so loud AGAIN? Dammit, production monkeys!) Kris was off pitch the entire song, and at the beginning was off pitch in the exact same way as Adam which made me think that the fucking song is just weird and discordant in the first verse and anyone would sound off singing it. Sadly, Kris never actually recovered and was off the whole time. He also exposed how thin his voice really is by trying to live up to the ridiculous bombast of the song rather than stripping it down and Kris-ifying it. Who knows if he would’ve even been allowed to do that, but that’s the only way I think he could’ve survived that song. As it was, Adam was able to come out of his performance less scathed because he can take it to that over the top, bombastic place. On the real, I hated both of those performances, but among the wreckage, Adam’s version of the song was better. That said, I think that Kris could make a better record with that hot mess because he could, in fact, strip it down and make it less Meatloaf, whereas Adam’s version will be completely over the top just with the first verse pitch issues cleared up.

Overall, suck ass way to end the night. And Judge #4 thanking Adam for giving her the gift of singing her song? Damn, bitch. You have made it through the entire season and yet spectacularly failed to realize that the show is not about you. Why is this a hard concept to grasp? I honestly don’t have the strength, y’all.

I Had to Run Away High So I Wouldn't Come Home Low

I was under whelmed, kittens. The uninspired song choices and the lack of a villain to hate on and one of the worst coronation songs of any season. Bleagh. And then we closed with Carrie, an Idol winner who I’ve honestly grown to love, giving us her lame take on an amazing Cruë song. (Fashion side note: The boots were fabulous. Work, Bobble Head!)

Maybe I built it up too much, darlings. My expectations for this finale were so high with the level of talent and overall hotness of Kris/Adam that nothing could’ve satisfied. Tomorrow we get an equal mix of bitter (Frikkin’ Gokey and White Stevie Wonder and Goat Boy and Lil’s stank face and Tattoo Sleeve) and sweet (Manic Panic and Anoop and He Man Oilman and Alexis “Gone too soon” Grace). I’m tired and oddly deflated. See y’all on the flip side. I think I’ma go to Fox.com to watch Glee again and get happy. Who’s with me?