The second night of Hollywood week promises to show more heartbreak as kids get told they just don’t have what it takes to make Simon his money. The man can’t drive a Ford Fiesta to his colonic appointments. The 107 remaining contestants sit in the Kodak Theater at 9 p.m waiting for the next task. It’s the group competition. Nothing like depending with a couple strangers to further your career. We see the kids scramble to be part of performers.
Tatiana Del Toro takes over her little group after they let her join. She’s the self-centered beauty queen. A few members are ticked at becoming her back up singer. Barefoot Rose is stuck with Bikini Girl. She fears the worst. The kids are practicing in every space in the hotel including the kitchen. Don’t they have health codes in Los Angeles? Tatiana’s group want to kick her out and she’s having a tearful meltdown. She tries to switch groups. Nancy Wilson and the tearful Marshall aren’t having the swap, but give in.
Ryan promises us amazing performance, but I want to see the cat fights.
At one a.m., a few people are still rehearsing. Tatiana Del Toro now wants to go back to her old group. What the hell? Her new group is pissed. All their time working out the song were wasted. She’s such a little user and abuser. And now she’s messing up her old group. She’s pure evil with an annoying laugh. How come these kids aren’t drowning in Red Bull? All the drinks shown on the tables are little bottles of water. Somebody ought to go onto Sunset Blvd and score some creative pixie dust from Andy Dick.
Bikini Girl wants to go to bed to get catch up on her beauty sleep. Barefoot Rose has had it with her. Bikini Girl leaves her hotel room door open so the camera guy can capture her sobs in the dark. The tension is out of control. Where’s Christian Bale to put these drama queens in their place?
Why does Simon keep harping on wanting a contemporary artist, but all these kids are practicing the songs only heard on the Oldies station? Shouldn’t they be doing songs from the various <i>High School Musical</i> movies? Or a Jonas Brothers tune? Or that dance song using the words of Christian Bale for properly slapping down a wandering Director of Photography?
In the morning, the group goes to find Bikini Girl. She’s sick. Bikini Girl hides under her sheets. That must be a record for her to hide that long from a rolling camera. The Drama Queens are refusing to speak to each other. These two groups are positioned to be major trainwrecks. A few good things are going on with lesser covered groups. But do we care? We want to see if Bikini Girl will pull a Willis Reed comeback. She emerges from her hotel room carrying her makeup bag. Is she going to split without getting rejected by Simon? Barefoot Rose is pissed. She’s already saying they’re going to be a trainwreck.
I’m hoping at least one kid will sucker punch the weak performer that ruined his chances at being the next Taylor Hicks. Wouldn’t you go Christian Bale on Bikini Girl if she tanked your song?
If I want to be contemporary, the Willis Reed reference should be swapped with the Boston Celtic’s Paul Pierce. Remember when he left the NBA Finals and returned to make Kobe cry? That’s a “now” moment.
Things get worse with Simon announcing to the kids that if they blow the lyrics, you’re automatically booted. The tension is completely out of control. The first group is White Chocolate doing a do-wop beat box of the Jackson 5’s “Give Me One More Chance.” The girl makes up a few lines at the end, but they don’t count it against her. All four make it. We get a montage of kids sounding bad on “Get Ready.” Nick gets through without breaking out his wrist bands and glasses.
“Don’t Stop” gets toned down to sound like part of <i>Rent</i>. It’s a Kids Incorporated arrangement. Lyrics are blown by the pink haired Emily Wynn- Hughes. Will she get it past the judges? She’s one of the alleged plants. But it didn’t help. She’s clipped. I’m shocked. She doesn’t have far to go to get home and hope her band hasn’t cut her. This is still an unpredictable moment. Emily Wyne-Hughes was the lead singer of Go Betty Go. The LA based punk band has released a few sing two hit singles before she joined the group. Not sure if she’s released any records with them. I had the sneaking feeling that Kara wants to do a record with Emily and figures this is the best way to expose her artist. They give her a montage worthy of being clipped from the Top 12. Maybe this is part of Kara’s plan?
One cut guy swears he saw evil in Paula’s eyes. Sure that just wasn’t the little green men that rent space in her brain?
Simon thinks the performers are all crap. He wants painkillers. He judges people that we don’t get to see perform. Why are we missing out on these failures? Is this about the music or the drama? Danny Gokey and his crew do bring the goods on Queen’s “Somebody to Love.” Three judges applaud. Guess who doesn’t? Simon asks Danny to step forward. He has made it through along with the other three. We barely get to see the next batch of contestants get snuffed. Now they mix two different groups doing “Some Kind of Wonderful.” All 7 singers get through.
Finally Barefoot Rose and Bikini Girl hit the stage. Barefoot Rose Flack misses the words. I smell anger brewing. Simon predicts they didn’t practice together. Bikini Girl gives plenty of excuses. Bikini Girl and Rose get cut. As Bikini Girl walks away, she gives Simon a wave. She’s going to keep walking down the street to the offices of Vivid Video. She doesn’t even fake feeling bad that their group was a blood bath. She really wants her own dating show on MTV.
It’s 4:20 at the theater. David Osmond got snuffed? Wow. Why didn’t we get to see him perform? How did the nephew of Donny and Marie bite that bad?
Tatiana Del Toro’s group performs “I Want You Back.” She starts singing “I want to get through” while the judges confer. Randy jumps on her case. She’s praying hard while the judges tease them. All four get through. Tatiana goes on about thanking Jesus and the Boom Guy. She’s gone the full Tammy Faye.
The grand finale is Tatiana’s teased group. The trio of Drama Queens hit the stage ready to implode. The world’s worst pre-performance group prayer proceeds them. I swear Kristin McNamara, the blond girl, has written the lyrics on her palm. It’s not as painful as expected, but there’s an uncomfortable edge. Simon swears they sang bad backups to sabotage the others singing. It’s a backstabber convention. Nathanial Marshall and Kristin make it through. Nancy Wilson gets cut. She cusses out Kristian on the aisle.
We get a montage of the axed before they show us winners who weren’t shown on camera. I still don’t recognize half these faces. Now there are 75 people competing for the next round of eliminations. Who will make it to the top 36? It’s so hard to tell since we’ve yet to hear the remaining folks.
It’s sad that Bikini Girl is gone since that means no more uncomfortable kisses for Ryan. Why do they build up the life stories of the doomed?
On Thursday’s <i>Entertainment Tonight</i>, Donny Osmond interviews David Osmond. How did he get the scoop? David says he got cut because he developed laryngitis while waiting for his turn. Why wasn’t this shown on the episode? Isn’t that heartbreaking enough for TV? A man’s final shot at the title taken down by a throat bug would bring tears to our eyes.
