So what are we to expect from the American Idol finals?  The first thing is that we can expect some sort of really cheesy song that’s instantly unlistenable and will bring up thoughts of suicide or mass murder upon further listening.  I’m not sure why the producers are incapable of procuring a halfway decent song for this point of the competition, so I can only conclude that they want some sort of syrupy bombast.  I’ve been reading about the Eurovision song contest (the US version coming on NBC), and perhaps the producers’ European heritage compels them to commission the kind if bottom of the barrel dreck that seems popular in Europe.  The second thing to expect is that the show will end on a disappointing note because the final number is the cringingly awful song that I’m talking about.  The third thing to expect is Paula to be incoherent.  Well, actually, that’s not limited to the finals, but hot damn, you can always expect it.

 

Katharine – I question her choice to sing Black Horse and the Cherry Tree at this point.  I mean, it was one of her two best performances to date, but she sang it only three weeks ago.  At the time, I concluded that she sang on her knees because moving around on her feet to a song with a propulsive rhythm would have exposed her horrible lack of co-ordination and inability to do anything other than an Elaine Benes style “full-bodied dry heave set to music” (that’s Elaine from Seinfeld).  Well, I was proven correct, and awkward doesn’t even begin to describe how painful it is to watch Katharine move on stage (there was that one weird move she kept busting out that looked like she was doing the Charleston while she had to pee)

.  And because the song was sung so recently, it was way too easy to make comparisons to her first attempt, and I gotta say that this version seemed a bit draggy compared to the first version.  There was an overall lack of energy and it ended up flat in comparison.  She did throw in a run this time at the end, and of course, it totally sucked.  Look, it’s a great song and she sings it reasonably well, but it was too close on the heels of the first performance, and the best she could have done was a carbon copy.  Kat had fashion repeat as well, which was to wear a belly shirt that didn’t expose her bellybutton.  As I’ve stated before, the whole point of a belly shirt is to show off your bellybutton.  Either she has some sort of bellybutton deformity or she lacks one because she’s an android (or gyndroid to be gender appropriate).  If it’s the latter, maybe I’m just projecting that it wasn’t as good, and in reality she just played back the recording of the first performance.  It’s difficult enough to write her emoto-algorithms, so I guess programming competent dance moves proved to be beyond her creators’ capabilities.  Either that or it was more than her on-board memory could handle.  Maybe in the future they can install a memory upgrade and she will become Katharine McPhee 2.0.  While they’re at it, maybe they could give the gyndroid a bellybutton.

 

Paula incoherence moment: “I know there’s more of you and better of you.”  Yes, I know she’s trying to say that she thinks the best is yet to come from Katharine, but that was the best she could manage in her alcoholic stupor.  It makes it sound like Katharine’s boobs are going to get bigger for the next performance.

 

Taylor – Man oh man, that’s a HIDEOUS jacket.  It reminded me of Eddie Murphy’s Velvet Jones pimp character from SNL.  Look, if you’re ever thinking of looking like a total idiot by wearing a purple velvet jacket, why not go all the way and wear and orange velvet jacket with tiger stripes and a black notchless satin collar?  And then don’t even do velvet – make the jacket out of the same plushy material they make stuffed Tigger dolls from.  Because if you want to look laughable, you gotta commit.  The thing that Taylor did here is that he sang a song he performed very early on in the competition (back on Stevie Wonder night) and improved greatly from it.  He was not just good – he showed how much he’s grown as a singer.

 

Paula incoherence moment: “We match!”  Considering Taylor was sporting the aforementioned purple velvet jacket, it’s hard to figure out just why Paula though her satin baby-doll top with multi-colored stripes in any way matched what Taylor was wearing.  I do know that drinking methanol will make you blind.  But only a truly desperate alcoholic would ever drink methanol.  Hmm….

 

Katharine 2 – Again, Katharine is repeating herself too soon, and this time, it’s the second consecutive week she’s performing this song.  Yes, you were great before, but that was last week, and now you look like you’ve got nothing left and you’re forced to repeat yourself almost immediately.  In a sense, she’s performing against herself instead of Taylor, because any minor flaw or bad note is compared to last week’s version, and frankly, it sounded better back then.  By knowing exactly what to expect, it lost some of what made it special, and to me, it felt like she was coasting.  And I still say that she ripped off Jane Monheit.

 

Paula incoherence moment: “It’s no mistake that it’s God-given talent that you are possessed with that you are possessive of that –  every father around this country is feeling the tears down their face as your father does every time (unintelligible).”  I cannot even being to parse this sentence.  Total cuckoo nutso.

 

Bonus moment – Due to her drunken slurring, it sounded like she said “you make everyone plowed and every little girl plowed”.  Paula, the only one plowed is you. 

 

Extra Bonus Katharine incoherence moment:  “’Cause I start off cappella so I need to get them the key – and so that – they – goes through, you know, the piano so you guys can hear but I can hear but it didn’t play and I started out on the right key – yay!”  I guess I should be impressed that she has perfect or near perfect pitch, but her dorky incoherence is much more impressive.  BTW, that took a looong time to transcribe.  I hope you appreciate my efforts (I’m pretty sure I’m only about 90% accurate).

 

Taylor 2 – This time, Taylor pulls out Levon, a song he performed a while back (his first Idol performance as a matter of fact).  On the whole he was better, but I’m just not into the song enough to be excited by this performance.  He could have done Trouble or You Send Me or even whipped out Something (even though that’s only a few weeks old).  I know he likes this song, but … meh.

 

Paula incoherence moment: “What may be pitchy to you is the essence of who Taylor is just getting into the song.”  The essence of Taylor is being off-key?  Huh?

 

Katharine 3 – This is make or break time for Katharine.  The fog swirls… the set opens… a dramatic silhouette is revealed… and then she decides she’s in the second grade class play and waves dorkily to the audience.  “Hiya Mom and Dad!”  Idiot.  Just ruined the moment.  Then she reverts to the Katharine McOffKhee of old, slaughtering the opening measures, singing totally flat and unable to sustain anything other than a breathy and uneven tone in her lower register.  She tries to get it back together after the low part, but if we’ve learned anything about Kat, it’s that once she starts going off key, she just shoots off the rails.  The middle part alternated between shrill, screechy notes with painfully flat ones that made you wince throughout, and she almost literally ended on a bad note (the third from the end was the last really bad one).  And I don’t know why the hell American Idol insists on trotting out a gospel choir replete with blue robes whenever they perform the schlocky original songs they procure for the finals.  The song is total garbage, something you get after baking a rhyming dictionary that had been marinating in Karo syrup.  And the outfit looked like she removed the upholstery off of a boring old chair and fashioned a dress out of it.  My wife thought she looked like she was wearing a tea cozy.  This was the time to whip out her signature shiny cleavage dress, and instead she wears a gray slipcover.  Does she not want to win?

 

Paula incoherence moment: “You are brilliant.”  Okay, not incoherent per se, but totally wrong.  Kat was a mess.

 

Taylor 3 – I will say Taylor made the most out of his song, which was not, as the judges claimed, any better than the shit Katharine was forced to work with.  It’s just that he did something with it, and that’s the difference here – Taylor can work out poor material like this, but Kat just crumbled, because unlike her other two songs, no one else had recorded it to show her how to sing it .  He started out a little flat, but he was able to pull out something, although it’s still nothing I’d buy or even listen to without protest.  It also sounded a lot like last year’s shitty-shit-shit finals song.

 

Paula incoherence moment:  None, but her comments were just a rephrasing of Randy’s sentiments.  She’s useless.

 

So everyone has been asking me the same question all week long, which is, “So, who’s gonna win?”  And my answer had been consistent all week, which was, that if 40 million callers want to vote for Taylor and 35 million callers wanted to vote for Katharine but they could only log 30 million votes apiece, then it’s a wash, and Katharine would win based on her clear text voting advantage.  But that theory got tossed out the window when it was revealed that the voting would last four hours instead of two.  In this scenario, I think Taylor will win easily.  Katharine would have had to have really kill-kill-killed, and Taylor would have had to have stumbled badly if this were going to be remotely close.  Of course, if you were going to pick a winner just by performances, Taylor came out on top, and Katharine’s reliance on very recent successes won’t excite her fanbase to vote past hour two.  Meanwhile, the Soul Patrol will be dialing in for the whole four hours.  So there’s really no suspense for Wednesday night – Taylor Hicks will be the next American Idol.  And Simon Cowell will eat the crow he so richly deserves.