A moment like this

It’s pitch-black on stage or in the audience or wherever they are, but it’s at least clear that Seacrest has been replaced this week by a hologram of Rod Serling, hands clasped, talking about how, for the Idols, this is “the most important night of their lives.” Sez you, Rod Serling.

The audience is a celebreteria. The camera cuts to Mandy Moore, star of the Idol parody film American Dreamz, the one that tanked. Cut to Ben Stiller, whose job it is now to go from concert to concert just being filmed—he was in the audience for the Beastie Boys concert film called Awesome! I F***in’ Shot That!—and likes to make weird jerking moves when the camera hits him. Seacrest decides to take an informal poll. “Who is the next American Idol?” he asks the giant crowd inside the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. Their answer is a clear and resounding, “WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!” and “AUUUUUUGGGGHHHH!” I suppose this means they’re all for Hicks.

Look! Out in the crowd! There’s Bucky! Daughtry! Constantine! (for the 30th time this season, so desperate is he for more camera adoration) Next to Constantine is the Skateboarding Bulldog! And next to him is a tortilla that resembles the Virgin Mary!

Three songs again tonight. Two repeats from each and then…their debut single. This is always my favorite part, the crappy debut single they shoehorn the singer into whether it fits them or not.

McPhee is first with a brand-new version of “Black Horse & The Cherry Tree.” It’s a new version because this time she stands up and dances instead of lumbering around on her knees like she did before. In the middle of the song she totally steals some of Hicks’s monkey moves. Hope it tastes good when you bite his rhyme, Kat. Seacrest takes her to his side and she trots out the “McPhans” thing again and introduces everyone to the concept of “The Kat Pack.” Apparently they exist. Do they like to add random McPhs to everything they say too?

Hicks revisits “Living for the City” in a jacket that had to come from the Fuck You I’m Taylor Hicks and I Wear Ugly Shirts line. It’s shiny and purple and velvety. And it is exactly what he should be wearing. He introduces a new dance move tonight, one I like to call Fosse Steps, where he hops down stairs and then fakes you out a little at a time by backtracking. He’s coming toward you! No! He’s retreating! What will he do next? How wacky can one person be? “Come on, America!” he shouts in the middle of the song. My first instinct is to say, “No. I won’t come on, Taylor Hicks. You aren’t my boss.” But I’ve gone through some radical Taylor Hicks shifts in my consciousness lately, and I may just be willing to come on with America.

More famousness: There’s Taye Diggs, UPN’s canceled Kevin Hill. Cut to Daughtry’s wife, clutching his arm. How long before they get divorced, do you think, now that he’s had a taste of the world outside domesticity?

McPhee slinks through “Over the Rainbow” again, not five minutes after finishing her first crack at it, it seems. At least Hicks reached back a little to Stevie Wonder week. I click my heels three times, but she doesn’t disappear. The camera cuts to Leni Riefenstahl, who’s cheering enthusiastically for McPhee. Oh, it’s her grandma. My mistake. Another cut to McPhee’s dad, crying of course. I’m glad this is almost over, because his weepy routine is starting to creep me out. It feels more and more “bad touch” every week.

Paula critique moment: This might be her best sentence of the season. I think she’s been saving it. She says, “Katharine, it’s no mistake that it’s God-given talent that you are possessed with, that you are possessive of, that…you…every father around this country is feeling the tears down their face as your father does every time the camera goes in on him and you’ve made everyone proud and every little girl proud who wants to dream and aspire to be you.” Then she yells, “Arna!” like Jodie Foster in Nell.

Hicks returns to Elton John’s “Levon.” He starts off, “Levon bluhbluhbluhbluhbluhbluhbluhbluhbluh.” I not only have no idea what he’s singing, but it dawns on me that after hearing this song for years now since I was a child, I have no idea what it’s about. Time to Google the lyrics like Clive Davis did last week. Here are some of them:

Levon wears his war wound like a crown
He calls his child Jesus
’Cause he likes the name
And he sends him to the finest school in town…

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Day
When The New York Times said God is dead
And the wars begun…

And he shall be Levon
And he shall be a good man
And he shall be Levon
In tradition with the family plan…

Levon sells cartoon balloons in town
His family business thrives…

And Jesus he wants to go to Venus
Leaving Levon far behind
Take a balloon and go sailing…

So there you have it. Levon is about balloon animals. Cut to several discarded contestants from this season whose identities I’ve already forgotten. Randy says it was pitchy. Paula, on a roll, says, “Pitchy to you is the essence of who Taylor is.”

Simon responds with, “It doesn’t make any sense what you just said.”

Cut to Constantine. His face says, “You want my look? You want my signature Constantine look? Yeah, you do! Here it is! My signature look!” Then he arches one eyebrow and continues looking as weird as he ever did.

Now it’s time for McPhee’s single, called “My Destiny.” Ever since Kelly sang “A Moment Like This,” the Idol producers have tried desperately to recapture the thrill of that few minutes of television. From that point on every single winner and runner-up have been saddled with a thematically similar song, a love song that doubles as a contest winner’s testimonial, one seemingly composed by the same Fox lot-sequestered manatees that write Family Guy. Here is the theme: “Holy shit! It’s happening! It’s happening to me! Can you believe it?! Now! Right here! To ME!! You all love ME!! I’m FAMOUS!!!”

But McPhee gets it all wrong. She hits about six really sour notes and you can see the panic spread across her face, even as she smiles broadly. Then the choir lurches in. Cut to McPhee’s mother with her hands to her face. I can’t tell if she’s thrilled or if she’s freaked out and wondering who this gang of robe-clad people are who’ve come to kill or, worse, upstage her golden child. The song over, I wonder how hard the judges will be on her. I wish right now that Pick Pickler was a judge, so she could go, “You butchered eee-yit!” Randy, Paula, and Simon are gentle with her, of course. Simon tells people to vote and to remember “Over the Rainbow.” It’s his gift to her, that comment, heaving one last gasping attempt to stave off Hicks’s inevitable win.