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Oh, Idol! We are almost to the good part. Yes, last night we were gloriously informed that this week is the last of the auditions episodes, that long and frustrating Idol stretch when it feels like we are running in place. But now, at last, we have some traction. Tonight is the final audition episode, and then we race on! In the spirit of flight, of celerity, let's press on.
This was a bifurcated episode, with half taking place in the overheated wasteland that is San Antonio, and the other half in Long Beach, better known as the oceany asshole of Los Angeles. Naturally, everyone in both towns was super eager to get the hell out of there, and not knowing what else to do, they showed up to audition for American Idol in the hopes that the show would get them somewhere else, somewhere better. You can't blame them, can you? You'd want to leave too! Maybe you are currently there, right now, and want to leave. Well, don't worry. The Idol train will come rumbling through next year. Well, actually, it had been six years since the show was in San Antonio, so... It'll be six years. Hold tight.
Anyway! Despite both places being terrible barren hellscapes, there were some pretty good contestants. Sure, some time was spent last night shaming freaks, but not too much time. The worst freakshaming last night, and of the season, was when some sad poor young kid came in and said that some man in a bathroom who said he was a record producer had told him that he should audition. Which... who knows if these were simply the ketamine fever ramblings of an insane person or what, but if there really was a strange man in the bathroom who identified himself as a record producer and told him to audition for this show, then this kid is lucky all that happened is that he was mocked, cruelly, on American Idol. Usually that scenario ends way differently. First it's "I'm a record producer, young man," next it's "Come to my home recording studio in the Valley," and then it's "No officer, that's fake blood all over that wicker settee, I swear." So, be grateful, kid. But also, jesus were the judges cruel. This kid clearly doesn't even know how to tie his shoes, but they paraded him in front of the judges anyway, and they pointed and laughed, Randy throwing his Bowser fireballs at him, Keith Urban taking a picture so he could show Nicole later. ("Fool!" she would cackle when he showed her. "The world is full of fools, just like you. Lucky for you then that I've got my head on right. Now pick up these thumbtacks and wash for dinner. We're having cooled eels.") It was a really pathetic display of meanness on the judges' part and I hope not to see anything like it again this season.