The Idol Finale Part II: Fluff & Circumstance

Here we are, in The Cabana. Wearing all white, its Cook, its Archie…

This

Is American

Idol Season Finale

Tonight, we are joined by KT, and introducing Alissa and her boo Joey, and of course, The Lovely Steph Leann. This is good, because Alissa is the PK of the group, that being the daughter of Pastor Calvin, pastor of Valleydale Church (an sbc fellowship).

Broadcasting live from Cook’s hometown, its… Mekaleh Gordon? Wow. And Matt Rogers is the broadcaster from Archie’s hometown. The Lovely Steph Leann observes that Paula’s dress is modest. “Look! She’s got the girls locked and loaded away!”

Alissa gives us this tidbit: “My dad voted 20 times for Archie”. That’s my pastor.

We’re now enjoying the Top 12 doing “Get Ready”, where we witness one of the backup dancers almost drop the chick he’s tossing around. This leads to these observations:

The Lovely Steph Leann: “Some of these people don’t need to be wearing white”
Alissa: “Amanda Overmeyer doesn’t sing! She doesn’t sing if its not Janis Joplin!”
KT: “Joey, you bored out of your mind yet?”
Joey: “Huh?”

Cook comes out, by himself (this is after the commercial break), then is joined by Archie, singing “Hero” by Chad Kroeger. KT observes that, “I do not like Archie. I want to kick him.”

Here comes the part where Fox promotes its own, this time being “The Love Guru”, the upcoming movie with Michael Myers. I think this movie looks like a train wreck… like, this movie looks TERRIBLE!!! The Lovely Steph Leann and I both saw this trailer a few weeks ago… the video bit here has Cook and Archie meeting The Guru Pitka, which is the character by Michael Myers.

So, The Guru Pitka comes out on stage, predicting the winners name will be “David”. This joke was just said by both The Lovely Steph Leann and Alissa right before. KT says, “I’m embarrassed for him”

Coming up now, The Black Julia Stiles gets onstage, singing with Seal… and she’s singing “Waiting For You”, which is The Lovely Steph Leann’s favorite song. I’m partial to “Prayer for the Dying”, followed closely by “Crazy” and yes, even “Kiss From a Rose.”


Here's Seal... this is just awesome. Weird, but awesome

The Dreadlocked One makes another appearance, singing “Hallelujah”, one of his best performance. I wouldn’t mind hearing him sing “Over the Rainbow”, the version by Israel Kimanioniaooly’loenialekieanlikna’alie. And we have a Mindy Doo appearance, followed by another Ford commercial, featuring the entire Top 12, which makes me think this was filmed early in the season.

And now the part of the show where Ryan gives Cook and Archie a new car, the Ford Escape Hybrid, though he fails to mention the part where Hybrids actually are many times worse for the environment and on gas mileage than regular vehicles. Just sayin’.

The girls come out, now, singing “She Works Hard for the Money”. My Next American Idol Brooke White is singing… does she know this song is about prostitution? Simba even gets a solo. I just heard the words “Donna Summer” and “new single”. Is this 1978? We all observe that Donna Summer has a bling mic, and got her hair really did. They cut to The Black Julia Stiles, and The Lovely Steph Leann yells, “Whoa!” I reply, “We almost saw Syesha’s mercados!”

Seacrest is dancing a’foo… and finally, Donna gets to the good stuff… “Last Dance.” And wow, we thought Paula had her Abduls locked away, but alas, we almost saw the girls.

Irish Carly and Aussie Michael come out now, singing “The Letter”. Its good the international voices are represented. Makes me wonder if we’ll get the joy of hearing Lil’ Ramy or KLC do something.

And for something that is going to be hilarious, Jimmy Kimmel comes out to review the season. He rips on Paula, Chris Sligh, Simon and Sanjaya, including a great video of all the bad things Simon’s said over the season.

All the Idol guys come out now, singing “Summer of ‘69” by Bryan Adams. Aussie Michael comes out, followed by… Dave the Gay Stripper! And CheezyDeezy! And when Cook and Archie comes in, we morph to “Heaven”, which is probably because the slow song is all that Archie can really sing. And then… to the cheers of KT, Alissa and The Lovely Steph Leann, here comes Bryan Adams! And he looks about 133 years old.

Look, its Jordin Sparks! And its advertising the upcoming American Idol Experience, at Disney Hollywood Studios, the theme park formerly known as Disney MGM Studios. Cook is now singing with ZZ Top, “Sharp Dressed Man”. A Blake Lewis sighting!

My Next American Idol Brooke White is strumming along now with Graham Nash, singing “Teach Your Children.” She’s a Mormon, so I guess I could marry her too. The Jonas Brothers just came on the stage. I feel old, but somewhere Michael Jackson is glued to the tv.

Fun! Here comes the bad-video recap. And, on the stage now, is Renaldo, singing his hit song “Brothers”. Wow. Not good times, bad times. It gets worse… the USC cheerleaders and marching band just marched down the aisle to join Renaldo.

KT’s favorite song, “Apologize” by OneRepublic, has come on now. Across America, black women are coming the stark realization that this soulful voice screeching “too late to ‘pologize… toooooo laaaate….” Is a white guy. Archie then comes out, singing with him. KT says, “Life does not get much worse than this, really”

And our current American Idol, at least for the next thirty minutes (though right now, its 928, which means the American Idol has already been chosen), Jordin Sparks comes out singing her next single that will stall at #56 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Fox is now shamelessly plugging another movie, “Tropic Thunder”, with Jack Black, Ben Still and Rob Downey Jr.

Taking the stage, the hottest American Idol freakin’ ever, at least besides Kat McPhee, Carrie Underwood. And tonight, like always, she’s smokin’ hot. Totally.

A commercial on features Archie, playing Guitar Hero, notable because he’s dressed in his Tom Cruise “Risky Business “ best—undies and flannel shirt.

And now, for the last time, before the results, the Top 12 comes out. And what would make the night better than a George Michael song like “Faith”? If you said “nothing”, you’d be right. Unless you said Castro singing “Father Figure”, or perhaps Dave the Gay Stripper saying the line “…warm and naked…”

Let’s be honest, though… early George Michael… I dig it. “Freedom” is what they are singing now, followed by the appearance of George Michael. Steph says, “Of course he’s there. He’s got an album to hock.” Someone made the comment, “Why George Michael? Because they had to the throw the Brokeback crowd a bone.” He’s singing “Praying for Time”, I’m singing along, Paula is crying and Joey is yawning.

Here's George Michael--trust me, click on this if you have YouTube capabilities... you will NOT be sorry. Or you might be, but thats the point (its safe for work, but not for street cred), back when he was at least pretending to be straight. I wanted to put "Freedom 90" on here, I can only link to it because some jerk disabled embedding for all George Michael videos. What kind of sick person are you, to deprive us of our George?

And finally…

After 19 weeks, two shows per week, 19 or more blogs, and two hours of fluff and puff tonight, we have an American Idol winner. The judges give their final takes, Paula blows sunshine and its time to announce.

And the new American Idol is…

David…. David…. David… COOK!!!!

There is nothing more to add, because literally 5 seconds after Ryan said "Cook"--like, Cook and Archie were moving towards each other to hug--the tv went black, and that box popped up that said "Yes, delete this program or No, do not delete this program". KT shrieked, I laughed, The Lovely Steph Leann said, "Whoops", and Joey yawned.

So, after the whole season, I'll say this... this was probably the best season of Idol I'd ever seen. Heading into the Top 12, there were a number of Idols that I could see winning--Cook, Archie, Irish CarlyAussie Michael, My Next American Idol Brooke White and at the time, even KLC... of course, as the show progressed, we saw the highs and lows of each Idol, and watched Cook and The Black Julia Stiles rise through the ranks, getting better each week, and folks like KLC, Irish Carly and especially Aussie Michael not ever reach their potential.

Part of me thinks that Archie should have won, only because he'll fit the mold of what American Idol will want him to perform better than Cook will, but at the same time, I think David Cook was just... well, better.

That's American Idol 2008. Don't worry, I'll be back in full force in 2009, but I'm sure I'll have about 150 posts between now and then. Next stop... the Dave100.