American Idol finale: Top Two Results Show (5/23)

And the winner is...

by Frank Pittarese

"It's the night we've all been waiting for." That's Seacrest with the understatement of the year. "Who will take the title?" Blake! No, Jordin! No, Blake! Gahhh!!! "The world is watching." Except for the parts outside of America, because why would they? "This is American Idol."

Ryan throws numbers at us. Over a million viewers are watching right now. Over three thousand people are in the audience at the Kodak Theatre. One hundred thousand auditions. Seven cities. Forty-nine hours of television. At least five people I personally know who don't give a rip. Terri Hatcher gives a rip, and unlike on Idol Gives Back night, she doesn't look like a hooker from Love is a Battlefield.

"Who is it going to be? Jordin? Blake Lewis?" The audience screams like they're on fire. Among them are Jerry Springer, Jeff Foxworthy, Everybody Loves Raymond's brother and his TV wife from that show they're on, and David Alan Grier. It's too bad the audience isn't on fire, eh?

Greetings to the judges. Randy is wearing a jacket he made from my dead grandmother's couch and he's excited about the finale. Paula has pulled herself together since last night's "come as you are" debacle and says she feels excellent after dog-diving a couple of days ago. Cowell is wearing the same clothes as yesterday, and, as Ryan points out, already looks bored.

Performance. Jordin and Blake sing I Saw Her Standing There, by the Beatles. That's right, the Beatles. After six seasons, the show has finally bought some songs from the Lennon-McCartney catalogue. Your Idol Gives Back donations are hard at work. Blake sings the song like he's possessed by the spirit of Bobby Darrin. Vegas, baby. Vegas. Jordin is a cute and perky mousekateer, wearing a dress over her jeans. She's as bubbly as ever. They're like a modern day Sonny & Cher, right down to the height distribution and balance of talent. Note to Blake: Don't ski when you grow up. It could end badly.

Performance. Gwen Stefani, in a "live" performance no doubt from the cutting room floor of the feed-the-world event, shows up on the big screen to perform her new single, Four In the Morning. She wearing a messed up bubble skirt that makes her look like she did a doody in her diapie. Bubble skirts. Why? Her buddy Akon is not part of this performance. He's too busy dry-humping random 14-year-old girls.

Performance. Kelly Clarkson has swung by to sing her new single, Never Again. She's dressed like Felicity Shagwell. This is one of those "we broke up so I hope your dick falls off" songs. An angry, kick-your-ass kinda thing. Kelly, probably the best Idol-winner ever, in terms of vocal skills, is pretty awesome here. The song is great, too. Is this from the album that Clive Davis tried to kibosh? Why is a guy older than oxygen making such decisions? After the song, we see Clive in the audience, applauding politely. Every time his hands connect, a little cloud of ash forms. Simon Cowell gives Kelly a standing ovation. Has he ever done that before? I don't recall.

The Golden Idol Awards. Remember this nonsense from last year, where they gave awards to the freakiest of the auditioners? Well, the brain trust behind this show thought the segment was hilarious enough to bring it back. Hey, the show doesn't end till 10:00. There's plenty of time. The nominees for the Best Presentation Award are: X-centric, the scary panther guy, Isadora Furman, the delusional cowgirl who claimed to sound like Janis Joplin and sang like an owl having an orgasm, and fowl Margaret Fowler, a gross old lady, covered in layers of belly fat and the dead skin of Big Bird. Margaret wins and comes waddling up to the stage to not-quite the Sesame Street theme. She plants a looong, absolutely grotesque kiss on Seacrest's lips, literally bending him over backwards, before exposing her hideous stomach and shaking it for God and country. I fucking hate her. Next!

Performance. The Top Six guys are back for a Group Sing. Yay! Love the Group Sing! They're all dressed as ghosts. Sanjaya. Sligh. Brandon. Chris R. Phil. Blake. Swaying and snapping to Smokey Robinson's Ooh Baby Baby. They each get a solo bit. I actually miss Chris R. enough that I don't care if he can't really sing. Also, I find that the sight of Sligh still makes me nauseous. Phil sings the "but I'm only human" part. Irony, your order is ready! Then Mr. Smokey Robinson himself comes out of the shadows. Dude, he looks like Evil Dead. He sings Being With You, while the guys sing backup from a safe distance. Then they sing Tears of a Clown as a group. The harmonies? Not so good. The Pips-like choreography? Ridonkulous and spectacular.

Performance. Barry B and Doug E. Fresh, neither of whom are even vaguely on my personal radar, are here to perform with Blake, who comes bouncing down the aisle like something that fell off a breakdancer in 1986. The three of them beatbox and rap and scratch to the theme from Inspector Gadget. "Put 'em up," they tell us. They want our hands in the air. I think not, sirs. Go-go gadget away. Hey, let's chip in and buy Blake a mirror. Maybe if he sees how silly he looks, he'll stop.

The Golden Idol Awards. Nominees for the Most Original Vocal Award are Nicholas Zitzman, the fish-mouthed, bug-eyed geek who could hit the high parts and the lowwww, Sandy Chavez, who took all the vowels out of Black Velvet and sang what remained like Kermit the Frog, and Sholandric Stallworth, a not-very-memorable baritone guy. Sholandric wins, and then there's some junk about how he can be heard from the stage without a mic. The clock, she ticks.

Performance. The Top Six girls have their turn at a Group Sing. Haley. Gina. LaKisha. Stephanie. Melinda. Jordin. Gina is in a maternity dress of some kind. They Heard It Through the Grapevine, quite funkily, based on this arrangement. LaKisha waves her arms around. Haley shakes her ass around. Miss Glady Knight suddenly arrives on the scene. Maybe she's looking for the Pips that just left. Gladys is not down with the white clothing motif, opting instead for a patterned black and gray poncho. I'm sure you were dying to know that. She sings I Feel a Song in My Heart, while the girls sing backup. Poor Melinda. She made it all the way to the front, and now she's been kicked back to the rear. Of course, everyone leaves on a Midnight Train to Georgia (whoo-hoo). Justin Guarini and the Hoff are happy to see them go.

Does Constantine live under the Idol stage? He's like the Phantom of the fucking Opera on this show.

Performance. It took a few weeks, but Tony Bennett is over his "flu," and he's here to sing a song from his Duets CD. Alone. He's singing For Once in My Life, and I really thought Stevie Wonder would stumble blindly onto the stage. But no. Tony Bennett sounds...like Tony Bennett. The man can make octogenarians swoon like no other. He gets very loud at the end, like Jennifer Holiday or something, and ends on a stroke-inducing note. The crowd roars.

The Golden Idol Awards. Nominees for the Best Buddies Award are Jonathan and Kenneth, a.k.a. Special Needs Jonathan and the Bush Baby, Amanda and Antonella, the former of which let us know that "God likes good people" while the latter pranced around in a wet t-shirt on the internet, and our very own Simon and Ryan, whose love story will someday be told in a feature film directed by John Waters. The winners, of course, are Jonathan and Kenneth. They accept their award in-person. Kenneth thanks the show for his 15 minutes of fame, and graciously forgives Simon for calling him a monkey. It's all well and good till the show plasters a photo of a real bush baby on the big screen. Then the joke is back on Kenneth, as Seacrest informs him that the show is sponsoring such a creature, named Simon, at the Milwaukee Zoo. Nice. Some day that kid will own this network, and we'll all pay the price.

Performance. Melinda teams up with BeBe and CeCe Winans, the brother and sister Gospel combo for whom she once sang backup. It's an upbeat song and a nice arrangement, but ultimately, it's holy, so...not really my thing. They want us to "hold up the light" and "save the world from darkness." I think they're talking about Jesus, but I find electricity quite satisfactory, thanks.

Ford Ad. Set to the tune of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time, this ad is a flashback to the earlier videos, along with some behind-the-scenes clips. Posing by a Ford. Melinda playing contortionist. Jungle car wash. Spy Blake. Matrix Sanjaya. Cowgirl Jordin. Blake and Kermit the Frog in an intense conversation. He knows that's a puppet, right? Idols at the laundromat set. Melinda talking to the child version of herself from the ad I forgot to recap. Fini. I'm still not inclined to by a Ford -- but Seacrest makes a gift of one to both Jordin and Blake (who gets into a Borat impersonation duet with Ryan. When will these two finally get married?)

Performance. Carrie Underwood sing I'll Stand By You live. Listening to her sing this song makes me feel like a starving African child. Where's that sandwich you promised, Carrie?

Sleeping Aid. Clive Davis takes the podium for the remainder of 2007 to report on the status of American Idol album sales. Chris Daughtry is doing fabulous. Taylor Hicks's single is...eh...whatever. Daughtry, Daughtry, Daughtry. Is he your boyfriend, Clive? Shout out to Jennifer Hudson, sitting in the audience. Blah, blah...Kelly Clarkson...something about Fantasia on Broadway. In between name-dropping and soiling himself, Clive presents Carrie Underwood with an award for her album sales in the form of a poster that he bought at his local Sam Goody store and had framed in a two-for-one sale.

Performance. The African Children's Choir followed Carrie Underwood all the way here because they want their damn sandwich. Carrie, you promised! Actually, they sing the most lively number of the night. Lots of dancing and drum-beats and harmonizing and leopard skins. The kids are all adorable, except for one big guy who needs to be Menudoed out.

Performance. Photos fly across my screen. Babe Ruth. Abraham Lincoln. Albert Einstein. Andy Warhol. John F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King. Gandi. All of this is the show's way of introducing...Sanjaya?!? Martin Luther King and Sanjaya, mentioned in the same breath. This is what our society has become. Sanjaya is here performing You Really Got Me Going with Aerosmith's Joe Perry. I don't know what to say about this. I... really...I'm at a loss for words. Sanjaya does what he does, while a wind machine attempts to blow him off the stage. Smart wind machine. He wanders through the audience, where Crying Girl is seating. She's still crying. Stick a fork in that kid. Joe Perry keeps his head down and plays his guitar. Maybe if he doesn't show his face, he can keep his dignity intact. Speaking of which...

Performance. Green Day are here to sing Working Class Hero. The band is backlit almost the entire time, in a failed attempt to hide their shame.

Performance. Taylor Hicks sings. That's all I'm giving you on that.

Performance. Jordin sings a duet with Ruben Studdard, who came dressed like Esteban, the funeral director pimp. The song is You're All I Need to Get By, although what Ruben really needs to get by is album sales and a personal trainer.

After the break, Everybody Loves Raymond's brother is sitting at the judge's dais. Everybody Loves Raymond's brother thinks he's much funnier than he actually is.

Performance. Bette Midler would like to remind everyone that we are the wind beneath her wings. This performance moves Jerry Springer to tears. Tomorrow, he'll return to his own socially relevant show where pregnant teen crackheads throw chairs at their two-timing babydaddies.

Performance. Beatles Medley! Kelly Clarkson, with Joe Perry on guitar, sings Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Strange choice, I must say. Kelly looks like she's dropped fifteen pounds since we saw her an hour ago. Taylor Hicks returns, like the herpes. Guess there's no avoiding him. He covers A Day in the Life. It's been a year since we've seen him, and he's still singing like Joe Cocker and making Frankenfaces. How did this guy win the show? Carrie Underwood sings She's Leaving Home. Another odd choice. Carrie left home because those African kids are chasing her. Feed them, Carrie. Feed them! I blink and the Top Six girls are on stage singing backup. They're way off in the distance, so Carrie won't catch their amateur-cooties. Ruben Studdard steps out, immediately dripping with flop-sweat. He's covering Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. When he hits the chorus, the Top Six boys appear out of the audience, and leap onto the mini-stage. Blake is dressed like a toy soldier. Next is a Group Sing of With a Little Help From My Friends. Sligh wants to know what we'd do if he sang out of tune. He already got the answer, about eight weeks ago. Hayley just needs someone to love. Heh. She wants somebody to love. You can't make this shit up, sometimes.

It's 10 p.m. At this point, all of America's DVRs stopped recording. According to Fox, American Idol is like a sporting event, and viewers should expect it to run over. So if you've invested five months in this train wreck of a show and really want to know who wins, well, Fox says suck it. Luckily, I was watching the show live(ish), so I didn't miss a thrilling minute.

Results! Blake and Jordin hold hands. Randy thinks Jordin will win. Paula is proud of them both. Jordin, she says, is a star. Blake, she says, is another star. Simon says that based on the last song, "Congratulations, Jordin." After a record vote of 74 million votes, the winner of American Idol 2007 is...Jordin Sparks!

Tears of joy and cheers of support and hugs and emotions. Blake BAMFS out like Nightcrawler. Jordin thanks everyone for everything and she loves her mom and dad and puppies and unicorns. She sings. At a moment like this, this is Jordin's now.

Confetti...and we are out! The time is 10:09.

Thanks to everyone who read these recaps of mine. I hope I entertained you as much as I entertained myself. Thanks also to Dave, for posting them, and Chris and Bill, for their insights and support.

See you next season...
--Frank