The fifth episode of this highly dysfunctional reality/competition singstravaganza on Oxygen certainly wouldn’t dare deviate from the set-in-stone format of the show. Mini Challenge, Let’s Make A Video, Sing For Your Life, Time To Go. Beware, there are spoilers inside!
The Mini Challenge
The chirrens have to pair up, and if you can do the math (I know you can) that means that two boys will have to sing a duet. Oh noes! The earth stops rotating on its axis! Sissy Spacek appears in Carrie drag and Christian Fundamentalists suffer embolisms galore. The kids, on the other hand, don’t seem too messed up by it. Big Gay Alex is paired with Snack Wrap Matheus, and they are the oddest Odd Couple to grace anything ever. Big ginge Hannah is paired up with Sexy Irish Dude Damian, Scrubby Sponge Samuel is opposite Shut Up Rachel Berry (Lindsay) and “Christ On A Cracker” Cameron awkwards himself at former anorexic and (seemingly) all-around nice person Marissa. Side note here — for one, Darren Criss is back as a jerdge and mentor. Does no one else from the show want to meet the new kids? Does Darren Criss have nothing else to do? Two, ole Darren seemed to really enjoy handing out the pairs assignments as he announced the songs the kids were to sing. Like, almost sadistically. Get a life, Darren.
As the kids sang that tired ole song from 1833 “Need You Now” by that old timey group, Lady Antebellum Petunia Bloomers, the psychological problems of each of the kidtestants became highly apparent. Hannah, no self confidence. Alex, way too much self-confidence. Matheus, can’t act. Sorry kid but its true. Cameron, frigid and repressed. Samuel, needs a haircut. Shut Up Rachel Berry, Whore/Madonna Complex.
Darren’s smile got a little bigger after the singin’ was over and he picked Marissa as the winner. She sprinted away from Christ On A Cracker Cameron and went with Scrubby Sponge Samuel. I suppose he can squinch his face up with the best of them, right? Big Gay Alex went with Hannah, Damien got paired up with Matheus, and that left Ho-Ho-Hooor Rachel Berry with Cameron. Oh, Caroline Cameron, no. Whatever will you do, you fading flower, your virginity is about to be forcibly taken from you by a gurr-rull. Where is your god now, Cameron, where is your god.
Let’s Make A Video
We skipped over the usual rehearsing and dramatic sniping this week for reasons to be given later. The kids recorded their vocals and then made very short (approximately one to one and a half minute) videos of their songs. Marissa and Samuel squelched through an adequate rendition of ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby,’ Hannah and Alex performed ‘Nowadays’ from the Broadway musical ‘Chicago,’ in full drag (and didn’t Big Gay Alex just look as happy as a clam in his dress and wig? Yes he did), Lindsay and Cameron threw ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ in the freezer to ensure there was absolutely no sexual tension, and finally Matheus and Damian sang ‘The Lady Is a Tramp.’ Damian was a wonderful crooner, and he smiled so meltingly at the camera, my TV fritzed out. Matheus, on the other hand, did OK but he was really outclassed. Oh! And Shut Up Rachel Berry, at the choreographer’s direction, decided to plant a big old kiss on Cameron at the end of their song. Jaysus his own self sent down a bolt of lightning upon Cameron’s blackened soul when their lips met. Cameron was shaken to his very core, and ran to the dorm room to call his mama and cry to her that he was no longer pure. His mama sang “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” and seemed non-plussed by this revelation.
As the jerdges deliberated, the kids waited back stage. Alex (looking bored as always) committed an act of bitchery where he said that Matheus could not hit the same high notes as he could. They riffed back and forth, and Alex shut the competition down by releasing one golden sixteenth note with an icy stare of disdain at Matheus. This crushed our little snack wrap, surely it did.
Sing For Your Life
In another switch from the usual format, one couple was declared safe, and the other three had to sing for their lives. The safe couple was Samuel and Marissa. This meant that Alex and Hannah sang ‘Valerie,’ in the style of Amy Winehouse. The two of them really knocked this song out of the park, hitting a sleeping bum and causing a minor ruckus. Matheus and Damian wore some ridiculous galoshes as they sang Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Were Made for Walking,’ — sorry, didn’t know that was a duet. Again, Damian ruled and Matheus drooled. Matheus, you need some dance classes and acting classes. STAT. Lindsay and Cameron were incredibly painful to watch as Christ On A Cracker gangled his way through ‘River Deep, Mountain High.’ Apparently Ryan Murphy was inspired by this to create a Christian character on Glee for our little bible beater. I suddenly liked Ryan Murphy less. Much less.
But that wasn’t all of the Singing For Your Lifing to be done! No, no. Cameron, Alex and Matheus were put in the bottom three, and sniping was witnessed as Matheus said Alex was mean to him. Alex apologized (in what seemed to be an honest moment).
In the end, Matheus was sent home. Look kid, you’re only twenty years old. You have time to take dancing and acting classes. Or start that heavy metal band you keep talking about. Have a good time, aiight?
Next week on The Glee Project: The kids get slushied and Max Adler (Karofsky) stops by.
