I need perfection, some twisted selection

G’evening, roos. It’s RockStar:INXS, the elimination episode from last week. Somehow I managed to erase the performance episode from last week, so I have no idea what happened. I’m assuming everyone did the singing thing, Dave N. made creepy comments about the female contestants’ appearances, and INXS were frustratingly polite. Oh yeah, and J!D! Fortune! was a tool.

So it’s elimination time! New sensation, blah blah. Only eight contestants left! Does that mean we have to suffer, er, enjoy two more months of this show? Just curious…Brooke Burke is wearing brown pants and a tube top with four feet of tinsel around her neck. Give ‘it’ up for INXS! The same for Dave ‘black is the new black’ Navarro. Apparently, last night was an all-acoustic night with the contestants performing songs that INXS had picked out for them. The worldwide response was ‘huge’. The voting has doubled over the past two weeks. There’s silence then people start applauding, like they don’t know how to feel about that. Now we get to find out who the top three were – Jordis, Marty, and Mig. Mig gets an extra ‘EEEE’ reaction from the audience. Dave N. says they were all good but one song saved him a fortune in couples’s therapy – Mig gets the encore performance. Judging by his reaction, he’s either really surprised or a fabulous actor. I’m going with the latter, because he asks Jordis and Marty to come sing with him on stage, and in the world of Mark Burnett there’s no such thing as a surprise moment.

Mig takes to the piano (played very nicely) and, well, comes alive. Marty and Jordis chime in with harmonies on the chorus. I’m having an big ol’ ‘70’s flashback to when I was at gymnastics camp, when some girl came rushing into the dorm holding the Frampton album squealing, ‘I’ve got it!’ No stereo to be had, though. Back to the show, they singsingsing and Mig does a lot of high-end runs with the chorus, but he manages to pull it off, because he’s Mig. The three of them finish, are safe, and get to go back to the peanut gallery.

The plaintive piano of elimination starts playing and Brooke reads the name of the three lowest vote getters. They are Jessica, Deanna, and Ty. Jessica and Deanna are more or less resigned to be in the bottom three. Not Ty. He was quite happy with his performance, but he ‘can’t wait’ to get to perform an INXS song for the band. But the voting changed over the evening and Ty is actually safe. The other lowest vote getter was Suzie. How does she feel? After a long pause she blurts out, ‘bad!’

Back from ads, Brooke notes that the bottom three is all women. Also, tonight’s show was written by No-Duh McObvious. Dave is bummed to see one of these really similar women going home. And by really similar I actually mean ‘gorgeous’. Sax player Kirk jumps in and assures us that they are completely open to the idea of either a woman or a man as INXS’s new lead singer. Audience? ‘EEE!’ Hermaphrodites? Are out of luck.

Suzie gets to sing ‘By My Side’. It’s a slow, swingy song with soft verses and a loud high chorus. She’s wearing a jacket, black T, olive shorts, and high heels. She sings well and sings the last verse/chorus on her knees at the edge of the stage. Good performance.

Jessica is up on the block next. She is asked to ‘do her best’ with ‘Mystify’, an upbeat swingy rock song. She has on a green cut-off jacket, ripped cut-off t, and low slung jeans. All the better to midriff around the stage. She’s off on the low notes and is trying to be throaty on the rest of the song but it comes off as stagy. Garry ‘Garry’ seems to be enjoying her though. Strictly meh.

Deanna’s up now. She is asked to sing ‘Never Tear Us Apart’. ‘Gladly’, she says. The outfit is a black leather corset thing and a three-tiered blue hippie skirt, and while she’s singing at one point, she grabs the skirt right at her crotch level and bounces up and down, so it looks like she forgot to go potty before she hit the stage. As for the singing, it’s a big slow ballad and she kind of wobbly with the beginning, which is pretty soft and low-key. You can tell she’s dying to start ‘cornbread’ing it up and belting it out. She gets her wish soon enough and belts out the rest of the song, adding extra runs with her voice during the guitar solo. It’s different for her and not exactly what I’d call good, but whatever.

Deliberations! Plaintive piano starts playing again and Tim Farriss gets to drop the axe this week. He calls tonight’s elimination ‘the hardest yet’. It’s getting really tough because they were all good last night and were all ‘great tonight’. But to cut to the point, it’s now about who isn’t right for the band and Jessica. Is. Not right for the band INXS. There is much wooing from the audience and the peanut gallery stands up and claps for her. Strangely, Ty doesn’t clap but rubs his hands together, like Mr. Burns going ‘excellent’. Jessica says she had an excellent time, and she has lots of new friends. Now go say goodbye to INXS.