American Idol 2, January 29: Four Days to 32

Julia waits. And waits. And waits. And… waits. Her group never comes back. The next morning, Kimberly, Stephanie, and Elizabeth are rehearsing "You'll Never Get To Heaven," their number. Kimberly says she doesn't know where Julia is, so they are now a threesome. Meow.

Stephen (who sees himself as a superstar already), Alden, and Corey have a ball. Patrick (studded wristbands) is concerned that Corey wasn't rehearsing and that slowed down his group. The next morning, the bus is ready to go, but three guys are missing. Any guesses who they were? That's right.

Corey appears, declaring that he is not late. Yes you are. Patrick weakly charges that he'd been waiting since 6:30 AM. I wouldn't have been as calm. Then comes Alden, who looks no worse for the wear (don't people like that make you sick!). And, then, our favorite ego-maniac Stephen arrives. At least he has the decency to run for the bus. On said bus, an unnamed person asks the male contestants to "remind these two ladies what time we were supposed to leave."

Will this behavior count against them?

Julia confronts her groupmates who are, of course, eating. We get a brief snippet of the tail end of an apparent hiss-fest, after which Julia stomps off to the lobby. Julia's sister (unnamed) demands to know "where is her mother?" She could only be talking about Stephanie Schultz, who's only 16. Julia tells her to chill, she doesn't care, it doesn't matter. Sister DeMato marches to breakfast table and gives the catty trio a piece of her mind. Kimberly declines the piece, and Sister DeMato snarls, "Be respectful! Be respectful!" Kimberly shoves a piece of sausage around her plate. How are they going to perform together?

For the men, it's show time. Simon gives them a warning, "Make sure you learned the words. I know it's a nervous time for you, but while you're waiting to go on, I urge you to make sure you know the words."

Good advice, but ultimately it falls on deaf ears.

The first group, which includes Ruben Studdard and Ricky Smith (Paula had said he looked way older than 22 and it bothered her), performed "Superstar" (Luther's version, not the Carpenters') and are sensational. The judges say so. The judges are encouraged, but they shouldn't have been.

The next group, which includes Picks To Click JD Adams and Jacob John Smalley, murder the words to Barry Manilow's "Tryin' To Get The Feeling." And they didn't seem terribly troubled by their failure. Simon is furious: "You three are an embarrassment to the competition! Absolutely unbelievable! That was one of the worst things I've ever heard. It's not even worth talking about individually." Paula, the nice parent, gently disagrees that they should be considered en masse (en masse massacred!). Simon says she and Randy can handle that if they want to. He is past it! (To be fair, though he was destroying the words, JD Adams managed to sound pretty good!).

The next group, with Corey Clark and Patrick Lake, tackle "A Kiss From A Rose" and draw a penalty. Seal may be the only man alive who could sing this song properly. Patrick is slightly off-key, and Corey (who partied) gives a slap to rose with his bastardization of the lyrics - and his pitch is horrible to boot. He tries to play it off by playing up to Paula. He ends up singing his way to Paula and taking her hand. It wins her over, Simon remains disgusted ("you didn't sound great"), Randy is at least good humored about it, "if you're gonna play to ladies like that, make it in tune, yo!" Yep, that kiss from a rose had onion breath!

Then came Superstar Stephen Franklin, Alden Wynn, and Bettis Richardson, who we are meeting for the first time. Alden takes massive liberties with the lyrics, Bettis seems uncomfortable with the material (probably because both of his groupmates didn't rehearse with him much), and Stephen flat-out lays an egg. He tries to steal the spotlight from his group, grandstanding to a sickening degree and the worst crime… trying to hide the fact that he doesn't know the words by over-stylizing. Incorrectly! If he had done that in his audition, he would have been turned down immediately. Simon looks fit to blow. Paula and Randy look utterly unamused themselves.

The men are assembled on stage and Simon opens both barrels with how disgusted he is. He tells them plainly that they have a situation where the girls could vastly outnumber the boys because of what they'd seen today. Translation: there is no curve!

Marcus Curtis, Paula's wannabe fiancé, chooses this moment to absolutely suck up to the judges with this: "Whatever decision you make will be the right decision. " Groans of disgust are clearly heard behind him.