America’s Got Talent: Clean Up The House And Get Your Hair Out Of Those Curlers, Susan Boyle Is Coming By

Tonight on America’s Got Talent: Susan Boyle is a bigger star than the President of the United States, And now you’re caught up.Like a naive and abused housewife, I’m afraid I need to start apologizing again. I’ve been doing a bit of summer traveling and as a result some of the episodes from last week may have fallen through the cracks. BUT REST ASSURED. For technical reasons far too tedious to explain here, I’m projecting that starting this week the recaps should go up a reasonable amount of time after the show airs, which is probably something you readers aren’t used to with me.

So a quick rundown of what happened when we were apart. Because I didn’t cover it I’m sure you spent those evenings sitting in the dark and eating cookies, so here’s what you need to know-
A.) We went back to New York last Wednesday, Nick Cannon is a fucking liar.
B.) MySpace is still not as good as Facebook. Despite their attempts to turn Tuesday’s show into a pop-up ad.

Alright, the final night of Round 1 auditions! Who’s feeling nostalgic? And nauseas that AGT plans to join Dancing with the Stars and American Idol in the much-reviled Result’s Show club?

Standard recap of some the better acts that we’ve seen, and Nick promises us that tonight they’ve saved the best for last. LIKE WHEN YOU SAID WE WERE DONE IN NEW YORK? Actually, based on the way they edit the hell out of these auditions he’s probably right. Also, the producers have decided that we’re going to quit pretending we can find someone as talented (marketable) as good ol’ Susie B., so she’s just going to stop by, chat up Meredith Viera, and we’ll turn the whole thing into a 60 Minutes-esque expose.

The Final Countdown plays as we look back on everywhere we’ve traveled (remember when we were in Houston for like five minutes?) and HEY! It’s your favorite AGT duo and mine, Accordion Lady and Bikini Girl! Oh, man, you editors thought I had forgotten about the bad acts rejected from the first show, but their insistence on the importance of uniqueness has been ringing in my ears for five weeks now. The extended judge introductions play, and after a likely-prerecorded back and forth about how tonight was the last audition show, we’re off and running in Los Angeles.

Because it is the last audition night we’re going to dust off each and every AGT stereotype one last time, and first up is the group of friends who have long struggled. Actually, now that I think about it, after we have the frumpy housewife who has long-struggled and the precocious preteen we could call it a show. They’re a bunch of guys from Indiana (who were apparently busy buying edgy bandannas during the Chicago auditions) and they’re skaters. Rough town, want to go to Vegas, all the staples of the show. They call themselves Breaksk8 (and seriously? I’m sick of these weird-ass names. There isn’t even an apparent reason for that 8 in there! I’m going to start calling these re: Caps and myself m00rels) and my own anger at their name aside they are very well-coordinated on the roller skates. A lot of crazy backflips and rolling around ensues, and the crowd goes wild the entire time.

But oh man, my boy Piers has only been hardened in my time away. I know I was cruel to skip a few shows, Morgan, but don’t take it out on these skaters! He gives them the most shocking X that I’ve seen yet, but they should be pretty firmly supported by the Osbourne/Hoff Alliance. They finish and David starts talking about all the dancers that they’ve had on the show (which I’m sure the SKATERS really care about, Hasselhoff) and he says he needs to think about them. Piers explains himself by saying that he loved the whole act except for the skates. Uh, that WAS the act, Piers. I’ll be the first to admit they weren’t good dancers, but the talent was the skating. The judges continue to compare them to other breakdancers, and am I the only one feeling like that is completely unfair?

Sharon upholds her end of the Alliance by voting yes to the likable group, Piers gives them the highly unpopular no, and it’s all up to David now. And how weird would it be to have all of your career aspirations in the hands of David Hasselhoff? But David knows he and Sharon have a good thing going in making Piers completely useless, so he votes yes and BreakSk8 joins the O-H Alliance Stable that’s been growing backstage for a couple weeks now.

It’s time for what could be our final Victory Montage ever! Vocal group Mosaic (and thank God they didn’t screw with the spelling) is voted through after some impressive singing, the Lollipop Girls are going on after some stripping and general slutiness, and a group called Recycled Percussion plays recycled objects as instruments, displaying a remarkable talent for jumping on bandwagons. Kidding! I guess there might be some talent in hitting a ladder with a stick, too.

This kid named Jeffrey plays a piano crazy fast, and your recapper is SO far above making a joke about his Asian parents pushing him that instead I’ll comment that he’s kind of funny-looking. SQ Entertainment does a dance routine, but because someone in AGT editing hates dance we see as little of it as possible. The victory montage reaches ridiculous new heights as we simply get flashes of people and then the judges saying yes, and we can be pretty sure these people ain’t making the Top 40, I guess. They must have been so excited and told all their friends and family to watch for them, and now they’re getting even less screen time then that guy that did the puppet show with his toe. One more reminder that Susan Boyle is gonna be here, and it’s time for a break.

Next we’re met by a little girl from Hawaii named Ciana, and I can tell right away she’s good’s answer to the Evil Forces of Alicia. That’s right, TVGasm readers, the time away has not let me forget the lurking specter of that abomination so easily. Ciana is quiet and tells cute stories about singing in the bathtub, and she’s really excited about her new dress and I’m already ready to vote for her. Nick hits on her mom while she crosses the stage and gives Sharon her info. She says she would buy her family a new house with a million dollar winnings, and please contrast the following two answers to this question:
Adorable Ciana: the aforementioned new house for her parents
Another little girl, who’s name I will not mention:
TVGasm readers, I might have a bias (Please please please don’t suck, Ciana).

Well, my girl Ciana does an AMAZING version of “At Last,” causing Hasselhoff to wonder aloud if we are, in fact, kidding him. Stay sharp viewers, because the chances for a classic Hoff catchphrase have never been higher. Ciana keeps singing with the voice of a show-ender, which she should have been, and the audience is firmly behind her, which I’m sure means Piers hates her. But Piers says he has never heard an eight-year-old (he had to specify age so that Susan doesn’t beat the hell out of him after the show) sing like that, and she should pick out the house for her parents. Sharon calls her amazing and David says she’s good and young, but deprives us of the catchphrase! WTF, David? Isn’t she what this show is all about? They of course vote her through and she’s off to celebrate (adorably) with her parents. Another break!

It’s time for choir director Joe, the second Randy Jackson look-alike of the season by my count. I don’t have a good feeling about Mr. Joe after all these acts getting through, and he compounds my unease by calling himself a professional. This coupled with the lack of personal photos from the editors, and I think we can safely say that there’s heartbreak on the horizon. So Joe comes out on the stage ready to sing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” and we set up his failure by listing his profession and the fact that his students are watching. He begins to sing, and oh dear readers, did I call it or did I call it? Yes, Joe sings at such a pitch that my dad asks my mom if she was screaming.

The judges give him three rapid Xs and David said he sounds like a collapsing balloon. Piers mocks his calling it a “gift” and Joe gets three nos and he’s away. The choir director has the unenviable task of kicking off perhaps our last Failure Montage of the season (good or bad, depending on why you watch this show), which starts with the Lockard brothers playing the piano like they’re having an epileptic fit. Three Xs later and they’re out, replaced by a classically-trained singer. We all know how these usually turn out. True to stereotypes her singing is terrible and she also wins some Xs. She’s followed by Scott and Darren who do something called “Comedy Circus,” and I would not have blamed any of the judges for Xing him right there.

Darren crawls out dressed like a crocodile and they start climbing all over each other, which is mercifully Xed quickly. A physics professor sticks straws into a potato, which is just as fun as it sounds, and we’re going to take another break.

The VERY LAST ACT (as Nick is careful to stress) is four friends from Memphis that breakdance and don’t wear shirts. They’ve worked around to not turn to crime and stay out of the projects, and they take the stage and tell Sharon that they do “flippin’.” It turns out to be a little Michael Jackson (I’d love to call it a tribute, but we know this was filmed in January) homage to Billie Jean, complete with pretty decent moonwalking. They flip around all crazy and impressive-like and do insane amounts of backflips. The crowd and the judges clearly love them, and David calls them the best flippers that they’ve ever had. Piers calls them flipping incredible (very clever, Piers. Very clever) and all three vote yes. So we’ve been inspired by an amazing final act, what else could be left for this evening?

Ah, a public service announcement from our judges. Set to patriotic music and classic American images like the Lincoln Memorial and those black kids from Week 1, Piers booms about the show’s relationship to the American Dream, Sharon links the show to hope and dreams, and David waxes over the uniqueness and unpredictability of AGT. Guys, we’ve been watching for five weeks. If we don’t think America’s Got Talent is the as great as you want us to, this little introspective package is not going to change our minds.

A fun little montage of all the good acts that we’ve voted through., as well as some of the heartbreakingly terrible and disturbingly weird ones. So we can go home now, right? We’re all done?

The last eight minutes have been reserved for Susan Boyle for some reason, and at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if the judges entered her in America’s competition to spice things up. When we come back from the break the credits are rolling for AGT, deeply conflicting me as a recapper. The show is over. Should I even subject myself to this?

Call it my punishment for being so behind, but I will set through the Meredith Viera exclusive for you, dear TVGasm readers.

So Meredith gives us Susan’s life story. Born in Scotland, oxygen-deprived at birth, blah, blah, blah. Does a reality star REALLY deserve an eight-minute retrospective with Meredith Viera? Meredith talks to her about how she fell in love with her when she heard her sing “I Dreamed a Dream” (and then back out of love during everything else she sang) and compliments her hair.

We hear all about how she had been frumoy and alone before, and we watch the famous Clip of her singing. Piers says it was great. There is really nothing new here.

Susan says she was plucked from obscurity (newsflash) and remains modest and shy with Meredith, and then we get the look back on Susan caring for her mother. Her mom pushed her to sing, and Susan was the baby of the family. Meredith immediately changes to the subject to Susan’s audition. Susan says she was healthy nervous and wanted to fufill the promise to her mother that she would become a frumpy inspiration to the world.

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But then we do touch on the terrible performance! Or Meredith does anyway. The interview is noticeably absent in questions about her mediocre second performance, and as we start to talk about finale night again I get the feeling that this really is not going to reveal anything new at all to the world. She doesn’t hate Diversity for winning, she’s uncomfortable there’s a Susan Boyle doll (as am I) and she’s recording a record that she’s not allowed to talk about. The interview mercifully ends with Meredith attempting to sing “I Dreamed a Dream” with Susan, and we’re finally done for the night.

So, how boring was the Susan Boyle segment? Who from tonight looks like a contender? And how excited are you to FINALLY get to Round 2?