She Didn’t Want To Make The Band Anyway!

On this week’s episode of Making the Band 3, the girls slaved away for nearly seventy-two hours straight as they learned what sort of grind lay ahead of them as musicians. It was a tough journey, and we knew there might be some casualties. At the end of last week’s show, we even saw Diddy tell Aubrey that she should go home. But could that really be the case? Would Diddy really ax the band’s most popular and recognizable member? If we know anything, it’s that Diddy is unpredictable. But if there’s something else we know, it’s that MTV can be quite crafty when it comes to misleading promos. What would happen? Would Aubrey be out of the band? The answer and full recap after the jump…This week’s show didn’t begin with Diddy making loud boasts from his comfy couch. Instead, we jumped right into the action as large text on the screen read “Day 1. 6 AM.” I wasn’t quite sure what this was the first day of (maybe a Boom Cat marathon?), but whatever it was, it sure was important! Actually, we soon learned the girls were about to endure Hell Week. Back in college, Hell Week usually meant doing naked slip-and-slide on a ping pong table covered in vomit and urine, but I had a feeling that wasn’t what was in store for these women (and if it was, I was totally gonna make that a Clipgasm). Instead, Hell Week involved lots of singing and dancing and meeting and greeting, and it all began with an early morning session with Chris Slate, the personal trainer. A few squats, calisthenics, and Power Bars later, the girls then headed over to their favorite choreographer / ruthless tyrant, Laurie Ann Gibson. That could only mean one thing: yelling. Lots and lots of yelling.

“Every single thing that you’re going through I promise you is only going to make you better,” she said. Yes, they wouldn’t be boom cats, but boom LIONS! Speaking of which, Laurie Ann then regaled us with a lovely assortment of nonsense words as she guided the girls through their new routine.

“Aaaand accent OH!” she yelled, clearly having pulled three random words out of her brain. This was followed by “Nice! Boom boom cat! For your life!” Extra points for weaving a boom cat into an inspirational message. Boom boom cat for your life. What a motto to live by. Thanks Laurie Ann. I will boom boom cat for my life!

Laurie then finished off the set with some new sounds for the dance pantheon: “Boom boom moo moo!” It was sort of like a bovine twist on an old classic. I liked it!

Next it was off to vocal training with the always lovable Betty Wright. Everything seemed to be going well, but I should have remembered: it’s not Making the Band 3 without one of the white girls singingly crap. Last week was Shannon. This week was Aubrey. Betty made disgruntled noises at Aubrey’s performance, ultimately accusing her of sounding self-conscious. Turns out that Aubrey suffers from a debilitating insecurity about her voice. She said she tries to make up for it by being more of a “performer” per se, but that was really just her way of saying, “Okay, okay. I sound like crap. But I’m hot, right?”

While Aubrey struggled with these demons, the girls then spent the night preparing for a big radio interview with the acid-tongued mistress of the morning: Miss Jones of Hot 97 FM. Apparently this DJ slices and dices guests, which meant these unlucky girls would be having quite the rough morning. This was not the first time the girls had visited with Miss Jones. Last season, she happily eviscerated all the aspiring thrushes. The only person who seemed to emerge unharmed was Dawn, I believe, but that’s because she did the whole “I lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.” Always a sob story with that one! Oh I KEED.

Behold the power of pita!

The next morning, the girls headed out to the radio station, and I secretly hoped Miss Jones would grill Wanita on her silly alter-ego, D. Woods. But alas, Miss Jones had more pressing matters at hand — like one, massive, humiliating freestyle exercise that would surely give these girls nightmares for weeks. Yes, Miss Jones gave the girls a beat and had them improvise and flex their artistic muscles, but instead, the ladies simply bopped their heads and made little “uh” noises. And that was it.

“Y’all are wack!” Miss Jones snapped. C’mon, Miss Jones. You don’t put five reality stars on your show and expect them to actually have talent. Luckily, the girls redeemed themselves by singing some song from their repertoire, and that was enough for the acerbic DJ to back off… for about two seconds. Miss Jones then announced that she had three possible names for the band.

3) “Catch a Brick.”

2) “Good Luck, Lou.”

1) And the number one choice, which was articulated by a girl from the show’s research department, was… “Three. ‘Cause only three y’all bitches can sing.” Oh SNAP! Those girls just got Miss JONES-ED! Well, assistant to Miss Jones-ed. Of course, we knew this would get a lot more awkward before it got better. Miss Jones then asked her research girl to point out who had talent and who didn’t. No surprise here: the girl selected Aundrea, D. Woods, and Dawn. Sorry Aubrey and Shannon. Looks like your worst fears have come true. You’re just T&A.

Later, the girls left the studio, and D. Woods naysayed the entire Miss Jones experience. “It’s not cool to disrespect somebody’s craft,” she said. I personally didn’t realize that these five girls actually had a craft — beside giving themselves hernias with excessive melisma overloads. Nevertheless, Aundrea’s insecurities seemed to grow tenfold after the Miss Jones debacle, and now she was all sad. So sad that she hung her head low, allowing us to see the full-extent of her drag queen eye lashes. Looks like somebody should spend more time singing and less time hanging out with RuPaul.

Lookin’ fab!

Next stop on the magical Making the Band tour was a meeting with the record label. Didn’t sound too rough — that is until the girls discovered that the entire staff of Atlantic would be sitting in on the meeting. And boy those people could not have looked more excited! You could practically feel the enthusiasm in the room. The sort of enthusiasm that seemed to say, “I left my Sudoku game for this?”

“We’re thrilled.”

Well, the execs babbled on about what they expected and then said the girls had five weeks to cut an album. Then it was off to a producing session as the girls worked with some producers to hone their sound. The two guys loved everyone. Well, everyone except Aubrey, who, as we discovered earlier, can’t really sing. “It’s a big insecurity of mine to be the pretty white girl that can’t sing,” she said. Well, if that was an insecurity, I hope she wasn’t watching this episode because we then cut to embarrassing footage of her barely able to hit the simplest notes. You just know these were probably ten crappy seconds in the middle of sixty minutes of good stuff, but hey, gotta tell a story!

The girls then returned to their apartment for a photo shoot, and was it just me, or did Shannon look particularly awful during this? Her hair was messy (an attempt at sexiness), and her smile was so blandly wholesome, I had a hard time remembering how she was supposed to be the hot blonde chick from last season. As for Aubrey, just when things couldn’t get any worse, she began to get sick — a frequent bi-product of bad singing; although, it’s usually the audience who gets nauseous.

“J.C. Penney, here I come!”

The bad news for her was that the night wasn’t over yet. A guy named Hen Roc stopped by the apartment to take the girls out to the clubs where they could network and meet DJs and all that fun stuff. Yippee! We then watched the girls go from place to place, chatting up the DJs all along the way. One guy asked them why he should play their album, prompting Aubrey to say, “Because we’re the ultimate females, we’re beautiful, we’re incredibly talented, and we’ve got personality for days.” Note how she didn’t say anything about “good music.”

After the club hopping, the girls then went to Diddy’s place to record… at 1:45 AM. Wow. This was a tough schedule. It was almost as bad as, you know, going to college. As Aubrey’s condition worsened, Diddy told the girls that they were going to try their hand at writing lyrics to a song. Sounded like fun, but Diddy could sense something was wrong. His ol’ Diddy Sense was acting up. Aubrey revealed that she actually had a fever, and ever the germaphobe, Diddy immediately told Aubrey to go home. So for those of you who tuned in expecting to see Aubrey get the boot, bad news. She was only going home because of a fever, not because she sucked.

Well, Aubrey really wanted to stay and infect everyone, but she couldn’t battle the boss; so she went over the elevator and waited. This, of course, led to tears, and so Diddy walked over to investigate. “You’re sick,” he told her, but she explained that she wanted to be part of the group. She didn’t want to miss a thing. Again, Diddy reminded her that she was sick, and she then replied, “I understand that, but have you been sick and worked?” Oooh! Touché. Diddy said yes, and Aubrey shot back, “Okay!” Somebody’s gettin’ a sass fever! Aubrey had better behave herself, or else she was gonna be on a one way flight to wherever Ma$e has been hanging out.

Diddy then asked her if she had anything else to say, and she said no. I mean, she wanted to say more, but she wasn’t going to. Diddy reminded her that she could say what was on her mind, and sassy Aubrey snipped, “I can say whatever I want. I always do.” Okay, somebody give her a cold compress and put her to sleep. She’s about to get put right out of this band. Luckily, Diddy played it cool and walked away, leaving Aubrey to sit by herself and sulk. And no, the elevator still hadn’t arrived. Awwwkward…

The next morning, Aubrey appeared to be much better. All the girls rallied by her side and tried to make her feel better. They explained that the best thing she could have done was save them from her dangerous fever, and by going home, she was in fact helping the group. Also, not having her around to muck up the vocals helped too.

Later, the girls headed back to Laurie Ann’s dancing dungeon where they were served a fresh plate of “ONE TWO BOOM BOOM CAT!” Afterwards, the girls then told her how Miss Jones had called them “Catch a Brick” and “Good Luck, Lou” and “Three.” This made the choreographer cackled with joy. She told the girls that they needed to develop a thick skin with Miss Jones, and suddenly they all began dismissing the whole radio experience, saying, “We were laughing.” Yes, all those rollicking peels of laughter in Miss Jones’s studio. And by laughter, I mean somber, morose faces on the verge of tears. It was simply delightful!

Laurie Ann wasn’t totally convinced that the girls were just laughin’ away with Miss Jones. “I feel a little swirl coming in this room,” Laurie Ann said. I thought maybe that meant she was about to fart, but it turns out she was sensing some uneasiness and apprehension with the girls. Luckily, when you put aside all the taskmaster boom-cat junk, Laurie is a pretty swell lady, and she had a surprisingly touching “Oprah moment” with the girls. She got all inspirational, telling Aubrey to let go of her insecurities and reaffirming that she COULD sing. Don’t listen to the haters. Listen to the heart. I just made that up. Hey, I want an Oprah moment too, dammit!

Afterwards, the girls all lined up before Betty Wright, and here’s a surprise: Aubrey sounded good. Well, it wasn’t so much that she sounded good as much as it was that the other girls sounded sort of bad to me. But Betty didn’t seem to notice. She was all smiles, much as she was last week with Shannon, and it seemed like this story would have a happy ending after all. And the cherry on the cake: after the miserable showing on Miss Jones’s show, the girls were now freestyling to a piano, and freestyling quite well too. “I can sing!” Aubrey sang triumphantly (although possibly erroneously). Miss Jones would be so proud.

The show ended with all the girls hopping into bed, their hell week drawing to a close. Aww. What a heartwarming journey. Let’s just hope that pesky mouse from last week doesn’t climb onto Aundrea’s face and poop in her mouth. Oh, I had to go there, didn’t I? Awful.

What did you think about this episode? Did it make you go BOOM? Or were you feeling more CAT? (Just go with it.)