X-Factor 2012: Results Show 1

Yes I know I spelt sacrificed wrong. Fuck you.

It’s time! To Face! The results show! Featuring the dastardly contrivances of the X-Factor production team, the last stand of always-the-bridesmaid Carolynne Poole, and the innocent man caught in the middle of their tug-of-war: deadlock-enthusiast Louis Walsh.

Dermot tells us that backstage the nerves are a-jingling, apparently. He knows because Zingerbot measured the level of anxiety on her Nerveometer. Dermot promises us some great guests tonight but all I’m interested in is knowing whether or not there’ll be an abominable auto tuned group performance. PLEASE let there be an abominable group performance. My life would suck without it. The Judges descend from Valhalla to take their seats. Louis still looks like he’s had a stroke. 

ABOMINABLE GROUP PERFORMANCE! YES! The contestants are performing Read All About It. Emile Sande smiles and decides to make another trip to the bank tomorrow with a wheelbarrow full of royalty cheques. However! In a massive twist, this year the finalists actually appear to be performing the abominable group performance LIVE. This is a huge disappointment to me. It was always such fun last year hearing Frankie Cocoza suddenly and miraculously singing in-tune. Chris Maloney sashays out for his part of the group performance, with all the confidence of a seasoned diva. OHH ME NERVES, I’M SHITTING MESELF. Fuck off, Chris.

Then it’s time for the interminable recap of all of last night’s performances. Look, there’s Two Direction! And there’s Another Direction! Holy fuck, there’s a terrifying close-up of Ben Mitchell that’s going to give me nightmares for a month. Also last night: Melanie Masson was LOUD. Chris Maloney was a con artist. Ella croaked. Nicole found Jahmene’s balls. They were under the sofa. And a terrible beauty was born: RYLAN NATION! 

The first of tonight’s guest appearances designed to pad out the show so we can have 4 ad breaks arrives. It’s seasoned warbler Leona Lewis. Ah, guest-performer hype-reel, how I’ve missed you. Leona’s achievements: she’s sold 20 million of something (probably not her autobiography, unless it’s as a sleep aid), her album is the fastest-selling debut ever, she designed the Curiosity Rover and she’s cured cancer. Tonight she’ll be performing her boring new song Trouble. Damn, I had my hopes pinned on a cover of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy. The stage appears to have been covered in toilet-paper. Yet again, the creative genius of Brian Friedman is not for us mere mortals to understand. Leona finishes her song and proceeds to make a bunch of boring mumbled noises when interrogated by Dermot. She’s the female Jahmene, basically.

Dermot provides the first of this year’s FIVE-MINUTE WARNINGs. That’s right, in exactly five minutes, Nicki Minaj is going to arrive and that’s when shit gets serious. Somewhere backstage, Carolynne Poole does a wee. There’s some banter with the judges to waste time while the producers pretend to count the votes. Last night’s show generated 800,000 tweets. That’s important because apparently we use Twitter to measure the significance of things now. Fuck you, planet. Zingerbot compliments Dermot on his big balls. 

Now it’s Ne-Yo’s turn to perform. For those who have no idea who Ne-Yo is, imagine a Chris Brown who doesn’t hit women and has much worse songwriters and you’ll have some idea. I think the strategy here was to make Leona look 10 times better than she actually was by following her performance with this tripe. The lyrics are awfully repetitive. Even more repetitive than the average Kelly Rowland song. The gist of the song is that Ne-Yo will love you until you learn to love yourself. Then he’ll vanish and you’ll realise he actually died 10 years ago. Swerve. After the performance, Ne-yo demonstrates that he didn’t watch last night’s show by saying there’s a lot of talent in the Boy’s category. I didn’t pay attention to Ne-Yo’s hype reel but I’m sure it claimed that he invented music or something.

After what seems like about seventy years, it’s finally time for the actual results! The lights are dimmed and IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, Kye is saved. I guess it's only fair to call him out first. He is 63 years old after all. He’ll need to get to bed soon. Ben Mitchell is safe. So are Three Direction. Ella the pony and Lucy the lesbian are safe. Mortal Kombat 1, Loud Melanie and Jahmene’s balls are through to next week. Jade is safe. Somehow, enough people voted for Union J to save them. Chris Maloney is safe and he shits himself with joy. So it’s Rylan vs Carolynne in the sing-off. I guess they should decide to save Rylan, because Carolynne is dead anyway once Nicki Minaj shows up to punish her for covering Starships last night. Just like the public have done, actually. 

Nicole introduces Rylan. She can’t believe he’s in the bottom two! It’s a travesty of a sham of a mockery of an occurrence. He’ll be performing a dubstep version of The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball from Cats. Not really, he’s actually “singing” One Night Only from Dreamgirls. It’s horrendous. And he forgets the lyrics too, I think. It’s tragic. It’s like a car crash. In slow motion. In sum, it is the least likely performance to survive a sing-off ever. But also the one most likely to create kilometres of newspaper columns if it did. You know, just in case that happened.

Carolynne decides to sing another country music epic, because that genre served her so well last night. Backstage, Nicki Minaj sharpens her knuckle dusters. That’s right, Nicki Minaj has knuckle dusters with knives attached to them. Don’t pretend you’re surprised. During the performance, you can see a production assistant run up to Louis to tell him “The ratings are down, you have to send it to deadlock!” 

Decision time! Zingerbot decides to save Rylan. Zingerbot cares for its acts the way a human would care for its loved ones. Gary saves Carolynne. Tulisa saves Carolynne. Then Louis Walsh spends about 15 minutes deliberating, because it’s obviously quite difficult choosing between someone who can sing and a beanpole that exists purely to shatter the concept of music as we know it. Dermot screams at Louis that time is running out. Doesn’t he know Downton Abbey is meant to start at 9pm sharp? Louis sighs and deliberates. Dermot tells Louis that he’s a cock-munching deviant spunk-licker. Louis bites his lip and looks thoughtful. Dermot holds up a sign saying “Look, just save Rylan already” Louis says he wants to save Carolynne. Dermot looks alarmed as the producers scream “THIS IS NOT THE PLAN” into his earpiece. Dermot gently prods Louis to follow the correct course of action: “I NEED THE NAME OF THE ACT YOU’RE SENDING HOME” *WINK*. Louis realises it’s his duty, nay, his honour, as an X-Factor judge, to generate the oxygen of controversy on which this show survives, and then decides to send it to deadlock.

Deadlock noise: dun dun! Dermot consults the public vote. Poor Carolynne Poole. She’s been rejected by Fame Academy. Rejected by this show. Twice. Rejected by her ex-husband. Rejected by nature what with her infertility and rejected by science with failed IVF. Frankly, the entire world is basically telling her she’s pointless. Dermot reads the result: Carolynne is bottom of the public vote. REJECTED. Gary Barlow storms off-stage to generate an extra few lines of tabloid fodder. Dermot consoles Carolynne with the wonderful news that Nicki Minaj is waiting backstage to meet her.