X Factor Week 5 (Quick) Recap and Results

This image created in anticipation of a Maloney exit. Hope springs eternal, eh?

Truncated recap this week, as I have things that are much more important than the X-Factor to occupy my time for once, like watching paint dry, counting the blades of grass in a field, and listening to the collected works of Christopher Maloney until I start bleeding out my eyes. Regular service and style of blog will resume next week.

First up is the sad news that Lucy Spraggan’s lesbianism has reached the point where she is now a threat to mankind, and has been put down on the orders of the X-Factor veterinarian. Rather more surprising is the revelation that they’re not going to milk her exit for more drama by having another Amelia Lily-esque wildcard round, or bringing back an ejected contestant. Instead they’re just going to quietly go on with the show. Perhaps this is an indication of a change of pace for the X-Factor, forgoing ludicrousness and column-inch generating spectacle in favour of dignity and sombre performance. Well no, it isn’t, cos first up is Rylan.

RYLAN NATION!

Style: A parakeet covered in blood

VT Highlights: During a trip to Essex, Zingerbot gets to meet the locals, learns to speak TOWIE and loses about 20% of her brain cells in the process. Fun times in Essex concludes when Nic agrees to get a diamonte portrait of Rylan glued to her vagina. No, really.

Song: Hung Up

JUDGES! Gary says the first 10 seconds of it weren’t awful, which probably means Rylan is going home tomorrow.

Union J

Style: Topman liquidation sale

VT Highlights: Origin Story expounding on the boys’ personalities so that prepubescent girls can decide which one they want to marry. Quicker than you can say “they’re going to describe one of them as “the cheeky one”, they tell us that Poor Man’s Harry Styles is the cheeky one. For the record, JJ used to be a jockey, so marry him if you want the ride. Josh is the funny one, so marry him if you want a laugh! Poor Man’s Harry Styles is cloned from the pubic hairs of Harry Styles, so marry him if you want him to cheat on you with your mam. And Gaymi is... the sensitive one. Marry him if you want a relationship resembling Tobias and Lindsey from Arrested Development.

Song: Taylor Swift’s Love Story. Gaymi fucks it up by changing the lyrics to “Civilly Partnerfy me, Romeo”, breaking down on stage and shouting “I’m sick of living a lie!” while tears steam down his face.

JUDGES! Are uniformly positive in their assessments. Boo.

Kye Sones

Style: 20 years too young for him.

VT Highlights: Kye has an incredibly contrived and scripted conversation with his chimney sweep brother, about their lives as chimney sweeps. I feel like there’s a great plot for a video game here. Hard working chimney sweeps Kye and Kyesbrother find a secret portal up a chimney that brings them to the Fungus Kingdom where they fight the evil King Simon and win the heart of the beautiful Princess Toadstool. They enter into a modern relationship, with the brothers spending alternate nights with the princess, making jokes about cleaning out her flue.

Song: An incredibly painful performance of the New Radicals’ You Only Get What You Give, wherein Kye seems even more desperate than normal to appear younger and bouncier than he actually is. After coming off stage, he collapses onto a sofa and spends the rest of the show on a nebuliser.

JUDGES! Agree that Kye’s contrived attempts at being youthful are almost as irritating as his contrived attempts to be “alternative”.

James Arthur

Style: Sloth from The Goonies meets Ben Mitchell meets the Elephant Man in an Oxfam shop.

VT Highlights: James meets No Doubt. Gwen Stefani runs screaming from the room shouting “Kill it with fire! Kill it with fire!”. Also: James is happy that his mam and dad hate each other 20% less than they used to as a result of his being on the X-Factor.

Song: No Doubt’s Don’t Speak, as performed by a constipated man who has also swallowed several razor blades. Also: there is a rap. I am glad I don’t have the time for an extended recap, otherwise I would spend at least two paragraphs on the awful of the rap. Following the awful, awful rap: more constipated noises that sound vaguely like HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURGH DON’T HRRRR DON’T URRRRRRGH DO-WHOOAAAAAAA-WHOOOOA-URRRRRRRGH-N’T SPEEEEEEEA URRRRRGH bring the song to a blessed conclusion.

JUDGES! Praise James’s effortless credibility but criticise him for scaring Gwen Stefani. She’s still lost by the way. Reward offered if found before tomorrow’s results show.

Adella, the last remaining girl and artist formerly known as  Epona, the Celtic Goddess of Donkeys, Mules and Horses, in her mortal form as Ella the Baby Pony and Adele Clone.

Style: Beautiful fetlocks set up by understated bridle and glamourous yet subtle saddle.

VT Highlights: Adella goes for a masterclass with No Doubt, which consists of Gwen Stefani pretending to have watched a video of all your performances and then telling you that you’re great.

Song: Firework by Katy Perry. Less oversinging than last week leads me to conclude that we get a decent Adella performance every 2^nd week. Next week we can expect a return of Mariah Carey syndrome, as Adella overperforms every single vowel like it was a mini-opera.

JUDGES! Nicole thinks that watching Ella is like watching a movie. Glitter, perhaps. Louis calls her a little [star].

District 3

Style: Whatever was left over from the Topman liquidation sale when Union J were finished there.

VT Highlights: Origin story! Once upon a time, District 3 were just 3 normal boys, but then they were bitten by a radioactive boyband, and ever since then they’ve had the proportionate strength, speed and cunning of autotuned twentysomethings. Feared and hated by a world they have sworn to sing to, despite its protestations, they are the Uncanny District 3! Unfortunately, the radioactive boyband who bit them were also American, so everything District 3 sings sounds like one of those awful radio adverts where a person who isn’t American pretends to be because, I dunno, American voices sell more?

Song: That dynamite song where the word dynamite is pronounced as "dynomite" throughout.

JUDGES! Summed up astutely by the Zingerbot with the words “No baby, no”. Each judge pans the performance, while Louis Walsh flaps about and squawks about how they’re completely wrong and it was actually brilliant.

Jahmene Douglas

Style: Boring suit. Quelle surprise.

VT Highlights: Basically, Nicole Scherzinger got high and went to work in Asda for a day. She scanned items to see how many was in stock, berated  Jahmene for picking something with rhubarb in it, terrorised the customers on the in-store tannoy, and was generally amazing. Sorry, shamazing. Sorry, jahmazing.

Song: LISTEN. You know, that Beyoncé song where she exhorts you to LISTEN. Not that you need to listen carefully when Jahmene is singing, because even people who lost their television reception thanks to Saorview can still hear Jahmene obliterating the sound barrier. He’s toned it down this week a little, so there’s only about 17 syllables per note, rather than the usual 38.

JUDGES! All agree that Jahmene nailed it. Zingerbot looks close to experiencing her first emotion ever and says the performance was like Jahmene was lighting a torch. I don’t know what that’s meant to mean, but I feel compelled to preserve everything Nicole Scherzinger says for posterity.

Christopher Maloney

Style: KILL IT

VT Highlights: Chris decides to deal with claims that he’s a bit of a diva and that he’s a complete faker about 4 weeks after they were originally made. The X-Factor: always with its finger on the pulse of the information nation. They also have website! On the internet! You know that cool new thing you can get on your 56k modems? Wah wah wah, Chris is not a cunt. Except he totally is.

Song: All By Myself, in the style of Celine Dion.

JUDGES! Louis says that the purpose of the show is to find an international recording star, and that he can’t imagine Chris ever becoming that, unlike Alexandra Burke, Shayne Ward, Matt Cardle, Steve Brookstein, Leon Jackson and Joe McElderry.

RESULTS SHOW
Rita Ora takes off all of her clothes, while No Doubt attempt to ressurrect their careers.

My faith in mankind is dashed as Chris Maloney makes it through YET AGAIN. Seriously, I'm going to have to make a violent intervention soon. Get him off my screen or else I'm going to destroy television.

The sing-off is between Kye and Rylan. Nic and Gary save their acts, Louis saves Kye, and Tulisa decides to stay through to her urban roots by saving Rylan. This means Deadlock for the millionth time this series, and the continued irrelevance of the judges. The public have spoken and Rylan is safe. So it's back to the chimneys with Kye, while Gary Barlow, whose only remaining contestant is CHRISTOPHER FUCKING MALONEY, has an aneurism about the unfairness of it all. Will somebody please think of the music??