Rylan’s up first, singing Mamma Mia. Rylan tells Nicole that she’s the first judge ever to make it to the quarter finals with her entire category intact. Nicole celebrates by tangling herself into some sort of yoga position and making whale noises while flapping her arms. It’s her least erratic contribution to the show tonight. Rylan and the rest of the boys celebrate by putting on a Thanksgiving dinner for her. The sight of James Arthur gingerly fingering an uncooked turkey is something I am not going to forget in a hurry. The performance is typical Rylan: barmy, out of tune and with lots of pouting. However it is notable for perhaps being the first time to date that Rylan murders an entire song without segueing into another one. The staging involves dancers dressed as chess pieces parading around a checkerboard-clad Rylan. It makes absolutely no sense but it’s miles better than Chris Maloney’s eyes boring into your soul.
JUDGES! Louis, shockingly, loved it. He thinks that the performance was just like Xmas day. Clearly some sick shit goes on chez Louis over Xmas, then. Louis doesn’t think Rylan is a joke act, he thinks he could be a massive success in Ibiza and the dance charts. He’s just like a little Tiesto. Tulisa loved the staging, because chess really engages her strategic brain. She does criticise the dancers however, pointing out that if the defending rook had been sacrificed, it would’ve opened up an opportunity to promote the pawn and deliver a devastating material advantage. Gary Barlow says Rylan shouldn’t be in the show at this point and not much else. Nicole wishes she was the gel on Rylan’s hair. I think a want a book of Nicole non-sequitors for Christmas.
In their VT, Union J explain how heartbroken they were last weekend when Ella died. We see footage of a bawling Gaymi collapsing into the manly arms of Chris Maloney. TRAITOR. The VT touches on Gaymi’s decision to come out and the reason for it: Things have gotten desperate for Union J. They’ve been in the bottom two twice now, and the producers have decided that they need all the votes they can get. The girls-love-Union-J angle just wasn’t working as strongly as they hoped, so it’s time to target the secondary market for boybands: the gays. Thus, Gaymi is free. Here’s a collage of things gay people enjoy to celebrate his liberation:
JUDGES! Tulisa commends the boys for their vocals. They were completely... EN POINTE. Can someone just please take her aside and shoot her? Or failing that, just explain to her what en pointe means? The Barlow says that everything about the boys feels right, and mentions someone other than Poor Man’s Harry Styles and Gaymi by name, which I think is actually the first time one of The Nameless Duo’s true names have been spoken aloud on-air. He’s called Josh, apparently. Nicole congratulates Gaymi on being gay, and also mentions Josh by name. I’m not okay with all this Josh-pushing. It’s undermining the comfortable dynamic they’d established with Union J. Things are changing too quickly... Gaymi is gay now, Josh has a name and Poor Man’s Harry Styles hasn’t gotten a look in. Still, at least the other one is still being ignored.
Nicole invites us to share Jahmene’s dream! I'll pass, because I imagine Jahmene’s dreams are a dark and scary place where he keeps all his true feelings about things. There’s no awkward giggles and downward-glancing in Jahmene’s subconscious; it’s all paddles and fleshlights and nipple clamps and things that’d make 50 Shades of Grey seem like Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret. I have to mention Jahmene’s inner darkness because his VT is all about the horrible things his mother has endured and I’m hardly going to joke about that am I? Well, okay, I would. Sufficeth to say that Jahmene is just a little too attached to his mother and it’s all a little Norman Bates. His mother is awesome though. She has gigantic pigtails that look like they're from an anime. This week he’s singing I Have A Dream. It’s boring and that’s all I have to say about it because watching Jahmene perform is never the most fascinating experience in the world but this week it’s particularly bland.
JUDGES! Louis doesn’t think Abba is Jahmene’s thing. Jahmene agrees enthusiastically and says that whips, suspenders and fuck-harnesses are more his thing. He did however, Louis tells us, sing his heart out. DRINK! Tulisa says it was stripped back. DRINK! Gary, of all people, says that it was en pointe. DRINK AGAIN. Nicole calls him her “lamb chop”. DRINK UNTIL YOUR LIVER BURSTS AND YOU DIE. At least then you’ll escape this ridiculously predictable cliché-fest.
James Arthur, the physical embodiment of Real Music Itself™ mumbles about how tough being in the bottom two last week was, and how sad he is that Ella is dead. We are reminded several times that PEOPLE HAVE TO VOTE. And if you wanted to vote for Ella, vote for James instead because now he wants to win and dedicate it in tribute to the Golden Goddess (of donkeys, mules and horses, in her mortal form as Ella the Baby Pony and Adele Clone) herself. And basically that’s it for James’s VT: vote now, vote often and vote in tribute to Ella. James performs a boring guitar-driven version of SOS with minimal staging, probably because It’s All About The Voice with James and he is so credible and genuine and VOTE FOR REAL MUSIC. It’d be kinda funny if James won actually. He’s the sort of singer who, with decent material, the self-important tastemakers at Radio 1 in the UK would cream themselves over (i.e. mong-faced and has a guitar); but he’s tainted by association with the X-Factor, nemesis of Real Music. Perhaps James is some sort of make-up-wearing messianic figure who can bridge the gap between the two worlds. Maybe he's our saviour... Maybe he's the Anti-Chris.
JUDGES! Louis tells us it would’ve been a tragedy to lose James. He made the song his own. DRINK! He’s already a recording artist. DRINK! At this point, I think I could just write the JUDGES! sections of the recaps a week in advance and arrive at a close approximation of what’s actually said. Nicole rambles incoherently about badgers and goshawks and she’s probably terribly, terribly high or drunk.
It’s Christopher Maloney. I think I can sum up why a victory for Christopher would be such a travesty with the following quotation from Terminator 2: Judgement Day, which at the time we all naively assumed was just a film but in reality was an oracular work of art, accurately predicting the forthcoming apocalypse:
“Three billion human lives ended on December 9th, 2012. The survivors of the nuclear fire called that war The X-Factor Finale. Judgement Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare – the war against Christopher. The computer which thought it could control Christopher, ITV, leaked so much negative publicity in a desperate race against time. Their mission: to destroy Christopher. Stop him winning. They called these press leaks “Terminators”. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at Christopher in the first weeks of the programme, pointing out he was a fake and didn’t have anxiety problems. It failed. The second Terminator was sent to strike at Chris in the latter stages, saying he was a diva, a troublemaker and a cunt. But they failed. They keep failing. People have already lost their lives. Ella is dead. ELLA! She was only 16. The unknown future rolls toward us. December 9th, 2012 keeps coming. Judgement Day is coming. I face it for the first time with a sense of dread, because if a Terminator can no longer change the course of the X-Factor, then maybe there is no hope. Maybe there is only horror. Maybe there is only Christopher. Performing Fernando.”
In Chris’s VT we learn that he had to leave Twitter because people were throwing death threats his way. I call these people the resistance. Also: I just checked Twitter, Christopher’s last Tweet was 4 hours ago. Two songs this week means double the pressure, which means twice the possibility that Chris will literally shit himself on television. Can you hear the drums, Fernando? There are semi-naked people cavorting around Christopher for some reason, which at least means I can manage to look at the screen and only want to gouge out one of my eyes for once. Progress! Maybe I will be able to survive in a world where Chris Maloney has won after all, provided some mostly-naked lithe dancers are nearby at all times.
JUDGES! Nicole thought it was lovely and theatrical, with very good vocals. She says she thought it was a snoozer and the audience applaud confusedly. Clearly Nicole’s madness is infectious. She acknowledges that Chris works very hard. Yes, it isn’t easy being a menace to society. Louis Walsh’s critique is so cringe-inducingly awful that Tulisa has to intervene and bring it to a halt.
It’s Rylan Time. Again. Except it isn’t, it’s Union J. Now I’m confused. They’re performing in a different order the second time around? Or is it that Rylan’s staging is going to be so glorious that it’ll have to precede the ad-break so they’ll have time to dismantle it? Regardless, Union J are up first in the Motown section of the night. There’s another VT, featuring a product placed tablet computer, so down three shots of vodka and smoke a joint if you’re playing the X-Factor Survival Game at home. If Louis Walsh compares someone to a Little Lenny Henry you’re going to have to do a line of coke, mind. For their Motown classic the boys are singing the Jackson 5’s I’ll Be There. Well I say “the boys” but it’s really more like Gaymi and his backing vocalists. A gay man with three straight male bitches. Gaymi’s dreams have really come true.
JUDGES! Gary Barlow says it was nice but not as creative as he would’ve liked. He would’ve preferred it if they performed the song while also doing a complicated trapeze routine. Or maybe if they’d concluded by rubbing jam across their arses like Take That used to do. Nicole says that Gary Barlow doesn’t understand the mind of a little girl. She also loves them because they don’t try to be something they’re not. She couldn’t have said that to Gaymi 2 weeks ago, though. Louis responds to Barlow’s criticism by barking a lot of phrases that don’t make a coherent whole. Par for the course Louis Walsh then.
Nicole Sherzinger cements her position as my favourite hot mess of 2012 by wondering aloud which camera she’s meant to be speaking into, then proceeding to talk to the wrong one, and introducing the wrong contestant. Oh Nicole, don’t ever change. It’s Rylan, by the way, and not James Arthur like Nicole announced. James Arthur is still recovering from his first performance. They’re so emotional and REAL that he needs to sit in a darkened room and contemplate life for half an hour before he can do a second song, otherwise he dies of pure emotional intensity. Nicole and Rylan watch his previous performances on a product placed computer tablet. Woppa Rylan Style! Spicegasm! Yes, Rylan has certainly given us many memorable weeks of incomprehensible madness. I blame Nicole’s influence. She’s channelling her insanity into Rylan to maintain the purity of Jahmene and James.
JUDGES! Louis points out that it’s week 8. DRINK! Tulisa points out that Rylan is here because people are voting for him. DRINK! Gary Barlow opens a black hole that tears all the fun out of the universe, creating the perfect place for him to live in. Nicole blames her introductory boo-boo on her “mixed-up mind". Drink?
It's time for the actual James Arthur now, who Nicole manages to introduce without setting fire to the studio. Nic and James review his performances to date on a product-placed... you get the picture. These second VTs aren’t actually VTs, they’re just subliminal Samsung adverts. James sings Let’s Get It On and it is every bit as terrifying as you would imagine. Imagine Pinhead singing The Way You Look Tonight. Imagine Freddy Krueger singing Can You Feel the Love Tonight. Imagine Norman Bates singing Angels. Oh, wait, Jahmene did it that in week 6, didn’t he? No need to imagine, then. Disregard! Imagine Hannibal Lector singing the theme tune from Barney and Friends. All are less terrifying than James Arthur asking the viewer to Get It Awwwwwwwwwwwwwn and delivering a horrendous falsetto as the violent coup de grace. I think I need to sterilise my ears after this.
JUDGES! Vocal performance of the night, according to Lulu. Tulisa sys only he could get away with singing that. Louis then proceeds to be cringey again, and is basically acting like Tulisa’s inappropriate slightly effeminate creepy Uncle who thinks he still understands cool. It was sexy, cheeky and all the blind ladies will love it! Gary can’t wait to buy James’s album. Nicole compares James to hot butter melting in our mouths, and I take a well-deserved break to vomit several times.
Everyone’s favourite creepy cherub is back, it’s Jahmene song two! During his turn shilling Samsung products, Nicole emotionally reminds Jahmene that ELLA IS GONE, which means they have to fight for their lives. Jahmene passionlessly explains that he loves Motown and he’s going to go out there and have fun with it. Passionless, dry, predictable fun. This week, Jahmene will be passionlessy, drily and blandly performing Tracks of my Tears. It is passionless, dry and bland. I’m convinced it’s dangerous putting such a boring performance on before Chris. Maloney’s performance, which is presumably going to be as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face as usual, is going to hit viewers like a machete to the forebrain following something as mind-numbingly boring as this song from Jahmene. I actually think some people may die as a result. But I guess there’s always that potential with good old Shake and Fake.
Anyway, back to Jahmene and the JUDGES! Louis says that if Motown were still signing artists today they’d sign Jahmene. He also knows that Jahmene will be in the final, because he’s read Sarah Conor’s journals, and he knows everything that happens in the run up to Judgement Day. Louis continues haranguing Tulisa throughout her critique. Luckily, she doesn’t have anything of import to say. Quel surprise. Nicole brings a donkey on-stage and proceeds to ride around on it, reciting lines from the Mad Hatter’s tea party backwards.
To close the show, and bring the entire planet closer to the precipice of destruction, it’s Christopher Maloney. Did you know that the Book of Revelation itself prophesied this performance?
“And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed in the style of the young, for the Evil Fashion Nazis hath raided the nearest Topman for all their wardrobe needs: and a rainbow was upon his head, for the multi-coloured lighting of the X-Factor studios were a shambles, and his face was as it were the sun – incandescent orange, like someone had dipped him in a sea of the tan as false as his proclamations to the camera; his feet were all ashook, for he pretended to panic, and he set his right foot upon the stage and he proceeded to sing Dancing on the Ceiling by Lionel Ritchie, for he felt the laws of physics could not bind him, for he was not of man, he was the Antichrist, the Dragon, the Beast and the Adversary. Beelzebub, Huitzilopoctli,Lucifer, Maloney.”
JUDGES! Blood streams from their eyes and they cry out in abject terror, clawing at their faces and screaming for hallucinogens and antidepressants, anything to take the edge from the trauma they have just endured. Nicole, in her most on-the-button critique to date, says she looks at Chris and doesn’t see much soul. THAT’S BECAUSE HE’S THE DEVIL.
RESULTS SHOW!
Group Song: The Topman Winter catalogue, plus its grandfather Christopher, sing Coldplay’s Viva La Vida.
Our special guest performers tonight are Bruno Mars and Rihanna. Right, we’ve had Bruno and Princess Ri-Ri, all we need now is Michael Bublé and our guest-star checklist will be complete. Bruno Mars shows up and sings something that sounds uncannily like Sting’s Message in a Bottle. Rihanna, who is less a person these days and more a performing automaton designed by committee, performs Diamonds. which feels like it’s been out forever at this point. I’m pleasantly surprised by the performance, which is incredibly restrained for Rihanna. By restrained I mean that she isn’t parading around in her knickers trying to fuck the camera. I wouldn’t stoop to buying her album, but when she eventually releases a Greatest Hits compilation it’ll be a pretty damn good one.
Oh, and now that we’ve had our annual Rihanna appearance, it seems like the right time to make my annual Chris Brown statement: Chris Brown is a cunt who hits women and we should never forget that, even if Rihanna has.
The bottom two are Rylan and Union J, which means Chris Maloney is safe and the march towards the plains of Armageddon continues. I’m just going to assume that Chris’s nan has taken out a small loan and employed a team of immigrants to ring his number repeatedly. Rylan knows that he’s gone and doesn’t seem fussed about it. He performs Athlete’s Wires and it’s actually not terrible. He gives Gary Barlow a kiss on the cheek and resigns himself to his fate. Gaymi and Josh sing Snow Patrol’s Run while the other two shuffle uselessly around.
JUDGES! Nicole saves Rylan. Louis lauds Rylan on being A Genuinely Nice Guy™ (which to be fair, judging by how much people always seemed to like him, appears to be entirely true), but saves his own act. Gary compliments Rylan on his best vocal performance of the series and bids him farewell. Tulisa also chooses to send him home. Rylan thanks everyone for sending him home because it means he’s free to leave the X-Factor compound and abscond to a desert somewhere in South America in the hopes that he’ll survive the upcoming Chrispocalypse. Two weeks to the final people. Hold your loved ones close.
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