"The X Factor": Astro, Drew dumped
For on last night's "The X Factor" results show, the kids were told - in terms that one of them could barely bear to hear - that they were not all right.
Astro and Drew were shown the door in an exit as painful as gout.
There are many who believe that Simon Cowell has added one 'l' to the end of the 'gal' in Svengali. There would be those after last night's show who would have believed that he would stoop to nothing in order to tweak a nation's nose for affection.
The drama unfolded like a papier mache horse.
The mentors came out with their remaining performers, which meant that Paula Abdul twiddled her thumbs and sucked in her cheeks.
First to be told he was through was Chris Rene, which was sweetly unjust. Rene had performed with abject ordinariness the previous night. Soon, Melanie Amaro and Rachel Crow had joined him in the sanctuary of hope.
Of the remaining four, it was clear that Drew couldn't cope with the idea of being sent away.
While Astro, Marcus Canty and Josh Krajcik all seemed to offer a touch of equanimity, she looked as if she was waiting to hear whether she would live, die or be sent off to record a Christmas album of old Pat Boone songs.
When Krajcik was told he was safe, Drew began to weep. She wept and wept and wept until you wished someone would offer her a handkerchief or a box of tissues.
Even when it was Astro who was told that he had polled the lowest number of votes and therefore had to go back to Brooklyn, Drew's lips continued to wobble, as her nose trembled and her eyebrows struggled for survival.
Astro handled his exit with peculiar grace. In a touching US Weekly moment, he even revealed that he was missing his girlfriend. At least one imagines it was his girlfriend.
Naturally, presenter Mannequin Man Jones turned to Drew and said: "How are you feeling?"
Memo to Mannequin Man: When a little 14-year-old is trembling and weeping, it would suggest that either her puppy has died or she's worried she's about to be booted off "The X Factor."
In the singoff, Drew marched forward and sang Roxanne's "Listen To Your Heart" with gusto, power and emotion.
At the end, she trembled some more, wept some more, and shuffled off the stage.
Marcus Canty, on the other hand, reached for Gladys Knight's "Neither One of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye)."
Canty should never reach for the hem of Gladys Knight, never mind one of her songs. He garlanded this song with elements of beseeching, punctuated by elements of screeching.
When it came to the verdict, Reid claimed he always believed in Drew. He also claimed he always believed in Canty. He always believed in himself a little more, though, so he wished Drew farewell.
Cowell bizarrely declared that he was the reason that Drew that was in the bottom two.
"I shouldn't have chosen that song," he said of "Billie Jean." "It was too slow. I should have listened to the others."
Nicole Scherzinger waffled about how much she believed in Drew. Yet she was moved more by Marcus Canty's, well, who knows? Something about him laying his heart out on the floor. It must have been when he crawled between the legs of eight dancers a couple of weeks ago.
She placed the axe blade upon Drew's neck and pressed hard.
Paula Abdul also claimed to be unaccountably moved by Canty. She, too, sent Drew into, perhaps, the office of Dr. Drew.
"Simon, what did you want to say?" asked Steve Jones blithely of his boss.
Cowell, acting enraged, gruffed: "I don't want to say anything."
Drew kept on weeping, as Crow and Amaro rushed out to console her.
Some might wonder just how staged all of this was, just how enraged Cowell truly might have been and how much this young girl was being used for TV drama.
Neither Astro nor Drew is what might be termed as a mainstream performer.
Might it just be that these two were being showcased as much as was humanly possible, so that Cowell and Reid will be able to launch them with gusto to their specific niche audiences?
Might they, indeed, use future episodes of this show to display the news that Astro and Drew have both signed contracts? And, miracle upon miracle, might they announce that both have songs already recorded for the nation's gullibles to buy and take on their travels?
Still, this night was about feelings, drama and pathos that no soap opera could possibly rival.
"Drew, one final word," demanded Jones of this poor distraught girl.
"Jesus loves all of you guys," she offered.
That, she said, was the only reason she was in the competition. This was what all of her performances were intending to communicate.
So why, some might ask, had all the songs been so sad?
