I thought the same thing. It was so dumb and thoughtless.

I would love to see some time spent on 90's pop country (Garth, Reba, Trisha Yearwood, George Strait, Clint Black, Clay Walker, Tracy Lawrence, etc.). That's really when country music exploded into the mainstream so it seems hard to ignore, despite its widely perceived vacuousness.

Ok. That makes sense. It didn't help that I didn't realize "Fear-Punchy" referred to a character. But now I suppose it's fitting that I forgot about that guy.

Can someone explain?
What does this mean: "Fear-Punchy will go down in history… if the point of your character is to show off a power, you should show up, at most, once."

New Look?
Was it just me or did tonight's episode look different? It seemed liked they used different transitions and used more shaky cameras. When Parkman and Peter were talking in Isaac's studio the camera was bouncing all over the place. Apparently shaking=drama, although for me shaking=annoying.

@Leonard - I don't know if you're joking about the reason why Simon makes the gay jokes, but if not it doesn't make much sense. The every day definition of "homophobic" usually involves some form of being-gay-is-gross. So Simon's (and Seacrest's) implicit gay=gross jokes would put them into the homophobic category…

I noticed that comment. The not so subtle homo jokes are getting a little tired. I'm not a big fan of the "ew you're gay" type of joke I guess.

Thank god they didn't do it again. It was an utter fail last week. As was the receiving line as the contestants returned to the Seacrest interview area.

After Nick/Norman's song and the subsequent audience gushing, Simon had a look on his face like "Oh shit, this guy could win and I'm not going to make a dime off him." That's the way I saw it anyway.

Superman totally sucked after Krypton was destroyed.

Didn't Billy Corgan take Mikey from Life Cereal's pop rocks and chase them with a Coke then his head exploded?

That's just nit-picking.

Prime Mover bless this thread.

@McRibster: I'm not sure if the "it's good that your looking for perspective from random people .." comment is supposed to be a dig, but a) I cannot say enough about the intelligence, wit, and insight I've found in the A.V. Club comments sections and b) nobody I know has seen The Reader. So I didn't turn to random…

I saw it yesterday and I'm confused
I will admit I'm not the most astute movie watcher, but I'm confused about what I'm supposed to take away from The Reader. Are we supposed to put ourselves in Hannah's shoes and wonder what we would have done in her place? Are we supposed to wonder if Hannah is slightly retarded?…

I don't get the comparison. Sanjaya was an OK singer with a very hate-able personality. Norman Gentle appears to also be an OK singer who is arguably genuinely funny.

Thank you. I thought I was the only one who heard "husband." Still pretty stupid, but slightly less so than "cousin."

On the other hand, Simon may have saved the relationship between the girl and her dipshit brother. If she had been given the boot she would have blame it on his distractingly lame antics and never forgiven him. Of course they told her that he deserves the credit for getting her through to the next round, so maybe…

@taiawanjason: I was wondering the same thing about the home segments. They can't possibly film them beforehand because they don't know who is going to show up at the auditions. They must film them afterwards and have the auditioners pretend like they haven't yet auditioned. It's horribly artificial when viewed with…

Is anyone else bothered when they showcase people who are clearly mentally imbalanced? The trachea girl being a perfect example. She wasn't just quirky, she was obviously wrong in the head. I enjoy *partially* mentally challenged people as much as the next guy, but some people shouldn't be included in the circus.