Grease: You're the One That I Want: The Finals

Yeah yeah yeah. I know I missed a whole season of recaps of this show. There are two reasons for this: One, I've been having a love hate/relationship with my capture card for the last few months. Two, out of all the shitty hours television I've recapped for the Tortilla Chips and Milk Readers, this is THE show that I'm embarrassed to admit that watch. Maybe it's because with each episode I get the feeling that I'm the show's only hetero male viewer. But yeah, I'm a Grease Fan and this is how a Grease fan rolls.

Anyway, before I get into the recap let me explain to you why I love this show.

1) The potential Dannys and Sandys were reduced to one-dimensional nicknames to distinguish them from each other. Kinda like the Smurfs. For example we had a "Small Town" Sandy, a "Rocker" Sandy and a "Spiritual" Sandy. Meanwhile some of the Danny's included "Hot" Danny, "Wholesome" Danny and "Bellhop" Danny. Yes, the best they could do with one guy was call him "Bellhop" Danny. Because that was his job, and yes, he was eliminated early.

2) Not only are they restricted by nicknames, each Danny and Sandy were assigned a color that they would have to wear through out the entire show. It's very Power Ranger-ish and awesome! Sadly one of those colors wasn't Burnt Sienna.

3) To make it even tackier. The cast's regular Danny and Sandy Grease outfits were marked with a a ridiculous question mark. The Sandy's had a Huge "S?" printed on their skirts. While the Danny's have "D?" logos on their T-Shirts. Totally anvil-licious!

4) The contestants actually talk shit behind each other's backs on camera. Really, some episodes have been like giant hissy fits. It's a nice change of pace for a show like this.

5) The contestants facing elimination have to have a head to head sing off before the judges eliminate one. The best part is that it's treated like it really matters when obviously it doesn't.

6) The eliminated Sandy's and Danny's all have a final sing off. Sandy sings "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" (reprise) while the Danny's sing a verse from "Sandy". The awesome part is that they change the "Why ey eye ey eye ey eye" part to "Bye ey eye ey eye ey eye". How could I not love that?

Okay, so let's get this started, yo. We open the show with the remaining six contestants singing "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay". Okay sadly, the musical performing and dancing parts of the show aren't really the enjoyable parts of the show for me. It's too bad this show is almost all musical performing and dancing. Anyway, I hate this song, I hate this number, let's get to the eliminations.

Baby Sandy and Wholesome Danny recieved the lowest amount of votes and will be going home tonight.




This leaves us with a Laura ("Small Town" Sandy- Yellow) versus Ashley ("Ballerina" Sandy- Green) showdown. The Danny's are Austin ("Hot" Danny-Red) and Max ("Slacker" Danny- Orange).

Okay here's where the fun starts: The first of tonight's numbers is "Hopelessly Devoted to You" brought to you Deuling Broadway style. The Sandys will be on stage at the same time alternating verses while each has an identical set on their side fo the stage. Anyway the Sandy's are both very nice to look at and sound okay, but the real highlight of the piece is when they go down to sit at their desks.

Wait is that Austin's picture? Bwah...they...put...the Danny's pictures...on the desk! That's is just so messed up on so many levels, yo!

Look, there's Max! Seriously, y'all I don't know if its intentional cheese or not but this is just tremendous! Sure, on one level it makes sense, Sandy should be pining away at her boyfriend's picture. Peel at it a little more and ask yourself, "What the hell kind of greaser would pose for that kind of picture?" The headsots in The Departed weren't that brutal! Maybe it's just me but I couldn't stop laughing. Oh man, I'm gonna miss this show.

As far as the performance goes Laura is definitely the softer of the two, and really gets her vulnerability across but there's something about her voice that has always bugged me.

As for Ashley...well as someone who has seen "When Harry Met Sally" 627 times of course the Meg Ryan look alike is going to have my favor. I like her voice better and I think she fits the part a little better, but her stage acting comes off as a little affected. For example, guess what lyrics of the song she's singing here:

After the performance we get video grams from the Sandy's loved ones. Laura's fiance is too busy planning their wedding to be there. Meanwhile Ashley's sister says she can;t afford the plane ticket to see her. Wouldn't ya know it the sister is there,. IT turns out some message board fans paid for the ticket. WTF??? Even with the shows lackluster ratings, NBC couldn't put the money together. F'N cheapskates.

Now it's time for the Danny's to have a "Sandy" duel. There is a bit of ridiculousness as well as we see our Sandy's perched on the balcony and framed as if she's a vision Danny is singing towards. I wish I was making this up.

Max does a really good job and his performing really is quite strong.

Austin on the other hand sounds like he's trying to poo out the words.


The thing that really makes me sad is we don't have the Spoken Word portion of the song. The "Sandy my darlin'..." part. If I wanted to I could type out the whole thing verbatim from memory...I'll have to bust it out sometime for hypothetical girlfriend.

After the performance we get Austin and Max and their video pleas for votes. Austin starts out strong with a speech where the former ten-year old fat kid worked all his life to be a star and if he doesn't win he might fade away into oblivion. Promise? All kidding aside he does come across more sympathetic than he has at any point in the competition. Max's video blows it away though. He opens in tears explaining that he had Bell's palsy as a kid and he worked so hard just to get his face to work and to be normal. Take that "Hot" Danny!

Next we have the Dannys and Sandys pair up to compare their chemistry. Their Broadway Duel will be to the song "Endless Love". Of course it's the traditional arrangement and not a Coldplay mash-up. I wonder if that was an up yours to American Idol last week. If it wasn't...UP YOUR AMERICAN IDOL! Even if it is dreadfully boring it does give us a chance to see forced smooching among reality show contestants. They really want to emphasise this as the cameras go awfully tight on both kisses.

At first it looked like Ashley was going to try to swallow Austin.
When it came time for them to smooch, Laura seemed to sidestep Max a bit.


Finally, they switch partners and now show their fun and frolicking side with "The Time of My Life" and its just as dreadful as you'd imagine it. That's all I'll say about that.


As we end the judges declare Max and Laura the ones that THEY want, but we'll have to wait for the votes next week. I just realized I've watched an entire season of this...cheese or no cheese,now that I think about it I'm kinda embarrassed