Board game adaptation Battleship opens wide Friday with a mix of aliens, action and big explosions. Yes, the clichés are all there, but sometimes seeing something we’ve seen a thousand times before isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is a hotheaded young Naval Lieutenant constantly in trouble with his superiors. It just so happens that he’s also in love with the Admiral’s (Liam Neeson) daughter Sam (Brooklyn Decker).

With the Navy’s largest war games looming, Hopper embarrasses himself severely and is informed by his brother (Alexander Skarsgard) that he will be dismissed up the games’ ending.

In the midst of these war games, a quintet of alien ships arrives, responding to a communications pulse sent from Earth. These ships intend to destroy Earth and protect themselves from the main fleet with a massive force field that doesn’t let anybody in or out. Bad news for Hopper, who along with his gunner ‘Weps’ (Rihanna) and Boatswain ‘Ordy’ (Jesse Plemons) is trapped within the force field.

That means it’s up to this young Destroyer crew to take on the aliens without backup and gives Hopper the chance to redeem his rebellious reputation.

This is an action plot we’ve seen countless times before. Bad guy makes good. Bad guy likes good girl. Aliens come in and invade Earth. It’s all based on a toy or board game. Yes, this is very familiar water.

While cliché normally equates to a measure of hackneyedness that undermines any film, the familiarity almost benefits Battleship. This is a film that’s so loud, so effects-driven and so convoluted that to do anything innovative with the plot may have made it too confusing, or too much with the audience to handle with all the fireworks taking place on the screen.

Instead, the formulaic proceedings allow the focus of the film to be entirely on grand action set pieces and water battles that are extremely effective an entertaining. The plot is definitely secondary to the explosions and testosterone (After all, it is a film about battling alien invasion with battleships) and that’s just fine for its idiom: A film built for fourteen-year-old boys.

That audience will absolutely love this film as it delivers on every level. Big guns, big explosions, big monsters and big fun.

All that is wrapped in a string of lines we’ve heard a thousand times, twists we’ve seen a thousand times and a muddled middle that is simply dull, but when the film comes back around to its set pieces, it never misses its mark and delivers the big-screen action we’ve come to expect from a fun summer popcorn film.

Battleship is the type of movie made for summer at the cinema. It delivers big action without challenging its audience to think too much. Or at all. Because if you actually begin to think about how poorly plotted, written and conceived the whole mess is, you’ll realize that this is actually a miserable movie masked by a lot of big noises and explosions.

Here, however, the mask is so attractive that it manages to cover a good portion of its flaws and Battleship becomes a pleasant enough distraction that will appeal to the fourteen-year-old boy in all of us.

And what’s wrong with indulging your inner child?

Virginia is writer Dustin Lance Black’s directorial debut, a gripping semi-autobiographical tale of a mother-son power struggle offset by the mother’s unwitting battle with mild schizophrenia.

Virginia, played by Jennifer Connelly, and her teenage son Emmett (Harrison Gilbertson) live in a southern American town.  For nearly two decades, Virginia has been having an affair with the town’s married Mormon Sheriff Richard Tipton (Ed Harris), who is running for the state senate.  For the duration of his campaign, Emmett and Tipton’s daughter Jessie (Emma Roberts) become romantically involved, and Tipton is not pleased.

When Virginia is diagnosed with lung cancer, her mistrust of authority propels her to follow her heart, rather than pursue medical treatment.  Mild schizophrenia renders Virginia delusional, and she misconstrues Tipton’s control, particularly of the sexually deviant kind, to be the true love she craves.  Tipton attempts to reconcile their licentious deeds with a Mormon belief system that Virginia ventures to follow, chiefly for Tipton’s sake.

Their physical trysts fail to completely satiate her thirst for Tipton, and Virginia fabricates a pregnancy to heighten Tipton’s affection. With Tipton’s political aspirations at stake, he ignores Virginia and mails her hush money from campaign funds. But secrets never have a way of staying buried.

Emmett soon becomes the object of Virginia’s childlike passion, and a loss of income propels her to don an ape mask and  attempt to rob the town bank — unsuccessfully. And when Emmett comes up with his own scheme to relocate his mom to a better life in San Francisco,  stealing carnival funds from his boss Max (Toby Jones), his plan backfires as well.

Virginia attempts to accent the power struggle that ensues when Tifton withdraws his attention from the film’s titular character, leaving mother and son in a state of mounting disquietude—Virginia tries to reclaim the mother role she had ignored, and Emmett painfully forgoes his role as her protector.  However, competing plots thwart the film’s focus.  The rift between Tifton, who represents ultra-conservative idealism, and Max, the nocturnal cross-dressing carnival proprietor, as well as their respective haunting myths, magnify issues of greater urgency that are treated lightly.  The bloodstain metaphor compliments a false facade theme but randomly reappears and doesn’t correlate well with Virginia and Emmett’s prioritized power struggle. And even with a mild case of schizophrenia, Virginia’s character possesses an unlikely conviction that prevents a complete appreciation for her blameless innocence.

The town’s primary means of economic support is a carnival, a fantastical hub analogized to Virginia’s fanciful mindset. Ed Harris skillfully negotiates Sheriff Tifton’s carnal and political desires, while Harrison Gilbertson’s Emmett apportions well his waning concern that necessarily helps the film achieve a feeble, but satisfactory resolution on its own terms.

Revenge might be a dish best served cold, but this week Emily Thorne finally gets heated. After months of cold calculating, Emily loses some of her cool.

This week picks back up at Emily’s quest to find the white haired man who killed her father. To get to him, she hatches a plot to make Condrad Grayson think his sometimes-henchman is targeting the Grayson clan. She secretly records her and Daniel sleeping (yes, actually just sleeping) and sends the footage to Conrad, who immediately demands a shady Brooklyn meeting with the white-haired man.

Emily, thanks to her oh-so-handy bug in Casa de Grayson, Emily is privy to the address of this little rendezvous and prepares to go stalk Connie some more at a diner. Unfortunately for her, that pesky cover story of hers (being in love with Daniel, planning a wedding, you remember) gets in the way when Daniel and Ashley ambush her for some quality wedding planning. Her usual lies about charity work to get to fall on deaf ears and she can’t tactfully get out of the situation. Naturally, she texts Nolan (who, despite running a multi-billion dollar company seems always free to do her bidding at the drop of a hat) and sends him as her eyes and ears.

Of course, Daniel and Ashley aren’t too keen on the text-athon Em engages in during the meeting. They’re trying to plan a PR event and the bride isn’t into it. The tension comes to a head when Daniel grabs Emily’s cellphone and demands to know who she’s texting. She answers that it’s none of his business. True as this may be, this is not the Emily Thorne we’ve come to know this season. The Emily Thorne we know would never give such a mundane, potentially incriminating answer. She would have a lie about planning a special gift for Daniel on the tip of her tongue and said gift ready and hidden in a closet to wheel put as proof later that night. She would be prepared for any question, any situation. This Emily, the one who is about to kill the man who killed her father is acting like…well, like a girl angry and on edge enough to kill someone.

Daniel storms off and Ashley makes her British brand of disappointment painfully clear and Emily has to just let it go to focus on her murderous plot. She demands the white-haired man’s address from Nolan, who has been ordered to follow him home from the meeting with Conrad, and heads off without question.

By the time she gets there, all she sees is Nolan’s Aunt Carol, who tries to talk some sense into her. Meanwhile, Nolan is at the real house, posing as a cable guy with a bad mustache named Burt Simmons. The white-haired man asks for a card, so we know he’s not buying it. Ruh-roh, Nolan.

Emily calls Nolan in a fit of rage to scold him for disobeying her as obvious master and commander of the Hamptons, but before he can brag about his own genius in bugging the white-haired man’s home, she finds her beloved (and ancient) childhood dog Sammy laying on the porch. Bye bye, Nolan; hello, Jack. Jack has been looking for Sammy all day (along with Declan, who might have a new rich girlfriend from school).

Back at Grayson Manor, the G family are playing a jolly game of “I like, but I need” with Charlotte’s therapist, who thinks group sessions will help her get over her anger (and her raging pill addiction). The game quickly goes south when Condrad arrives late and verbally attacks Victoria for her own bad behavior, which this week includes forcing her way into his house when only blonde mistress Lydia is there to stop her and leaving a threatening note after destroying a painting. NBD, right?

Sammy doesn’t make it through, triggering tears in Jack and happy beach-with-dad-and-Jack memories in Emily (should we call her Amanda at this point?). It’s the first time we really start to see her experience grief, since she took her father’s passing in a cold-hearted stride. At the Porter residence, Declan and his straight-from-Yonkers potential girlfriend don’t know about Sammy’s condition yet and are grabbing a picture to put on the poster boards from the project they don’t intend to finish. When she goes off to the bathroom to change into something more post-coital, Charlotte slips in, declaring that her family is awful and she wants to spend the night with Declan. Cue incriminating “other woman” entrance and Charlotte is out again, so confused and depressed about her hard life.

Daniel confronts Mommy Dearest about her behavior, since he’s chosen daddy’s side in the big divorce. He even gives her a nice ultimatum: “Go through with destroying Dad and you’re dead to me.”

Emily comforts the grieving Jack about Sammy and comfort goes a little (okay, probably a lot – this has to have huge repercussions considering Ashley saw it) too far when Emily kisses him. Yeah, so to recap there: Jack is sad. Emily is sad. Emily kisses Jack. Ashley creepily watches said kiss from a window like a prowler. Jack doesn’t take the kiss lightly either. As they’re burying Sammy on the beach, he confesses that Sammy running to Emily’s house was really the dog, “leading” him to her and asks what they’re going to do now. It must have been a hell of a kiss to assume it might break up an engagement.

The Grayson family problems just keep piling on back at the mansion. Daniel tricks mom out of evidence that would incriminate Conrad (or so he thinks – her lingering by the door suggests she knew what was up and might not have shown her whole hand). He might not even be the worst of the Graysons, considering Charlotte buys a giant bag of pills (drug bust coming up?).

But the episode doesn’t end on Grayson problems or dead dog woes. Emily comes to accept Nolan’s intervention as a good thing and heads to bed with Daniel, all inner monologue about the stages of grief while Nolan is back at his own swanky pad checking on the video stream he set up of the white-haired man’s house. Unfortunately for Nolan, the white-haired man really didn’t buy the whole Burt Simmons story and proves his master assassin fred by sneaking up on Nolan (who must be watching a video loop) and strangling him as the episode ends.

Now, Nolan is a huge fan favorite, so the likelihood of his dying right now seems slim, but this did just get very juicy. Emily is going to have to deal with a lot of hot drama that she would normally prefer to keep icy cool. The question is, will she get her revenge by the end of next week’s season finale? Will she be exposed? And what does that mean for season 2?

Just like He’s Just Not That Into You explored the relationships of singles and marrieds in a major metropolitan area, WTEWYE explores the relationships of singles and marrieds in a major metropolitan area — this time with baby bumps thrown into the mix. In a nifty opening that swiftly introduces most of the film’s cast, we meet Jules (Cameron Diaz), a ripped fitness expert who gets knocked up by her dance partner Evan (Glee‘s Matthew Morrison) while competing on the DWTS-inspired Celebrity Dance Factor. Alex and Holly, a cosmopolitan couple who realize their urban-chic loft is in need of a baby-friendlier makeover to make them ideal candidates for an adoption, are played by the photo-shoot-ready Rodrigo Santoro and Jennifer Lopez respectively. Baby-crazy author and boutique owner Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) realizes pregnancy isn’t what it’s cracked up to be while her husband Gary (Bridemaids‘ Ben Falcone) competes with his NASCAR celebrity dad (Dennis Quaid, having a ball), who’s having twins with his “born in 1986″ wife, Skyler (the perky Brooklyn Decker). And then there’s food truck entrepreneur Rosie (Anna Kendrick), a twentysomething who ends up having a one-night stand with player Marco (the I-know-I-look-good-in-V-necks Chace Crawford) and dealing with the consequences.

Directed by Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine), the film doesn’t do much to clarify — or doesn’t seem to care — how all of these characters are connected. If you’re expecting an effortless blend of storylines of near-Love Actually proportions, then go ahead and Netflix that 2003 gem instead. Most of WTEWYE consists of scenes that have been sloppily slapped together, posing as a sunshiny display of the variety of pregnancies couples face. And as a result, we get a montage of fart jokes, hormone-induced rages (seen in every other film that ever featured a pregnant woman), and manipulative money shots of babies blatantly cued to make the audience go “Awww” in unison. That said, this movie will either make childless women across America scramble for those baby name books…or throw their ticking biological clocks out the window.

The movie, however, takes a pleasantly surprising (and emotional) turn when Alex and Holly take a trip to Ethiopia to meet their bundle of joy. Having the film focus more on their journey and experiences in a foreign land probably would have made for a more compelling and effective story. But alas, there’s isn’t enough time to squeeze in the rest of the 20 or so speaking roles. What we get instead are a couple of scenes in which a nervous Alex hangs out with a bunch of superdads (Chris Rock, Tom Lennon, Rob Huebel, and Amir Talai) in the park to learn few tips on fatherhood. And that’s where this ensemble comedy suffers: there’s too much of an ensemble and not enough time to emotionally invest in each character.

If you’re expecting a comedic contemplation on the challenges of impending parenthood, then expect less.

2.5 out of 5 stars.

Previously, on America’s Next Top Model: British Invasion: The final five had a mock fighting challenge and Eboni accused Laura of flirting to win. The girls had a photo shoot at the top of Macau tower, 764 feet up in the air. Laura got best photo, Eboni was sent home, and in a surprise twist, Alisha also went home on her own accord.

The episode opens with the girls back at the MGM; they are all pretty shocked about Alisha’s sudden departure. Annaliese camera talks that she’s the underdog, but that she makes up for it in personality. Laura camera talks that she’s also the underdog, and that the American dream is true: you can do anything you put your mind to.

Tyra Mail: “Get up and go for it in the Pearl of the East. Fierce and Love, Tyra.”

The next day the girls go to Hong Kong and are met by Kelly Cutrone on the ferry. Kelly tells them that Hong Kong is one of the top fashion markets and that today they’re going to do go-sees. For every go-see that each of them books they will bank 1000 Hong Kong dollars, which is actually only like 125 American dollars. So…I wouldn’t be sweating it Sophie, Annaliese, and Laura. Way to pinch those pennies, Tyra…amirite? Each of the girls is going to be accompanied by a male model from Hong Kong to help them find all of their go-sees. They have three hours to go on four go-sees.

The usual insanity ensues on the go-sees. Annaliese refers to herself as “chocolate brownie,” which I love. They meet back up with Kelly, and she has feedback for them. None of the designers really liked Laura’s walk, but she still booked two of the four go-sees. Annaliese booked three of the four go-sees; Sophie booked all four of her go-sees. Sophie wins the challenge and receives a bunch of clothes from all the designers. The girls then go out clubbing with the male models and spend all of their Hong Kong dollars.

Tyra Mail: “Tomorrow will be a dream come true! Fierce and Love, Tyra.”

The next day the girls meet up with Jay Manuel. They’re going to be shooting an ad for the America’s Next Top Model perfume, “Dream Come True.” They need to appear youthful and joyful, and will be shooting inside a giant bottle of perfume. Their photographer is former Australia’s Top Model judge, Jez Smith.

Sophie – UK

Laura – USA

Annaliese – UK

Panel: Nigel says that Laura is gorgeous, ethereal, and feminine. Kelly says Laura’s photo is definitely for a much older demographic than it’s supposed to be for. Nigel says that Annaliese doesn’t look like a model; she looks like a tennis star or some athlete that just got their first perfume. Nigel says that Sophie’s photo is beautiful, but she doesn’t look quite youthful. Nigel Barker and Jez Smith seriously look like twins. Nigel says that Annaliese’s photo nailed it the most. Jez says that Sophie did a great job.

1. Sophie gets best photo

It comes down to Laura and Annaliese to see who will be a finalist in the competition. Laura is different and “zagalicious,” but she has a bad walk and is unable to be soft and sweet. Annaliese showed herself to have a great personality and drive, but she’s not the strongest model.

2. Laura

Next time, on America’s Next Top Model: British Invasion: The final two compete in a runway show for Forever 21 for the title of America’s Next Top Model.

Who will win? Although Laura is stronger at taking photos, everyone agrees that her walk is terrible. My money’s definitely on Sophie – who do you think will win?

Last night Peta Murgatroyd and Donald Driver made it through to the finals on Dancing with the Stars. The series’ rookie faced stiff competition from the three-time mirror ball trophy winner Derek Hough and the two-time winners Cheryl Burke and Mark Ballas. But in the end Peta’s grace and Donald’s charm took them all the way to the end and Maria Menounos was sent home. In a recent exclusive interview, we talked to Peta about injuries, love and Beyonce.

On Injuries Sustained by the Competitors
“Everyone is feeling really exhausted and mentally drained and physically drained. The celebrities are more physically drained, we are more mentally drained as the pro dancers… You’ve really just got to look after your body. This show is very, very demanding and sometimes many of the stars don’t even realize what they’re getting themselves into with the show. But we look after them as much as we can.”

On the Addition of the Dance Duel This Season
“It was a great idea mainly because it didn’t allow somebody with a massive fan base that can’t dance at all to be voted into the finals. It was the judges’ choice so the best dancer will win. And it is a dancing show so that made sense. But in saying that, also, it was very, very hard to watch couples battle it out. It was so awkward and such a horrible feeling to see them dancing for their lives out there. It was just awful. So nobody really liked it when it was happening, everyone was very against it, but the best dancer won in the end.”

On the Most Shocking Elimination of the Season
“Sherri Shepherd definitely didn’t deserve to be voted off so early. I thought she was going to be right up until the semis and the finals so it was really a shocker when she got voted off.”

On Who She Predicts Will Win
“Besides Donald and I? I think William.”

On Choreographing Acts Like Heart, Rod Stewart and Enrique Iglesias
“It’s been amazing working with the great artists on Dancing with the Stars. It’s such a privilege to be able to put together moves and choreography to fit their music. It really is a thrill. I love to get the music and play with it and see the highs and lows of the music. And then once you see the finished product at the end it’s amazing with the costumes and lighting and everything. Dancing with the Stars have given me a lot of opportunity to perform and choreograph with these performers, so I’m very thankful.”

On Her Dancing Influences
“I have a few. I definitely have some ballet influences and some ballroom dancing influences. My coach Jason Gilkison from Australia, he definitely is a huge influence in my dancing. He was the choreographer of Burn the Floor, that I was with for six years. But I just try to be myself, I don’t try to copy anybody. I really just try to be me at the end of the day.”

On What She Is Most Passionate About
“I’m most passionate about love. I’m such a lovey dovey person. I’m such a sucker for love.”

One Which Pop Culture Icon She Would Be for One Day
“I would be Beyonce, for sure. I’m completely in love with her because she has the best music of all time. She has the best life. I would love to be inside her creative head. I think her music and her dancing is so inspiring and uplifting to everybody.”

To see if Peta and Donald take home the mirror ball trophy, tune in to the finale of Dancing with the Stars on Monday, May 21 at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. Central and Tuesday, May 22 at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. Central.

The Dictator places Cohen in the seat of power as Admiral General Aladeen, the ruthless overlord of the fictional North African nation of Wadiya.  All seems to be going well for the fabulously wealthy and hyperviolent Aladeen until his jealous Uncle Tamir plots to kill him and replace him with a dimwitted lookalike.  Aladeen escapes death, but is left stranded and penniless on the streets of New York, desperate to reclaim his throne and stop Tamir from enacting a new constitution that would bring democracy to his blissfully oppressed people.

Yes, it’s ridiculous, from beginning to end.  Yes, it’s funny… at times.

This is the third movie that could really be called a “Sacha Baron Cohen film,” and it bears the distinction of being the first one that is totally scripted, without any reality element introduced (as there was in Borat and Bruno).  Yet it’s clear that Cohen has his roots in pseudo-reality shock-comedy; the story mainly serves to get the character from one broad set piece to the next, where the characters can really settle in for a long sketch before breaking for the next idea.

It’s a pretty familiar format when dealing with comedians who have TV writing backgrounds (just look at any Adam McKay flick), and it works here with characteristic inconsistency.  There are scenes that play incredibly well (the well-marketed scene in which Aladeen and his friend Omar take a helicopter tour of New York while a corn-fed couple near them freaks out is especially funny), but since there’s no real flow to the story, you find yourself laughing hysterically for five minutes, only to shut up completely for the next twenty, wondering what happened to that great scene that was on before.

Cohen also tends to let his jokes play on a bit too long… Dude, we get that your character makes up fake names for himself based on signs that he sees around him.  You don’t have to do it FOUR FREAKIN’ TIMES.

Ah yes, and the political commentary.  It’s got to be here, it’s sort of Cohen’s thing.  But this time it’s missing some of the genuine fun that was found in his previous movies.  The great moment of the rodeo crowd cheering for Borat’s support of “Bush’s war of terror” is largely lost here when Aladeen describes the glory of life in a dictatorship, only to find he’s perfectly describing the current state of the USA.  The edge is just gone, even if the pluck still makes the scene fairly watchable.

That being said, there are some great moments here, and it’s going to take some time to see if they meet the critical mass of quotability demanded by the genre.  It’s going to be tough, simply because some of the best jokes are visual, and a few even take place in a foreign language, but even so, a few of these gags could have some real longevity.

All in all, The Dictator is a fine, if highly flawed venture down a new path for Sacha Baron Cohen.  If he can grab hold of himself and add a bit more discipline in the editing room, this could be the first test of a wonderful new series.  Stay tuned to Cohen’s crazed frontal lobe for the results.

2.5 out of 5 stars

The network made sure to make a big deal that this was AGT’s first time in San Francisco, and that the audience was the largest in the show’s history.  Someone should explain then, why Nick Cannon wore the same suit two days in a row.  Nick is known for his disastrous fashion the world over.  While his grey plaid suit didn’t burn a hole in my cornea, he’s never been one to wear the same suit two days in a row.  If you insist on boasting about how long you occupy a city NBC, the least you could do is make sure the show’s editing reflectes that.

Falling Stars:

When you see a grown man ride onto the stage on a tiny bicycle, playing a horn, clad in an ill-fitting, albeit glittery, bird costume, do you wait to see what more the act could show?  You do if you’re Howie.  Turns out the only thing left for Mr. Special to do was scream about how people need to stay true to themselves, and let the world see that truth.  I agree with Howie wholeheartedly; if your true self resembles this in any way shape or form keep it buried deep down inside of you and off of national television.  It’ll do more harm than good, like harm to your ego, and the nation’s eyeballs.

Honestly, Kim McAfee had me fooled.  It seemed like she was a shoe in to be one of those acts that looks like a disappointment but transforms into a star on stage.  That was not the case.  Kim’s chosen look was a tad masculine; while it might have been off-putting for some it seemed to work for her.  What wasn’t working for her was her singing.  At all.  It’s not exactly clear what kind of voice that was supposed to be, but it was terrible without a doubt.

Shooting Stars:

Essentially, David Garibaldi and His CMYK’s painted an oversized portrait to music in a manner of minutes.  What they managed to create with their performance is a little harder to explain.  The combination of dance, graffiti and art was so thrilling the judges had no choice but to vote him onward.

Apparently circus performers aren’t made, they’re born.  Cristin Sandu’s generational advantage seemed to be the only thing keeping him standing atop a self-constructed tower of plasterboard and metal tube.  Howard and Sharon immediately took to the act, but Howie found the tower’s construction time too long to wait.  Luckily, two votes still equals a bid to Vegas.

By pairing modern dance moves with classical music—with a few ballet moves thrown in for good measure—L C D-Lisa Clark Dancers caused quite the conundrum.  All three judges found the dancing group confusing; the focus was unclear and the draw-in was hard to pinpoint.  Ultimately Howard and Sharon thought there was enough there for the girls to move on.

Comedians/Impressionists always make it to the big show but never seem to go the distance.  Hopefully things will turn out better for Dave Burleigh.  He did spot on impressions of Nicholas Cage, Jack Black, Charlie Sheen, Nick Nolte, Bruce Willis, and Owen Wilson.  His Vince Vaughn brought the audience to its feet. 

Everyday opera singers look upon America’s Got Talent and Britain’s Got Talent with reverence since Susan Boyle’s success.  Luiz Meneghin joins the ranks as a registered nurse with range.  His aria was just as moving as if it was sung by a professional.  Opera music is supposed to stir something deep inside each ear it touches, even if the ear can’t comprehend the language of the song.  Luiz hit that mark a thousand times over.

Is there any chance that Granny G will move on past Vegas?  Probably not, but her delinquent dad rap was highly entertaining, and not in the laughing-at-you-not-with-you kind of way.  Face the facts; no one wants to vote off someone’s grandmother in front of an audience.  Plus, she yelled out “West Side B*tches” at the end of her performance.  Epic.  Win.

When you’re dealing with a show like America’s Got Talent, are often thrown off by the voices that come out of some hopefuls.  If you weren’t completely taken aback by the voice that came out of Tim Hokenberry, chances are you’re lying to yourself.  That his voice deserves an audience is undeniable.  Tim’s vocals have a rasp reminiscent of Louis Armstrong and more emotion than words can express.  Basically it was a home run: Howie got to make his “life changing moment” speech and Howard got to profess his love for the first time.

Funk Beyond Control made themselves the dance crew to beat with their energetic routine.  Performing to funk and modern music, their act featured a costume change and the kind of skit that—even though it was brief—leaves a lasting impression.

The final and most entertaining act of the night was that of Charismatic Shirtless Wonder Turf, With the Flame Colored ‘Fro, or Turf for short.  Okay, I might have made up the ridiculously long name, but the man deserves every word.  It’s hard for performers to tell their sob stories without them being labeled as just that—sob stories.  Turf talked of his two year stint of homelessness in a way that didn’t make me immediately say, “wah wah wah.” And trust me folks, that is hard to do.  Oops, almost forgot, the man can dance.  Calling himself an extreme contortionist, Turf blended illusion like dance moves with aggressive contortionism, all to much success.  The judges were totally enamored of him, as you all should be.  Howard praised him for being the first person to come on stage and take his time, making every move as important as the last.  He advanced, and as he apologized for his tears backstage (“Ladies, I’m sorry, I’m ‘a man up.”) he only burrowed deeper into my heart.  Love him America, I already do.

When we left our girls last week, Kaylie and Jordan were on the run after trashing Coach Ray’s car because he molested Jordan. They appear to have gotten away just fine, but now Jordan is refusing to talk about it. Kaylie goes to Coach (obviously Black Coach, not Ray) and tells him what happened, but Jordan denies everything. Coach Mac still decides to punch Coach Ray in the face and kick him out of practice.

Kaylie and Payson do the only reasonable thing, they put up a Social Media (aka Facebook) post looking for other girls who were molested by Coach Ray. Yes, because when you’ve been silent about this super taboo thing for years, a social media post is all it takes to get you talking.

Well, color me wrong, it totally worked. Jordan could not be more grateful and Coach Ray is arrested. And that’s just the first ten minutes.

Meanwhile, Baby G is still poisoning Kaylie with illegal cold medicine in her special smoothies. What’s going to happen when there’s a drug test? Unfortunately for her, Lauren Tanner is still around and I have no doubt that former diabolical bitch will figure everything out.

Speaking of Lauren, she is yet to make it through her beam routine without her heart beating too fast. What is she going to do at trials?

Payson and Rigo decide to go salsa dancing to work on her floor routine. Back at the gym, he tries to give her pointers, but they just do a little kissing. Until…SASHA SHOWS UP!!! Just when I thought this episode couldn’t get any more exciting Sasha Belov has arrived. Never fear, Payson, all will be well.

It’s the day of Olympic trials and Kaylie and her parents are called into the Coach’s office. SURPRISE! There is an illegal drug in Kaylie’s system and the NGO won’t let her compete. Everyone is upset, no more than Kaylie and the girls decide that they won’t compete unless Kaylie is allowed to. Shockingly that temper tantrum works.

It’s time for trials. Each one of the girls goes out there and does their specialty. Jordan rocks her triple back dismount on bars. Kaylie is the only one who can compete with the Chinese on vault. Payson looks super sexy in her floor routine. And Lauren totally makes it on the beam.

Oh Lauren, you savvy girl, you. Lauren quickly begins to suspect that Baby G is responsible for the poisoning of Kaylie Cruz. She breaks into her room and finds the receipt for the cold medicine. But it’s not enough evidence. Until her finds it in her lip gloss case! Baby G is done.

The Olympic team is announced: Jordan, Kaylie, Payson, some girl named Colleen, and…Lauren! Oh thank God. She could definitely be on the Olympic team for snooping.

It’s the super-mega happy ending. Our girls finally achieved their dream. The series is done.

Oh, and Sasha makes out with Candace Cameron Bure.

But what happens now? Anyone else smell the makings of a MIOBI TV movie?

MIOBI STATS:

Do I even have to say them? It’s so obvious!