Top Five! Full of surprises, that little group. Lee, the sudden standout. Casey, the down-home full of potential big brother. Aaron, our little wiggling Yoda. Mike, the theatrical schmaltzer. And Crystal, who better fucking bring it. And why, oh why, are they all dressed like pimps from the jazzy nightclub of your nightmares? Why it's Harry Connick, Jr. This is not going to be pretty, folks.

Sir Anthony Hopkins is in the audience, representing whores. Maybe he just thought this was an open audition for literally any old trash and that's why he's here. I was about to say I missed Tony Bennett, but I guess he's here on his behalf. Kara looks pretty, with shiny hair, and Simon's 3/4-sleeve tee is quite flattering, given that you can see all the way to Oklahoma how far it's unbuttoned. Maybe this won't be so bad.

The Idols mostly look pretty great in their Idlewild finery, except for -- weirdly -- Casey, who looks incredibly stupid. Lee looks like he's hunting down aliens with Tommy Lee Jones, everybody else just looks like a particularly weird theme party from Gossip Girl. And then we learn about Harry Connick's horrible fucking mushface. He's got a certain thing, I call it "That Face," that puts him in the company of Tom Cavanaugh and Zach Braff, two people whose work I'm told I would love but simply cannot enjoy because of That Face. (Also Ed Chigliak, but there's a plethora of workarounds there considering everybody else's face.) I like Connick in Copycat, and in Bug. Basically anything where the role was written for that face. He's like the anti-Chris Isaak in every possible way, isn't he?

So yes yes, HCJ loves Sinatra, which is his business and not something I'm interested in judging anybody for. I like all kinds of obnoxious things myself, so I'm not throwing stones. But I wonder how this episode is going to go, because Sinatra is one of those things I have learned to keep quiet about. You know how people always say they like "all music except rap and country," which means "I don't actually have opinions"? That's how I feel about Sinatra. I will listen to literally anything else before I will listen to that. If I were on a desert island with the entire works of Frank Sinatra, I would make up my own songs instead and burn that wax for a cheap toxic high.

HCJ would like us to know that he has fussed and muddled and messed with all of the Idols, taking away from them their God-given right to arrange their own songs into total messes that we can jeer at. "You think Shania was up in here doing this?" No, no I don't. And for once, that speaks in her favor. He comes strutting down the steps on the stage, still cutting a fine figure in his hired-killer suit at the age of 67. Standing next to Ryan Seacrest he looks like a lighthouse lit by fake tanning next to a smaller fake tanning lighthouse. He informs Ryan that in addition to arranging the songs for them, he's also I guess going to play with his own band while they sing. What did he like about the Idols? Their humility.