Kara: "Brian, you wasted time on an old-timey track that had zero bite instead of sticking with your gift of writing powerful chords. Jes, you keep telling us you're awesome and then handing us excuses. Your refusal to assert yourself, especially on the empowerment task, is to say the least ironic."
Jewel: "...And yet, we're sending Brian home."

Jes climbs him like a tree and cries all over the place, while Brian just gets quietly annoyed with himself. He reacts in a completely classy way, and it's quickly over. They wish him well, we all wish him well. He is a good man. Backstage, Sonyae is excited to see Jes coming back, while the boys get worried that Brian's not around. Finally they find him crying in a corner, a sight that touches even Nick enough that he awkwardly pats Brian on the back and tries to be of comfort for the first time in his entire life. Brian continues to be awesome all through his exit stuff, and then he's gone. That sucked!

It sucks because Jes was unprofessional about being unprofessional and because the only reason she hasn't handed them the same excuse six more times is because she's under the radar every week, but it also sucks because out of all of them I feel like we got to know Brian the least. He did the same thing every week, in terms of his actual working process, but his songs were a lot prettier and a lot more interesting than the people with the flashier personalities. Or the people who do nothing.

I get why this song was the one that sunk him -- it sounds like it could have been from any year in the last ten years, but I mean, so could Colby Caillat's songs be from any decade at all -- but they certainly proved their point that being dependable and talented is still not enough when you're going week by week and song by song. My Ridiculous, we salute you.

Next week: No more collaborations! Kara wearing intense matte lipstick and scaring everybody. Perez Hilton getting his Slimy all over everything. High school cheerleaders. Apparently everything, just everything.

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