Everybody in Los Angeles spends all their time putting on makeup, apparently. The lineup's literally a mile long at 7 AM. Both previous champions have come from the L.A. auditions, and when Cat Deeley asks the crowd if the next one will too, they're a little slow in responding. Way to represent there, guys.

Lauren "Misha" Gottlieb, 18, of Sherman Oaks, CA, was too young to compete last year, but helped one of the choreographers or whatever, and somehow gave Tobey Maguire dance lessons that may or may not have had something to do with Spider-Man 3. This bodes well, because when you think "Tobey Maguire," you think "dancing machine." Lauren twirls and spins to some ballad. She pounds the floor and such until Nigel stops her with a "lovely." Wade Robson, joining Nigel and Mary this week, likes her, so does Mary, and Nigel calls her a beautiful girl and a beautiful dancer, in that order, and they all send her straight through to Vegas, and we watch about five hours of her yelling and screeching and accosting strangers to scream at.

Jessi Peralta, 24, of Valley Village, CA, claims to want an honest opinion, whether it's good or bad, so I thought she was being set up to stroke. She wears a red bikini top and brown pants, and her dance involves a lot of chin-stroking and spastic gesturing. At one point, she seems to smear oil on her stomach. Wade thinks she's really interesting. Nigel pops a boner about the baby oil, and Mary calls it sensual, and Jessi says she thought up her routine at the gym last night and must have been inspired by the guys pumping weights, and before Nigel can explode they send her straight through to Vegas.

Ernie "EJ" Sierra, 28, a hairstylist from San Jose, is instantly too tubby, too sweaty, and likely too gay for Nigel, who sputters and writes him off instantly. He's then surprised (as I was, and as were you, admit it) at how balanced and graceful EJ is. But he sneers at the applause, calls it "patronizing." "They're applauding you because you're fat and doing it," he snaps. Which is not as cool for Nigel as applauding because someone is a hot 18-year-old with a tight body and doing it, I suppose. Wade's nicer to him; so is Mary, as far as telling him that he dances like a "girl" is being nicer to him, and speaking of "patronizing," Nigel tells him to keep up the dancing, because it's good for his health.