Last Comic Standing - Air Date June 20

After weeks of auditions and injustice we finally get to the moment everything has been leading to - the comics go into the house. By house what I really mean is a ship. The Queen Mary, former cruise ship converted to floating hotel, is where all the drama is going to take place this season because renting a mansion is likely too expensive due to NBC's sagging fortunes. There is a plus side though, and it's not just the difference in the scenery we're accustomed to in these shows. The cabins the comedians must share are tiny. Very, very tiny. Pretty good so far.
Anthony Clark explains how this is going to work. Each week there will be a challenge for immunity and whoever wins will not have to compete on stage that week and will thus be safe from elimination. Three comics will go head-to-head in front of a live audience with only one of them leaving unscathed, the other two going home. It will go this way until there are six comedians left. Out of twelve going into this portion of the game, there's some easy math for you. It is then that the home audience gets to vote until there is only one. In Highlander they accomplished this by fighting each other with swords, but you know how people are with their "laws" and their "killing is immoral". Spoilsports. I guess the only dying we'll see here will be on stage. HA!
Getting their roommate assignments, the contestants moved into their rooms. There wasn't much here except for one pairing, Roz and Stella. Any time you get two loud women with one name each and stick them into a teensy room together you'll get one of two things, lots of drama or a sitcom pilot. Stella rubbed pretty much everyone the wrong way, but none moreso than Roz. This is what they cast for, this is what they got. Shouting in place of laughter? Why not.
The challenge this week was heckling. Pairing up the comics, they would take turns doing their acts while the other would heckle them. The audience in the comedy club would then vote on who they thought was the best comedian and who was the best heckler. Those two would then have immunity and would not have to perform for their lives.
By random draw the pairs were Josh Blue and Chris Porter, Kristin Key and Michele Balan, April Macie and Joey Gay, Gabriel Iglesias and Bill Dwyer, Stella and Ty Barnett, and Rebecca Corry and Roz. Some of these looked promising while others promised to be wincetastic. Feel free to use that word, by the way. "Wincetastic!"
If you've been reading Realivision's coverage of Last Comic Standing so far you know who the favourites are.
Josh Blue performed first and was funny. No shocker. The pleasant surprise here was Chris Porter's heckling. He was pretty good in the auditions, but I felt he fell short near the end with his worn out French-bashing jokes and didn't deserve to move on. Now he's starting to live up to his promise again and that can only be good for us and the entertainment value of the show.
Next was Kristin Key who is one of the only two women in the final twelve I thought deserved to get through and she showed why in her peformance. Michele Balan did alright as the heckler and their repartee was entertaining to watch. Good for you, Michele. I told you I dig you.
Rebecca Corry? Still not funny. Roz heckling her? She couldn't lose. Hell, I wanted to shout the same things to the Beckster myself.
I still don't really enjoy Gabriel Iglesias but maybe I might if they show more of his act. We got to see very little of it. Bil Dwyer got a funny dig in. For some reason I think that was probably the only funny dig considering how little of this pairing they showed.
Ty Barnett was another act that didn't get much in the way of airtime which is very likely because Stella was his heckler, and she decided to go with annoying instead of funny. I guess that's a valid option if you don't care about winning a comedy competition.
April Macie got to do her entire act uninterrupted. For whatever reason, Joey Gay decided not to heckle. Or couldn't come up with anything funny but considering that I have a feeling I'm going to be very hard on Joey in the coming weeks, we'll pretend that he really did decide not to heckle. It makes perfect sense after all to go on a reality gameshow and choose not to participate in the challenges.
After the commercials the tables were turned. Bil was up first with Gabriel heckling him, and by "heckling" I mean fake laughing very loudly instead of saying anything humourous.
Stella... Funny yet? No. Ty heckling her? It was okay. Another short look, this one we the audience can be grateful for.
Roz had a fairly easy time with Rebecca in the audience who just kept shouting "Monique!" in a completely hilarious... shoot me now. Please for the love of all the good in the world, if Rebecca Corry manages to get to the final six, please shoot me. Hunt me down and put a bullet right in my head. I'll stand against the wall and you don't even need to blindfold me. Just play Rebecca Corry's act for me. Throw in Stella's act and I'll let you use a bazooka.
I'm sorry, Rebecca. I may not find you funny but you seem like a very nice person. Just switch your name and Stella's and it's all good.
Joey Gay should have a heckler in the audience all the time because his rants to April Macie were much better than anything I've seen in his act to date.
Michele Balan and Kristin Key worked great against each other. Kristin has talked about being nervous against the other comedians, but she should easily make the final six. She's the funniest woman left for sure.
Chris Porter kept proving me wrong and making me laugh, and Josh Blue was a great heckler. This was the best pairing of the night and I'd loved to have seen all five minutes from each of them.
The audience then voted for their favourite performers and hecklers. Winner of the best heckler of the night was Roz. Having such an easy target certainly helped, but still this was a decent choice. She wouldn't have been my choice but she would have been up there. Performer of the night was very close. Kristin Key lost by one vote which should prove to her that not only does she belong there but that she has a chance in this competition. It didn't though and for some reason she thought the others would see her as a weak link. Has she not seen some of their acts? The performance winner was Chris Porter. He did a good job and certainly deserved it.
Before getting to the head-to-head we were treated to the tension between Roz and Stella blowing up completely. There appeared to be accusations of farting which can be deadly in those small cabins but still is more information than we really need. I'm certain various gases escape from Roz's ass all the time just as they're bound to escape from Stella's. I just don't want to hear about it.
Following this was nomination time. Each comic would go to a secluded area and say to the camera, "I know I'm funnier than..." followed by a name. The comic with the most votes would then choose two people to go to the head-to-head and they could only choose amongst those who voted for them.
Roz went first and to no surprise to anyone, she voted for Stella. All the others then turn their turns but we didn't get to hear their votes just yet.
Joey picked a woman, we knew that, and really laid into her, but who it was we would have to wait and see. Gabriel pissed me off. First he lied by saying "You all deserve to be here", then he drew a name out of his hat. What a weiner. You know there were funnier comedians who didn't make it to the ship, so say a damned name! Yeesh.
We then get to see who voted for whom...
Roz knows she's funnier than Stella.
Chris knows he's funnier than Michele.
Ty knows he's funnier than Stella.
Bil knows he's funnier than Ant? With that comment alone he's funnier than Bil. But in the end he knows he's funnier than Michele. And Ant.
Rebecca thinks she's funnier than Bil. She knows she's funnier than a root canal.
Michele knows she's funnier than Stella.
Stella thinks she's funnier than April. She knows she's not as funny as a root canal.
Josh knows he's funnier than Stella.
Kristin knows she's funnier than Michele.
April knows she's funnier than Michele.
Joey knows he's funnier than April, and then he goes on to excuse his not participating fully in the competition. His talk of mopping the floor with her on stage didn't go over well with the others.
Gabriel is a wiener. The name he drew out of a hat was Rebecca. As fate would have it, he is funnier than her.
It's a tie! Stella and Michele going to the head-to-head, and between them they chose April to go with them. At this point my fingers are crossed for Michele. I do like her, she just hasn't been all that funny yet. Luckily for her, neither have her competitors in this showdown. The tie was a sham anyway. If you listen very carefully, you could hear a certain fetus say "I know I'm funnier than Stella."
In a confessional to the camera, April said she has confidence in her material and that if she can't beat those two, she has no business being in comedy.
Stella bitched and moaned about Roz.
Michele completely lacked any confidence, something that can't bode well for her performance.
Now on to the first head-to-head (shouldn't it be a head-to-head-to-head if there are three of them?) of the season.
Back stage at the theatre, April almost won me over with her best line yet - if Stella wins, she'll shoot herself in the face.
Kicking off the Night of a Thousand Laffs was Stella who managed to make some audience members scream. It may have been with laughter but I wouldn't bet the rent on it. It was the most we've seen of her act yet and I didn't even crack a smile. Tell me again how she made it on ahead of Nikki Payne?
Michele Balan was next and did pretty darned well. She was funny, for crying out loud. Not funny enough to be the last comic standing but she was finally showing some of the promise I thought she has.
Finally it's April Macie who did an adequate job. It was here I realized she looks like a younger, curvier Marcia Wallace. Sadly I don't see The Bob Newhart Show or The Simpsons in her future, but good for her if she lands on a classic show or two.
The three women's fate is now in the hands of the audience and their ability to press one of three buttons without incident. There are obviously some drunks in the crowd stagging their way through the night because we see someone's hand push the button to vote for Stella. I hope for the sake of the theatre's janitor that the hand was one of a very few because I know I wouldn't want to have to clean up after April shoots herself in the face.
The first comic eliminated with the fewest votes is... Stella! There is rioting in the street as a weight is lifted off the collective shoulders of the home viewers! A parade is held in honour of those brave but humble folks who had the intestinal fortitude and sense of humour to vote against her!
The second comic eliminated is anti-climatic. Really, after Stella's ouster does it really matter? But the second to go is April as it's announced that Michele won the night with 83% of the votes. She didn't just win, she kicked ass! It was well deserved though as she easily had the funniest set of three.
April was happy that she wasn't the first one gone and took consolation from that. She then left with the last thought that "Women are funny. Don't underestimate women because we're just as damaged as men." Why she leaves her best material for the confessionals instead of taking to the stage is beyond me. I loved that line and yes, it's true.
So there it is, NBC. In the interest of creating drama amongst a diverse group you left a lot of funnier comedians behind, and where did it get you? One week of fighting and it's already over because the biggest catalyst just couldn't make enough people laugh.