No-one likes a bad boy

Week 2 results: 18 October 2011

Last night! Love was a dreary, dreary thing indeed, apart from Johnny, Kitty and Misha! Gary BORELOW chose the worst songs possible for his acts! After years of resistance, we worryingly began to like Louis Walsh (I'm blaming the blandness and auto-tune-tastic American version of this show for my about face, I don't know what Steve and Helen's excuses are), which is a scary, scary thing indeed!

Dermot suitwatch - clumpy, with an odd mustardy-green tie.

Tonight! Only one act is going home. Boo! Last week spoiled us. Just think, if they sent home four acts every time, the live shows would only be FOUR WEEKS LONG. Seeing as they struggle to even find four decent theme weeks, this seems like the best idea ever.

Judges' clothing watch: Louis' shirt is worryingly a bit too undone, Kelly's revealing a fair bit of cleavage, Tulisa is extremely proud of her tattoos, Gary's dressed for a funeral, which is oddly appropriate given the shock he's about to receive (spoilers).

Dermot reminds us to vote, and then it's time for our first heavily autotuned and mimed group performance. Hilariously, Nu Bile and BixMix sound so robotic it's as if the auto-tune has been put through autotune. In a literal-staging-if-this-were-the-1980s moment, the stage is full of red phone boxes, because they're singing 'Hello' (the Martin Solveig and Dragonette one, not Lionel Richie). Johnny and Marcus have had their voices pitched so high that only dogs can hear. There's a pointless rap in the middle from The Risk, Misha and BixMix because that's this year's 'thing'. Arse TAT is still out of tune despite robotic intervention. Sami is the worst mimer ever. Someone's dressed Misha in bin bags. Kitty gets the pimp section of the song. Interesting.

I think it's time we had a recap, don't you? I'm not going to recap the performances, though, just the comments. Tulisa thinks Nu Bile have fans. Louis stands behinds her and shakes his head. Louis Walsh, stop making me like you. Sami thinks her comments were fantastic despite Gary being a misery. Craig fakes that he was NERVOUS, because he's the only male hope this year and he needs to work the HUMBLE card. Talking of the HUMBLE card, Janet's still trying to play that one. Arse TAT has a sulk and sounds exactly like a petulant toddler when he admits he sucked. Johnny had a tweet from Kylie and is all excited. As he should be. Gary said Marucs sounded great and Louis pulls a 'yeah right' face. Tulisa unconvincingly says BixMix might be the best girl band. Again. Some more. Gary grimaces that Misha is the best one although makes it all about Kelly because perish the thought this show would be about contestants. The Risk call themselves pure class. Yes, that was a very classy moment. Sophie wants to not be theotherone of the girls category. Again. Kitty's performance merits no new comments, merely BORELOW saying he wants to win. How rude.

Up next, the first of tonight's special guests, NUMBER ONE SINGLE! BOYBAND! ER, THE WANTED! This year they've got an additional 3 MILLION SINGLES SOLD! Is that a lot in this day and age? It sounds like it but I've lost track of how the charts really work nowadays. They also have a DOUBLE PLATINUM ALBUM and 3 NUMBER ONE HITS. You could have also added a BETTER THAN ONE DIRECTION for the lulz, show.

Their staging has lots of pulsing white lights. Epilepsy alert! There's also so much dry ice you can barely see them. Heh. The song sounds a bit Wanted-by-numbers. It's got the same beat as all their others, but obeys the law of diminishing returns by not having a chorus that's even a tenth as catchy as 'All Time Low'. Still better than One Direction, though. There's then a weird bit with fire and oil drums. Dermot thanks the band but they don't get an interview.

Ads. I'm on STV player and every single advert is for Scottish Power, where all the appliances have exaggerated English regional accents (from different regions). Odd.

Dermot asks the judges how they're feeling. Borelow smugterviews that he doesn't care if everyone thinks his choices were shit because none of his acts are going to be in trouble. Oh, this is going to be delicious (spoiler). Tulisa is defeated because she has the groups, only one of which is making it past week five. Louis is nervous because, if the papers are to be believed, everyone turned this show off part-way through last night so no-one even saw Kitty.

Next up, someone who was once a 'judge' on this show, which is stretching things a little bit far, Katy Who? Apparently she's going for some kind of 'authenticity' as if she were trying to win American Idol. She's using the Journey South memorial guitar of irrelevance for her country-fied 'One That Got Away' song. Her pink hair needs the roots doing as well. It's OK, I suppose, but rather dull and there's not really anything here for NotNotLouis to work with, and if you can't give Katy Perry crazy staging and dancers then, really, what is the point of her? She plugs her tour and Dermot announces she's going to be in Liverpool soon. She does a weird accent and says 'we love the North'. Dermot asks Gary to recommend somewhere for her to go. [I can recommend a few places for her to go. - Steve] He says 'a beautiful nightclub called The Grafton'. No-one's sure if this is a wind-up and it makes for a really uncomfortable flat comedy moment that Bruce Forsyth would be proud of.

Boring competition. That car you win better not come with X Factor logos all over it. Ads. Oh look, Scottish Power. Makes a change from dairy, I suppose.

Dermot welcomes all the acts back – it’s still that stage of the competition where the groups look like there are far too many people on stage, but I’m sure that will be remedied later (not really a spoiler, more an inevitability).

Safe are: The Risk, Janet, Craig, Johnny (who gets very excited, bless him), Misha B (this is how Dermot refers to her, not Misha), Sami (who seems to give Kitty a little pep talk), BixMix (but probably not for long), Sophie (all that ‘please don’t think I’m anonymous’ schtick won’t work forever though), Kitty (who gets some boos because the studio audience are dicks. The acts left are Nu Bile, Arse TAT and Marcus. Everyone starts shouting for Marcus, not Frankie. Iiiiiinteresting. He looks like he’s going to vomit – and is then declared safe. Wow, this is a rare occasion when the two worst acts are actually the bottom two. What a result. [Best public vote since Laura Shite was in the bottom two and subsequently sent home. - Steve]

Ads. Who cares? Someone terrible is going home.

First up, it’s Nu Bile. Tulisa introduces them with a face and tone of voice that accepts she knows they’re going. They’re doing 'Promise This' (not Parachute as I originally typed). The one in the grey cardigan (Ashford, I presume) has a reasonable voice, the others all sound terrible, and their harmonies are as dreadful as ever – even worse without the patented One Direction backing singing. They all look dead behind the eyes, all though you can’t blame them given they know how inevitable this is. Bad Bradley sort of fakes out like he’s going to cry. It’s not very convincing. They have a big ‘it’s all over' hug. [They signed their own death warrant by not doing the "alouette-ette-ette" bit. - Steve]

Borelow ‘can’t believe’ Frankie’s up, despite the trainwreck that was his performance yesterday. He’s doing ‘Red’ and completely misses his opening and can’t get his timing until the chorus. It’s better than the Coldplay track but not by much. The problem is, they saw tattoos and hair and thought that would be enough, but he has no voice whatsoever, and his personality isn’t even strong enough for him to be a Katie Waissell style hate figure. He kind of shambles around and looks a bit defeated. It’s broken him already and he’s got at least two more weeks left given next week’s inevitable bounce-back effect.

Borelow snipes that he can’t believe Frankie is there again and sends home Nu Bile. Kelly does a protracted Sharon Osbourne/Cheryl Cole ‘I don’t know who to vote for thing’. Oh, Kelly, I hoped you wouldn’t be THAT judge. She sends home Nu Bile too. Tulisa sends home Frankie. Louis chooses not to go to FUCKING DEADLOCK (although that would be delicious if it were Frankie) and says both acts sucked last night but he’s sending home Nu Bile as well. They’re not in the least bit surprised. Their best bits comprise them all auditioning as soloists, two terrible performances in the live shows and lots of looking mardy. Tulisa claims she can’t see what went wrong for them and Dermot asks if they’ll stay together. Awesomely, Ashford then just thanks Tulisa and the crew. Dermot then tries to get Tulisa to say they have a future and she totally doesn’t, just saying they’re great guys. I love that none of them were even pretending this was going to happen.

And that’s that! Join Helen next week to see how much more vague the themes can get!