Semi-Finals!

Well, hot damn! That was a real barn-burner, huh, folks? I think it’s safe to say that we haven’t seen anything like this before. Well, apparently, the first season of NKL saw something like this, but I don’t think anyone in the league right now was there for that so we’ll call it History. Let’s set the stage. Red and Blue came into the night tied at 39 points apiece. It would come down to whomever received more votes on this night. Pink led Black by 26 votes, so Black would have to overcome that deficit in order to win the night. How did things pan out? Well…

Round 1 – Solo

In the night’s opening performance, Jennifer from the Blue Team sang “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper as Doc Brown from Back to the Future. Except this skit referenced the sequels in the series (I forget which ones…the third, maybe?), wherein Marty McFly (Colin) is playing guitar at a school dance and second Marty McFly (Erik) comes in trying not to be seen. Colin’s hand started disappearing, as in the movies, but then everything worked out as the two Marty McFlys shared a slow dance together at the end of the song. It was the mixture of cute cleverness that Blue has exhibited over the course of the season. This time, though, they were going head to head against the Red Team‘s Christine, singing “Extraterrestrial” by Katy Perry. The Red Team brought their usual cavalcade of pop culture references for the semis, and they started off the night with an X-Men theme. Andrew was cast as Professor X, but the team wasn’t happy with his bald cap, so Sam-as-Wolverine shaved his head right there onstage. I’m not sure what else happened, because my eyes were glued on that the whole time. And Andrew’s commitment to his character ended up winning Red the round!

In the night’s other head-to-head match-up, Roz from the Black Team led off with the English version of Nena’s “99 Red Balloons.” In a sultry red dress, she sang the song quite well while the rest of the team distributed 99 actual red balloons around the bar. It was a nice approach that allowed for some fun balloon-hitting and -popping. It was met, though, by Spencer from the Pink Team, singing the second Katy Perry song of the round, “Peacock.” It began with choreography from her, Kara and Kelly as peacocks, and then soon incorporated barely-clothed Josh and Patrick with peacock faces strapped to their waists. This had all the markings of a great Pink Team number we’ve seen this season – choreography, spectacle, commitment – and, as with so many times before in the season, Pink emerged victorious.

They call it peacocking... No, literally, she was peacocking all through this number.

Round 2 – Roulette

The Roulette Round kicked off with Erik from the Blue Team, drawing Cher’s “Believe.” He was “Stan or Kyle” from South Park (Erik is apparently not a big fan of the show), and their concept was one in which Kenny was continuously killed and reborn for a new episode, and then subsequently killed again. The song, then, worked out in their favor tremendously when Erik changed the lyrics to “Do you believe in life after death?” and Cher’s paean to the vocoder became existential query on the premises of animated sitcoms. Deep, guys. The Red Team‘s Lindsay then followed up with Michael Jackson’s “Black or White,” which had very little to do with their adorable Peanuts tableau, with the newly bald Andrew cast as the hapless Charlie Brown. Pop culture beat out pop culture here, though, and the Blue Team took the round.

Oh my gosh! They killed...this whole number and totally won the round.

In Matchup #2, Ira from the Black Team set up the premise of a high school prom, and announced that the song he was about to sing was one he had written for his high school sweetheart, Ana. The innocent set-up made the reveal of “S&M” by Rihanna a perfect song to draw in the round. That ironic juxtaposition was seen and raised by Jerry from the Pink Team, though, when he appropriately drew Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” as chef Paula Deen. And since everything goes better with butter, he had two strapping shirtless young men arrive onstage and promptly smothered them in it. And of course that was enough to again put Pink over the top in the voting – they won the round!

Ira looks so wholesome, but it turns out he's a freak in the bed.

Round 3 – Group

The Blue Team led off the group round with MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” sung largely by a museum guard, reprimanding visitors for disturbing the artwork. Of course, members of the Blue Team played different works of art, and an aspiring photographer, among other characters. Trademark Blue Team recontextualization. And it went up against trademark Red Team pop culture references as the Red Team performed “The Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show as different characters from pop culture – lots of Doctor Who, for example – who time travel. With everybody doing the dance from the song, it was enough to propel the Red Team to victory in the round.

Marcus, dude. I don't think those are the real paintings! You may have bigger problems than someone touching them...

The Black Team offered up Green Jelly’s “Three Little Pigs” for the Group Round, with Nehemiah narrating a twisted version of the classic fairy tale that cast James as the Big Bad Wolf. The gang acted out this new version, which ended in Rambo-Roz taking down the Wolf and everybody celebrating. It was fun and creative, but would it be enough to take down the Pink Team? The Pink Team‘s group number was “Alone” by Heart, which was sung as the theme for a Jerry’s Kids telethon that somehow went from being about Jerry Lewis to Jerry Sandusky – the recently-alleged child-rapist football coach at Penn State. Apparently the audience preferred violence against beloved fairy tale characters to child molestation references, because the Black Team won out on this round.

For the night, this left the Pink Team a clear victor! They will move on to the Finals on Thursday night to face the Olive Team. In the Red-Blue matchup, however, there was a tie! A tie! They tied over the course of the regular season, and then 194 votes later they were still tied! For only the second time in NKL history, there was a sudden death roulette round between the two team captains. Erik from the Blue Team sang Madonna’s “Material Girl” while Stephen played the air-fork-guitar in his underwear, and Andrew from the Red Team wasted no time in stripping down to his boxer-briefs  before singing Abba’s “Mamma Mia” and closing with a full mooning of the audience.

I'm not quite sure what's going on in this picture, but I know for sure that I wish I'd been a part of it.

Through a good old-fashioned applause-o-meter, the Red Team barely eked out a victory in one of the more thrilling nights of NKL in recent memory (I assume). And they will be the third team competing in Thursday’s finals against Pink and Olive. Congrats to the Black and Blue Teams (hehe) on fantastic seasons, and best of luck to all in the upcoming Finals.