Every Week on CMT’s new reality show Gone Country, a motley mix of Nashville misfits try to make it big on the Chesney tip. We’ll be watching (and chuckling):
Sixty Minutes of Kentucky-Fried Reality in Seven Sentences: After seven weeks of watching CMT, it’s the episode you’ve all been waiting for: the hour-long finale. Tonight, our seven contestants perform the songs they’ve been learning all season in front of a Nashville audience. We know going into the episode that Sisqo doesn’t win, given his hilariously brief reunion with Dru Hill last week. “I don’t want to lose, because I’ve never lost a competition in my life,” boasts frontrunner and series MVP Bobby Brown. Carnie Wilson kicks off the show, followed by Julio Iglesias Jr., who makes the ladies swoon. Maureen McCormick shakes off her paralyzing stage fright to sing her ode to her deceased mother. The crowd loves it, and Dee Snider predicts for the second time that McCormick will win this thing.
The Honky-Tonkin’ Highlights: Diana DeGarmo, who was criticized by Rich last episode for being “too Aguilera,” belts out a countrified version of her song, turning her into the favorite to win this thing. “That was frighteningly good,” Rich says. But DeGarmo has one more hill to climb: Mt. Bobby Brown. Despite a pre-performance diet of Grey Goose-on-the-rocks, Brown brings the house down with his rousing performance, reminding the viewers at home that before he became a walking punch line, he was once a talented performer. Before we find out who wins the battle of DeGarmo vs. Brown, we must an endure a Sisqo performance (complete with ridiculous dancing) and Dee Snider’s juvenile “Rock Out with Your Rooster Out,” which started off well but ended with him dropping an eff bomb and a middle finger on the conservative audience, thus killing his slim chances of winning.
The Grand Ol’ Finale: John Rich wrangles everybody back at his mansion to go over his grading criteria and ultimately pick the winner. And the winner of Gone Country, who will be given the opportunity to record a song with John Rich, is… Julio! What an upset! The man who got the least camera time, the least back story, slept through all the competitions and who admitted he had the worst shot of winning ends up winning, as Rich decides he wants to mine the lucrative “Latinos who buy country music” market. “I’m happy for him, but at the same time, I want to whoop his ass,” Brown says in closing, bidding goodbye to a competition he should have won.