We start off with
a rapid-fire montage of images that don’t seem related but hopefully will be so
after Mr. Lambert entertains us with his story: the skull of what could be a bull
or possibly a Republican, a fuzzy shot of what might be the ghosts of former Ku
Klux Klan members wearing shiny spirit robes, a contraption on a wall that
might be sexual in nature, another skull, a bottle of some kind of hooch and a
few fancy oxygen tanks. Perhaps there was a frat party in a nursing home that
got out of hand, who knows.
We finally get a
shot of Adam as he starts to sing, and it’s nice to know that he still has a
fondness for interesting leather jackets, this one sporting an interplanetary
theme. He’s in an odd room (more skulls) featuring a special blue light which
nicely accents the fact that he’s wearing far less makeup than usual. (Except
for the eyes. The eyes have always got to pop or you really aren’t doing things
right.) He seems to be very unhappy about something, perhaps the fact that
there’s only the one bottle of booze left and we’ve still got the whole video
to get through.
Then we get
another montage of Adam posing in various parts of the room, which could be in
the apartment of someone who collects instruments of torture. (There’s a
menacing pointy thing next to the couch that easily could have been used with
great fanfare during the Spanish Inquisition.) Adam spends some time looking in
a mirror, throwing books across the room (Does he hate libraries? Was there an
incident?), making snarling faces while waving his arms, and being angry.
Mostly being angry. Someone has obviously done something they shouldn’t have at
some point. (Did he get shorted on egg rolls by the delivery guy? Hate that.)
Oh wait, now we’ve
jumped to another living room, where the light is more natural and the
furnishings less capable of hurting you. Adam is wearing a nice cardigan that
would make Mr. Rogers so happy that he’d sing a duet with that creepy cat-puppet
friend he had. This Adam seems to be in a much better mood, probably because his set design isn’t based on a theme of
death, loss and unsatisfactory food delivery. He’s smiling and scribbling
something on a tablet, so he might be working on his memoirs of what really
happens while waiting offstage with Ryan Seacrest.
The chorus kicks
in again, and Smiling Adam jumps to his feet and shows us that he can still
perform quality dance moves without the aid of high-drama couture and boots
with heels bigger than your head. Then we have scenes with Adam doing yoga (It’s
nice that he’s centered and all, but what’s up with the odd air tanks behind
him? Is that a California thing? Designer air?) and Adam flopping around on the
couch and enjoying a good book, probably one about magical unicorns who sing
show tunes while fighting discrimination in small towns.
We get to a point
where Smiling Adam is staring out the window, as if waiting for someone (dude,
I hope you didn’t order the Chinese, word on the street is that somebody up in
that grill has sticky fingers), then he hits one of the high notes in the song,
which causes him to turn around and see his evil twin staring back at him.
Apparently both of his personalities got a group rate at the same complex, one
where people really do live in glass
houses. (Another California thing, natch.)
This causes
Smiling Adam to rush to his couch for comfort, and Angry Adam to rush to his
bottle for comfort and a little bit of spillage, proving that Adam can’t always
successfully get things in his mouth. And then we engage in some sort of
sing-off, with Smiling Adam and his chamomile tea trading lines with Angry Adam
and his toxic tonic. It seems that Smiling Adam isn’t good with confrontation,
simply sitting on his couch and shaking his head like a Baptist virgin, but
Angry Adam is all about the raging gestures, including splashing his booze on
the wall between him and Adam II. (Fool. Why you wasting the hooch? You’re
gonna be licking that up off the floor later.)
The
passive-aggressiveness continues for a while, with Angry Adam tearing things up
in his half of the cell while Yoga Adam calmly alphabetizes his book collection
and makes his bed, pretending that Lindsay Lohan isn’t having another meltdown
on the other side of the once-arty but now bad-idea glass wall. Of course,
Granola Adam’s non-reaction only further incenses Bad Seed Adam, just like what
happens with any family. (Even if all the family members are only in your
head.)
Then Greenpeace
Adam picks up something (apple? potato? diaphragm?), bounces it in his hand,
and then does something so that the object ends up in Quentin Tarantino Adam’s
hands. (This part is a little unclear, just like the reason why anyone would
care whether or not a Kardashian gets married.) Anyway, now Bad Apple Adam has
a round thing in his hands which he proceeds to crush so that something blood-like
spills out while he glares sideways at the camera, an evil look that probably
made fellow contestants quiver in their sparkly shoes on American Idol, though
not as scary as the looks Simon Cowell would give Paula Abdul when one of her
personalities dared to disagree with him.
Both of the Adams
then hit a few high notes in unison, because despite their differences they
still share the same vocal range. Then PollyAdam retires to his neatly-made bed
and
Sort-of-looks-like-Elvis-in-this-shot Adam retires to one of the
uncomfortable pieces of furniture in his Depression Chamber. They both sing
about darkness, while Elvis Adam runs his fingers through the flame of a
lighter, indicating that he may have done something recently that requires him
to alter his fingerprints. Or he’s just really cold, what with that chilly blue
light and all.
Cut to a bit
later, where Perky Adam is proffering a chess board at Pyro Adam. I guess Pyro
isn’t interested in board games, because he instead sets an overturned chair on
fire, as one naturally does when the entertainment options are not to one’s
liking. As the flames rise higher and Perky presses his hands against the glass
wall in concern, Pyro first raises his arms in victory and then decides to run
to a mirror and smear his eyeliner all over his face, so he might have a bit of
a manic-depressive issue.
Suddenly, Happy
Adam appears to be choking over on his side of things, and we get a shot of him
gasping and looking at an “Oxygen Level” monitor on the wall. (We all have
those, right?) The numbers are quickly heading toward zero, a development that
probably isn’t good, but I haven’t seen the script. As Happy collapses to the
floor, he has to waller around a bit because it’s time for both Adams to sing
an important part of the song, and we can’t let asphyxiation break our focus.
Eventually,
Jacked-Up Makeup Adam realizes that his brother-sister is flatlining on the
other side of the wall, and he should do something heroic now if he wants to be
in the sequel. (No explanation is given as to why the oxygen is just fine in
his room, even though that’s where the fire is. And just who is controlling the
oxygen supply? RCA Records?) Anyway, Jacked Adam manages to kick a hole in the
glass wall with his bad-boy boot (they just don’t build houses like they used
to, eh?) and he reaches through to touch Mr. Rogers on the shoulder.
Fade to white
screen.
Then we’re somewhere
else, with Adam walking down the sidewalk toward us outside a complex that has
been police-taped off. We zoom in for a close-up, and just as the video fades
for a final time, we realize that his eyes are two different colors…
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