Victorious: Freak the Freak Out (2010)
Season 1, Episode 13
8/10
As expected, Ariana Grande and Elizabeth Gillies stole the show.
24 December 2010
Almost as soon as Victorious premiered, there were YouTube videos of Ariana Grande singing, despite the fact that Victoria Justice is the star of the show, and some of them were shown by Dan Schneider himself. That and the fact that both she and co-star Elizabeth Gillies were also in the musical "13," had fans anxiously awaiting an episode where one or the other would get to sing. The opportunity finally came in the extended episode "Freak the Freak Out." Still, there were fans who have never heard Grande or Gillies sing before, but after this episode many of those people were mesmerized by them. I've seen enough YouTube videos of both girls to know that they're not only great singers, but may even be better than Victoria. And even knowing this, I was blown away by them.

Cat and Jade announce that they're spending the weekend at at new Karaoke Night Club in another section of the City of Angels, and they're going to perform in a song contest there, and all their friends are invited. The only cast member who bows out is Tori, who is forced to stay home and take care of Trina after she gets her wisdom teeth removed. Trina's suffering is understandable, but she just spends most of the episode acting like a baby. I had my wisdom teeth removed, and while it was painful enough for me, I didn't try to avoid taking any medicine like Trina does. I may've had trouble doing it, but I never avoided it.

At the club, two girls flirt with Beck and Andre, until they find out about Jade, and that they go to Hollywood Arts High, and then turn on all the kids. As it turns out these girls are going to sing tonight too, and once they get on stage, the look on Jade's face indicates they'll have this contest in the bag. It's obvious, these girls are pretty bad. Not Trina-level bad, but still bad. But then Jade and Cat get on stage and gave a performance that simply leveled the club. I don't think Avan Jogia and Leon Thomas III were acting when they were watching these girls. I think they were genuinely turned on by them. Who wouldn't be? So you'd think the faux-goth queen and perky-puss of Hollywood Arts High would win the contest, right? Oh, no! Not only do those two girls they were competing against win, and only because one of their fathers owns the club, but they get banned from the stage when they complain, and get the rest of the crowd to join them.

Now the rest of the kids come to Tori's house to complain about their night at the club, and Jade & Cat(Okay, it's really just Jade), invite Tori for a revenge plot against those two girls. Jade and Cat may be banned from the stage at Karaoke Dokie, but Tori isn't, and Jade finds a somewhat clever way to get her up on stage to compete against the snobs. I'm sure you can figure out who wins the next contest, but if you haven't seen it, look somewhere else to find out how.

Leave it to Dan Schneider to underestimate his own work. For the episode "Jade Dumps Beck," Dan admitted he wrote the horrible song for Trina's crappy one-woman show. Bad does not describe her writing or her performance. I could barely tolerate it at first. Meryl Streep could've taken the place of Trina Vega and it STILL would've sucked! This time, he boasted that Liz and Ariana killed the song and that's putting it mildly as well. Beyond that, this was a great episode for more than one reason, including Justice. And because it was so great, I'm a little worried that this may be the highlight of Season One. It's quite obvious that the song Victoria sings is also the title of the episode, and is supposed to be the focus of the episode. But that duet between Jade and Cat completely overshadowed the star of the show. As a result, the question of whether this is the next great Victoria Justice song or not has to be left unanswered.
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