Months ago, I read an article on New York Magazine’s fashion blog about the clothes which were going to be in the Telephone video, and the rough plot included in the article indicated that Lady Gaga will have been in jail for her crimes in the Paparazzi video and Beyonce would bust her out of jail and they’d go on a killing spree. And I called my friend Mike and I was like, “I can only talk to you for a second, but I wanted to tell you that that one song from the new Lady Gaga album that you totally loved that I love equally as much is going to be a continuation of the Paparazzi video, which you loved and I loved to the point where it’s actually probably my second favorite video ever, like, ever ever, and Beyonce’s gonna bust Lady Gaga out of jail for killing her bf and then they’re gonna go on a killing spree,” and then Mike and I squealed, like, squealed, “WHAAAAAAT?SOEXCITED!”

Well, what happened?

In the actual 10 minute long clip for the video, Gaga is being brought to her cell and the guards are like, “I guess she doesn’t have a dick after all har har,” and then there’s the first of many close crotch shots because 1000 years ago someone spread a rumour that Gaga was actually a man or a hermaphrodite and she’s still trying to capitalize off of it/prove everyone wrong.

Then she goes out to the prison yard in her smoking cigarette sunglasses and makes out with her prison gf? How long has she been in prison for? Then her prison gf is like, “I’m going to reach into your pocket and take out your VIRGIN MOBILE CELLULAR TELEPHONE, but I’m not going to do anything with it, I’m just gonna hold it awkwardly and for a long time and then I’ll put it back, promise.” And, like, this whole time, there’s a helicopter circling and I’m thinking, “Bey’s gotta be in that helicopter, amiright?”

So, then inside that little, like, lounge that the prisoner’s have (is it called a tv room? is that what it’s called?) some of the prisoners get in a fight because there’s nothing else for them to do I guess, and that one lady with the headband who’s jumping out of her chair is the only non-fight-participant who even pays attention.

Then Lady Gaga and her sister stand like they’re talking to each other, but their mouths don’t move.

Because Gaga is too freaked out by how much her sister looks like Mariah Carey. That was like, three minutes long, all of that. Then there’s a message over the loudspeaker that’s like, “Hey, Lady Gaga, you’ve got a phone call from Beyonce.”

And then she picks up the phone and sings the first verse of the song where it’s like, “It’s so loud in this club, I can’t hear you,” but Gaga puts her hand over her ear like it’s so loud in this PRISON club, I can’t hear you, and I totally hated this part. The song already has a story (I’m in the club, quit calling me, it won’t make me leave any faster, I haven’t finished the amount of time I gave myself to dance tonight) and, it’s not like the video has to follow the story. Like, my first favorite video of all time, November Rain, made sort of an epic story about Axl’s marriage and subsequent widowhood and subsequent arena rock funeral service even though the song already has a story about, like, being sad about losing someone and rain and candles, and the video could have just been Axl looking sad that his gf broke up with him and standing outside of her house with a candle and it’s raining and there’s a big calendar on an easel next to him that says November and the candle keeps going out. It could have been that, but it wasn’t. And I don’t think that the video for telephone necessarily should have been Gaga in a club trying to answer a cell phone and then Bey coming out of the coat check, like, screaming on a cell phone that she just tore up her coat check ticket because she’s not ready to go yet. But, I definitely don’t think that having Gaga on a phone in a prison not being able to hear and singing about not being able to hear in this club was pretty lame.

Then she started this goofy dance where it looked like squirrels got in her jacket. Boo.

Then a bunch of prison ladies strip to their underwear and they decide to dance down the hallways in front of the cells, and it starts with all of the other prison ladies grabbing onto the bars and doing a little dancey thing on the bars and Gaga walking between them and dancing like Gaga, and that was fine.

But then they start their choreographed routine, and the director’s like, “Please zoom in fourteen times on their crotches, and also, please make sure that the dance is as boring as possible,” and everyone was like, “You got it.” To borrow a phrase from my favorite ABDC judge JC Chasez, “The dance was very one-and-two-and.” And I can back this up with the opinion of my friend Mike, an actual honest-to-goodness dancer who said that the choreography was crapola.

Then, ugh, another shot of a Virgin Mobil phone. But, it’s got a text on it! That’s why there was a tight shot! But you can barely read it, so boo.

Okay, this is like, five minutes into the video, and I was already getting tired, because I really didn’t like the whole jail sequence. I like Gaga’s outfit when she’s leaving jail, and I like that she did this random Michael Jackson dance as she was walking out. But, she’s walking out of jail. You know why? Because Beyonce bailed her out. She got bailed out of prison, which she was in for killing her boyfriend. I’ll just leave that there.

Ugh. Really?

Okay, so the second half of the video starts with Gaga being picked up by Beyonce in the Pussy Wagon, which is a reference to Kill Bill that I didn’t get because I never saw Kill Bill. Beyonce’s like, “I waited a while, but I was hungry.”

There’s a terrible sequence where they’re talking to each other about, like, making hamburgers and stuff, and, well, basically Bey broke bailed Gaga out of prison so that she could help Bey poison her bf. The acting is really bad, though, and I get it that it was supposed to be on purpose, and Gaga even looks at the camera, like, “Did you get a load of this bad acting? Did you?” but it’s bad with no comedic timing, so it’s just bad.

Then Beyonce’s verse comes up, and she’s singing about how getting called over and over won’t make her leave no faster, but she’s singing it in the car with this angry face on, and Gaga’s taking pictures of her UGH with her POLAROID CAMERA which they zoom in on so much because did you know that Gaga has a deal with Polaroid. I mean, good for her, but the product placement in this video is not very well done. I mean, I’m surprised at this point that you couldn’t see a little camel on each of the cigarettes attached to her sunglasses.

Anyway, they get to a diner, where Beyonce’s bf Tyrese is waiting for her. I think that the style of this half of the video is pretty good, with the words on the screen and the super bright colors and the goofiness of it, and I would say that if the video was a quick shot of Bey breaking Gaga out of prison and then immediately going to the diner, and just starting the song there, I wouldn’t have named this post “meh-laphone.”

Anyway, Tyrese is a bad bf, so when he gets up to randomly harass some people in the diner, Beyonce pours some poison into his coffee.

This is what it looks like when Tyrese has been poisoned.

I infinitely preferred the way Alexander Skarsgard looked when he was poisoned in the Paparazzi video. He takes a sip and then he’s like, “Really?” and then he just dies. Tyrese doesn’t die right away, though. He just coughs a little and looks sadly out the window.

Gaga is in the kitchen with all these dancers who are like, “My baguette is a telephone,” and, “Oh, yeah? Well, my head of lettuce is a telephone.” See? The graphic on the screen? So much more visually appealing than the entire prison sequence. Anyway.

They do a cute little making a sandwich dance.

And then Gaga pours poison into all of the honey for the whole diner.

And then she makes a telephone out of her hair, and serves Tyrese his food. So, Tyrese dies. But so does everyone else who ate the honey in the diner.

Even this guy!

And then Gaga and Bey and all of Gaga’s kitchen dancers and a couple of other random ladies do a dance that’s like, “I’m going to fart on you.”

And then, ugh. Where’s this guy been?

Then… they’re in the desert and they’re wearing these (awesome) costumes? But they used up all their choreography on the fart dance, so they’re just like, “Lots of fabric! Swish swish!”

And then they’re like, “Does anyone remember Thelma and Louise?” And then they’re like, “To be continued.”

See, when I heard “Beyonce breaking Gaga out of prison” I was thinking something more like this. You know? So, I’m disappointed.

But, at least this happened.