We could be heroes, if just for one day.

We are back for Week 2 of the X Factor and, after last weeks marathon edition that seemed to last so long we had to ditch the concept of time altogether and consider it a feat of collective national endurance like the blitz, we've said goodbye to FYD and Nicolo. Who? I hear you ask, bah typical, I bet you don't remember Gamu either. Me neither actually, and probably neither do any of the 250,000 people who now regret joining her facebook group. Dermot introduces the show and is now so bland and devoid of personality that it is officially frightening. Seriously, he might as well present the show via fax, at least then we'd get a chuckle as he misspells Katie's last name weasel instead of Waissel. This weeks theme is usefully vague “heroes” Which, rather than making the contestants dress up as cheerleaders and exuberant Asian time-stoppers, means they can choose from any song ever recorded. Brilliant. So,with a markedly less orange Cheryl and a markedly more ginger Louie our judges take their seats and Mr Cowell's annual semi-musical circus of cruelty gets ready for round two. On we go.

STORM: Storm is the contestant this week sacrificed to the graveyard slot, and all his bluster about hanging in there and keeping on going will no doubt come back to bite him in the arse as the producers clearly see him as mindless filler. Storm is this years token rock contestant and nothing says rock like motorbikes and backflipping dancers. Except everything, ever. It's unlikely that even Storm's red hair and eerily earnest personality will save him this week, as, if I'm brutally honest, he wasn't brilliant.

TREYC: X Factor cliché alert! TreyC is singing purple rain! Purple rain is one of those X Factor staples that the stronger singers belt out, so we can all be impressed with how good they are and just how much this means to them. But can the girl with the illiterate name beat Ruth Lorenzo quite brilliant performance of the same song from a few years ago? No, quite frankly, but it's a decent enough performance that should see her through to week 2, where she will have to start showing some individuality.

PAIJE: Paije joins us from the set of Miami Vice, where he's been playing the leader of a Columbian drugs cartel, to sing “If I ain't got you” I say sing, Paije spends a lot of the song wailing seemingly unrelated notes as if he's trying to find out which exact note Leonard Cohen was singing about.

ONE DIRECTION: Once again Simon has decided to ignore his own pointless rules and picked a Kelly Clarkson song for “the most exciting band in the country®” I like to think he chose “My life would suck without you” as a coded message to his own ego. One Direction, however, proceed to make a good fist of sucking all on their own, with or without Cowell. Has anyone noticed that the blond one in one direction is the happiest person in the world? Presumably because he realises that he's blagged himself a free ticket to the final simply by bobbing up and down a bit behind Harry and Liam.

CHER LLOYD: Cher is up next and proves her credibility as a true artist by coming up with the idea to rip off Jay-Z all by herself. Cher is now the most famous British rapper since John Barnes, but she still has some way to go before she can match his smooth lyrical bombs. She has also developed a weird quivering delivery for the bits where she actually does sing. Apparently she's popular with 16 year olds, but then so is miaow miaow and happy slapping. Cheryl praises Cher for looking and sounding like a popstar in a manner that suggests that she's trying to convince herself that it's ok that she's one herself.

JOHN ADELEYE: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

DIVA FEVER: Diva fever camp things up in a desperate bid to rouse the nation from the mass Adeleye induced coma that we all found ourselves in. Apparently Diva Fever's heroes are some band called Duck Sauce that wrote a song called Barbara Streisand. It's entirely believable that Barbara Streisand is Diva Fever's hero, but nobody in the world could ever cite Duck Sauce as a hero unless they have an incredibly low opinion of humanity as a species. Simon says he likes them because they are fun, but does it such a patronising way that it wouldn't be a surprise to find out he'd managed to offend every gay person in the country.

REBECCA: Rebecca has seemingly misunderstood the Heroes theme and decided to perform dressed as Lee Falk's superhero creation “The Phantom” It's entirely credible that Rebecca could infact be a superhero, as she comes across as so nice, it wouldn't be a stretch to believe that's it's all a front to cover up the fact that at night she stalks and mutilates criminals in a manner Dexter would flinch at. Rebecca gives easily the best vocal so far, then says hello to a little boy who came to visit them, giving further credence to my superhero theory.

AIDEN: According to his VT Aiden is struggling to reach the right notes for his performance of “Jealous Guy” Obviously this seems just a cynical ploy to add some sense of drama to proceeding until he comes out and balls it right up, making me question my hard-earned cynacism. It looks bad for Aiden until his interview with Dermot where, in a stroke of genius, he looks all sad and pouts his bottom lip like a Robert Pattinson shaped puppy, thus ensuring his continued surivival for at least the next six weeks. Clever boy, Aiden.

WAGNER: Could Wagner possibly match last weeks exceptional Bongo infused love shack-athon? No, but nothing could match that ever so we forgive him. However, what he does do is belt out “Just help yourself” with such virile hetrosexuality that he makes Tom Jones seem like Boy George. Towards the end of the song the female dancers, much like last week, start to rub themselves. You have to understand that this is not a choreographed routine, but simply a natural consequence of being in such close proximity to Wagner's ferocious masculinity.

KATIE 'WHOS GAMU' WAISSEL: Katie's hero is apparently Etta James and not, as I'd imagined, Loki the Norse god of mischief. For the second week in a row Katie sings perfectly adequately, but, in lieu of her scary desperation to win, adequate just won't cut it. Also, her face is really hard and angular, as if someone had constructed a visage out of Fearn Cotton's personality.

BELLE AMIE: Fooling noone Belle Amie choose the Kinks as their musical heroes. The only thing they could possibly relate to The Kinks over is the internal animosity between Ray and Dave as, judging from their VT, they quite clearly hate each other, which is more than enough reason to keep them in the competition, and certainly more of a reason than their half-arsed rendition of “You really got me.”

MARY: Mary is the next to the stage, and the only contestant in X Factor history to subvert the use of microphones is singing “You don't have to say you love me” But if we do she might stop bellowing and allow us to keep what's left of our ear drums. After a night involving topless male go-go dancers, a psychedelic worm hole behind Aiden and Louie's hair, the sight of someone just singing is strangely invigorating.

MATT: Matt Cardle will close the show and in his VT we see pictures of him from when he was 10 years old where, depressingly, he is sans hat. Damn, I like to imagine he was born with a miniture cap that grew up along with him, but, unfortunately, the X Factor has ruined that illusion for me forever, Matt sings Bruno Mars “Just the way you are” in a staggeringly high falsetto that has probably made all British housewives collective knicker elastic snap. Simon lie's that Matt fell off the melody at points, but he has to say things like that so it looks like he was paying attention. Based on tonight's performances Matt should walk this.

So what have we learned from tonight's show? That Aiden is a sinister Machiavellian genius, that Wagner is the single most awesome collection of cells and organs to develop consciousness, that Matt and Rebecca are so far ahead vocally that it doesn't seem fair, and that Cheryl has managed to look less orange and more of a chav, which is something even N-Dubz haven't managed. It doesn't look good for Storm, John or Belle Amie but what do I know, I'm neither current nor relevant like 51 year old Simon Cowell. It's another double eviction so I have no idea who could be going. Based on tonight I would say Storm and John but then I voted for Kodos.