It”s only one part of the overall voting process, but if iTunes results are any indication of larger trends, then the results tonight will be perfunctory rather than truly surprising. Last night I predicted that the audience watching “The Voice” wouldn”t vote for a classic rock singer into the Final Four. But there sits Terry McDermott at Number Two on the charts, so I vastly underestimated American”s hunger for Foreigner. Cassadee Pope had an even stronger overall showing, placing both of her songs inside the Top 10. Nicholas David”s cover of “Over The Rainbow” also made it into the coveted Top 10, as did Trevin Hunte with “And I Am Telling You I am Not Going”. Only Melanie Martinez and Amanda Brown failed to crack the all-important threshold. Brown”s showing was expected, but Martinez has been surprisingly strong on the charts over the last three weeks, which is why I picked McDermott over her to leave tonight.
But hey, anything”s possible. (Except Cassadee Pope. She”s going NOWHERE but into the Final Four.) So let”s watch the antepenultimate Results Show and see just how awkward Carson Daly can make things for the six remaining hopefuls.
Onto the running diary!
8:00 p.m. Before Daly even speaks, Christina Aguilera is taking notes. I”m desperate to know what she could possibly be writing, besides maybe “I miss Dez.”
8:01 p.m. Ne-Yo and Matchbox Twenty will both be performing tonight. Now you know.
8:02 p.m. Performance Show Montage! I was there. You were there. No need to live in the past, people. Moving forward.
8:03 p.m. Daly confirms that four artists mentioned above finished in the iTunes Top 10 when voting closed. If they are indeed the four listed above, then it will be a long hour to find out what we already know. (The polls are a fluid thing, so it”s possible something shifted at the last moment.)
8:05 p.m. Ne-Yo hits the stage to perform “Let Me Love You” with Amanda Brown. Given his performance here, I feel semi-comfortable saying that he probably wouldn”t make it past the blinds with a vocal like this. I”m happy when Brown shows up so I can actually understand the lyrics to the song. Still, Ne-Yo is a performer first and a singer second, so the disparity between the two isn”t a surprise.
8:12 p.m. Before the first save, Daly interviews the four coaches. Levine still feels comfortable with the choices he and his teammates made last night. (He”s incorrect! Levine probably stopped Martinez”s momentum cold with his pick for her last night.) CeeLo Green punts when asked which performer in particular stood out last night, dubbing it a “coexistence” more than a “competition”. However, he does mention Hunte by name as a standout. Aguilera tosses her fan in the ring for Hunte as well as for Pope and David. Daly asks Blake Shelton about his strategy, which is hysterical, in that it implies that Shelton has a strategy at all. He”s the coach that said last night the best thing he can do at this point in the show is “be their friend”.
8:17 p.m. Terry and Trevin pair up to sing OneRepublic”s “Feel Again”. It”s not a pairing I would have anticipated, but unfortunately it”s not a song that really brings out either”s strengths. There are times in which “The Voice” has a keen sense of how to deploy its talent, and other times the show seems like a drunk person blindly picking songs out of a karaoke booklet at the bar. Still, despite all that, and despite myself, I enjoy the two singing arm-in-arm at the end of the number. I have issues.
8:19 p.m. Alrighty, here we go with our first save of the night. Daly makes sure each know that he”ll be asking them questions. “So don”t freak out if I call your name!” Somewhere in America right now, Sylvia Yacoub is throwing a shoe at her television.
8:20 p.m. After a touching moment in which Terry McDermott says that he sees his deceased mother in his child”s face every day, we learn that Terry McDermott is the first member of the Final Four. Happy to be wrong in my prediction last night. Since there”s basically no way that Pope is going home, it looks like Team Blake will make up fifty percent of the semi-finals. And there”s a darn good chance Team CeeLo will make up the other half.
8:27 p.m. Matchbox Twenty are in the Social Media Theatre Of #Despair. They look about as thrilled as you can imagine.
8:29 p.m. Duet time! Pope and Brown perform Kelly Clarkson”s “Breakaway”. If you want to read the tealeaves, you could note that this song is tailor-made for Pope and really isn”t in Brown”s wheelhouse. Brown does a fine job here, but it”s Pope”s wings that are spreading tonight. Fun drinking game: take a sip every time Pope raises her arms up to the sky! I would, except the rest of this recap would be a bunch of consonants strung together sans vowels.
8:31 p.m. “Well, that was nice!” said Daly, somehow dripping that innocent-sounding phrase with venom. That…was weird.
8:31 p.m. Q&A time: What has the experience meant for David? He says that while he misses his family, he”s made a second one with his fellow contestants. He then makes a fart joke that is somehow endearing. This guy is great.
8:32 p.m. With the bathroom humor done, we learn that Trevin Hunte is the second contestant moving onto the Final Four. That was an obvious pick…only nothing is truly “obvious” when it comes to a popularity contest on a reality show. Aguilera”s endorsement last night means Hunte will have a career no matter what once his time on the show is over, but it”s appropriate that he”ll make it to the semi-finals regardless.
8:37 p.m. Matchbox Twenty takes the stage to perform “Overjoyed” with Hunte and David, both of whom Rob Thomas mentored back in the Battle Rounds. Hunte and David are both standing in front of carousel horses, and it”s unintentionally surreal. Did David Lynch stage this mid-tempo ballad? I”m confused.
8:40 p.m. It”s a “Voice Confessional”, y”all! The theme this week is “impressions”. Martinez reveals an incredible gift for mimicry. It”s disarming. Where has THIS girl been all season? Someone get her a sitcom, stat. Lord knows it can”t be nearly as bad as some of the stinkers NBC has unleashed over the past 18 months. I am also a fan of Terry McDermott”s sartorial savvy. (“What am I going to do after I return it? Get seventy-five shirts that I like and don”t have holes in them.”)
8:41 p.m. Alright, it”s time to find out the next save. The third person going into the Final Four is Cassadee Pope. Well, good to announce that now, since leaving her for the final save would have been anticlimactic.
8:42 p.m. Post-commercial break, we will learn the first person who ISN”T moving on. Because that”s not confusing or anything.
8:47 p.m. Back from commercial break, we get our final duet. It”s David and Martinez singing Fiona Apple”s “Criminal”. Man, “Criminal” might have been a great choice for Martinez last night. (I think Aguilera even suggested it, if memory serves correctly.) But it might be too little, too late now. I dig the pairing of these two in any case. They are like The Carpenters, or Donnie and Marie Osmond. Right? Or has Cassadee Pope been raising her arms too much tonight? In any case, hooray for the Bizarro Captain and Tennille!
8:49 p.m. OK, now we”re going to learn who is eliminated, not saved. Daly reiterates that he”s going to ask someone a question, SO NO ONE FREAK OUT, OK? Daly asks Brown what it”s been like to have a second chance post-Battle Rounds. She”s grateful to Levine for the opportunity, she says. But her voice is hollow, almost as if she understands what”s going down.
8:51 p.m. The first person officially eliminated tonight is…Melanie Martinez. Well, once McDermott got voted through, she seemed like the odd man out. “This is beyond what I”ve ever dreamed of,” she says, happy for the chance to express herself as an artist on the national stage. It”s a classy good-bye, albeit one she rushed through in order to prevent herself from crying. I”ll be curious to track her progress post-“The Voice” and see if she can make it on the charts without the help of the show.
8:56 p.m. OK, final elimination/save time. But before that, Daly interviews each coach to see whom they think America saved. What an AWFUL question. What the hell are these coaches supposed to say? That”s it. I”m hosting the semi-finals. I”m doing this out of duty to America. Aguilera punts. Shelton thinks David will go through. Green and Levine are obviously biased. Lordy, this is painful.
8:58 p.m. With that out of the way, we learn that the final member of the Final Four is Nicholas David. I typed that name out before I even heard the results. Between last night”s performances and Levine”s lengthy speech exhorting Brown to stay strong despite whatever might occur, this seemed like the way things would play out.
8:58 p.m. Team Adam, wiped out. Only two teams of two remain. See you next week for the one-hour semi-final performance show.
What did you think of tonight”s results? Did the right two go home? Which of the remaining four surprises you the most? Who is the favorite to win it at this point? Sound off below!