Tuesday brought The Voice Season 22’s top 10 results show, which determined the eight contestants moving on to the semifinals. But sadly, one of the contestants who didn’t move on, a former frontrunner, didn’t even get to bid a proper farewell.
At the start of the evening, host Carson Daly explained that seven singers would be voted through by America, based on Monday’s mostly excellent top 10 performances. And of course, the first artist to advance was the most excellent of all, true original and consummate risk-taker Bodie. Bodie’s lightning-quick rapped/sung cover of TikTok star JVKE’s “Golden Hour” on Monday had his proud and stunned coach, Blake Shelton, not only declaring it possibly “the hardest song I have ever heard someone try to do on this show,” but perhaps “the greatest performance I’ve ever seen on this show.” Thankfully, America agreed with that assessment. And I already can’t wait to see what Bodie does next week — and in two weeks’ time on the finale, because I can’t imagine him not going all the way at this point.
Also immediately advancing to the semifinals, before Tuesday’s first commercial break, was this week’s other standout rock star, Team Camila guitar goddess Morgan Michaels. This meant that rookie coach Camila Cabello would still be represented moving forward. Poor Camila started off with such a strong team that I once predicted she’d win this whole season, but then she quickly lost three of her four artists in the Live Playoffs, leaving her only with Morgan, her “last woman standing.” But Camila could still win it all with Morgan… and honestly, a top two consisting of Bodie and Morgan would make for one of the most thrilling Voice finales in years.
Two contestants that I’d hoped would be in that finale’s top four with Bodie and Morgan were Team Gwen’s indie-soul maverick Kiqué and Team Legend’s “Velvet Powerhouse” Kim Cruse — but frustratingly, both singers landed in the bottom Tuesday, despite giving dynamite performances the night before. The Kim result was shocking, considering that her cover of Rihanna’s “Love on the Brain” had been so electrifying that Carson actually believed Rihanna herself would approve. Gwen Stefani had even noted that Kim had been “underrated this season,” but “now everybody is going to wake up and say, ‘Why weren’t we making a bigger deal about Kim?’” But apparently Gwen’s statement was only half-correct.
As for Gwen’s own at-risk contestant, Kiqué, I thought he’d admirably gotten back on track this week after landing in the bottom last week. But maybe the fact that NBC was forced to air a pre-taped Kiqué studio performance Monday — because he’d tested positive for COVID-19 and couldn’t appear on the live show — thwarted his chances. As Kiqué listened to Carson read off the bottom three results while he waited in isolation, my heart went out to the kid… and my brain wondered how he was going to remotely sing for the Instant Save from his quarantined hotel room.
Instead, the show aired another pre-taped performance, this time of Kiqué covering Leon Bridges’s “River.” The footage was quietly compelling, but I think Kiqué is the type of performer that runs on adrenaline — that’s how he won the Save last week — and I think if he’d been in the moment, on live television, the end result would have been much more fierce, more of a fight song. This footage appeared to have been filmed at the same time, last Friday, that Kiqué had performed “for robot cameras” (as he explained on social media) when shooting his locked-down top 10 performance — as in, the performance that had ultimately landed him on the chopping block. So, he seemed doomed tonight.
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