The Voice: All Of A Sudden, There Are Only Four Contestants Left

One thing about The Voice that bugs me: Way too many people getting sent home way too quickly. It’s hard to develop that much of a connection to the contestants when half of them get axed once a week. So on this results show, people were, once again, just dropping like flies. Would it kill this show to stretch things out a little longer? It’s not like NBC has shit else going on.

Another thing that bugs me: How do people get sent home again? The results came from some combination of coaches’ scores and audience votes, but Carson Daly didn’t exactly do a bang-up job explaining how it would work, or which was weighted more. At this point, it’s been firmly established that the coaches love everyone, so why not leave it up to audience votes entirely? Is that such an awful idea?

Last night’s results show started off with all of the contestants mobbing up to sing George Michael’s still-awesome “Freedom ’90,” all of them taking turns to solo. This one was cool because, unlike the group-sings on American Idol, it was obvious that everyone was actually singing rather than lip-syncing and concentrating on horrible choreography. It was also fun to hear the crowd whoop for every respective solo. (Going on crowd noise alone, Javier Colon is whupping everyone’s ass, but we already knew that.) When The Voice does the exact same stuff as Idol does, it’s just remarkable how this show stands as, far and away, way looser and more fun than its primary competitor.

A few things of note during the Team Cee Lo elimination bit. Nakia gave a tearful shoutout to his boyfriend, and it’s pretty awesome to see how this show allows its gay contestants to be gay, something else that’s just never happened on Idol. On the minus side, though, Cee Lo read a completely unhinged poem about how great both of his contestants are. It was goofy as fuck. (Carson Daly: “Very nice, Cee Lo.”) Sadly, that was the closest he’s come to rapping in a while. Thanks to the incomprehensible combination of audience votes and coach scores, Vicci Martinez ended up going to the finals; she completely trounced Nakia, if the numbers across the bottom of the screen meant anything at all.

Next it was time for a deeply ridiculous performance: Cee Lo, in a bright white suit and a greasy wig, sang “Bright Lights, Bigger City” while bubbles floated everywhere and vintage-costumed dancers jitterbugged all over the place. He twirled a cane while looking into a mirror that one of the dancers was holding. For a second, I thought the male dancers had on Devo flowerpots, but no, they were just red hats. Still, it’s worth noting that Devo flowerpots were, at the very least, on the table for this lunatic. The whole thing made for a pretty awesome few minutes of TV, even if Cee Lo sounded like a particularly flamboyant frog.

Then, a video package: Team Adam met Gym Class Heroes. It just so happens that Adam Levine is on a Gym Class Heroes song, and they just ran into each other at some soundstage. What a fortuitous coincidence! It was fun seeing the kids on Adam’s team pretend that (1) they knew who Gym Class Heroes were, and (2) the song was anything other than unbelievable bullshit. This led right into the Team Adam elimination, as Adam and the voting public both gave way more points to Javier Colon than to Casey Weston. He absolutely housed her; it was ugly, if inevitable.

Blake gave his team the once-in-a-lifetime chance to fly to the glamorous metropolis of Cincinnati for some reason. I’m making this sound shitty, but he brought them out onstage at one of his own shows, and it came off looking like a really nice gesture. In his little voting bit, he gave both girls an equal number of points, which left things entirely up to the voting public. (Carson pointed out that the public’s vote “could really change everything.” Shut the fuck up, Carson.) This, of course, led to Dia winning, and Carson kind of yelled out her name a little too forcefully.

Christina Aguilera didn’t introduce her charges to the Gym Class Heroes or fly them to Cincinnati or anything, so her segment just went right into the results. Xtina gave both Beverly McClellan and Frenchie Davis the same number of points, and Beverly ended up squeaking by.