I Downloaded The Voice App: That Which Has Been Stolen Will Never Return
The culling of Team Adam.
Let’s get a pit going, it’s time for another recap of the NBC hit reality singing competition The Voice!
We’re still in the battle rounds, but I am making progress in catching up with this runaway freight train of a show. Let’s not dillydally.
The third battles episode kicks off with Eric Who vs The Ghost of Sydney Kronmiller. You might remember that, because I’m so far behind in watching these episodes, in a previous article I tried to pick Sydney for Team Adam only to find that she’d already been eliminated from the competition.
So I guess we know how this battle is gonna end!
They are singing a spooky ballad version of “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga. Eric has way too much stage presence for Sydney to deal with. He wins easily. Sydney exits stage left and into the welcoming arms of the nevermore.
Up next, it’s Benny Weag versus Brayden Lape, duetting on Parker McCollum’s “Pretty Heart.” I bet you could run that sentence past 500 people before you find one who understands what all those words mean.
That one person would be me. What they mean is that Team Adam is on the clock once again. Brayden Lape is part of the family. He’s only 15-years-old. His competitor is 29-years-old. I can tell from their interactions in the intro video that Brayden is gonna win.
Confidently, I open the app to see if I’m right, and am immediately met with unpleasantness. Because of however the bullshit rules of this stupid show for dicks work, several members of Team Adam are no more.
Which makes the 82,500 points I’ve earned since I last opened the app all the more inexplicable.
So I guess this is Team Adam now.
As if it matters, Brayden Lape did win that battle.
He’s still on Team Adam, but so many others have fallen in service to our goals. It’s a bittersweet victory for me and this gigantic teen.
Learning of all these changes takes a lot of the drama out of what should have been a very interesting next battle for Team Adam.
Parijita Bastola versus The Marilynds, all formerly of the fold. But as the app has recently informed me, everyone involved is still in the competition, but only Parijita is still on Team Adam.
So someone is winning, and someone is getting stolen or saved. It doesn’t matter which way that goes.
Also Parijita was way better and John picks her as the winner.
The Marilynds are saved by John Legend, but are no longer Team Adam because of bureaucracy and red tape and as such are effectively dead to me now.
That brings us to the end of the third night of the battle rounds.
The first battle of night four pits that Kique guy who collects reptiles against that Tanner Howe fella who sang a Shawn Mendes song in front of Camila Cabello like he’s never heard of a trigger warning before.
They’re singing “Don’t You Forget About Me” by Simple Minds.
Here’s the thing. They suck. Maybe Gwen could’ve picked a better song. I don’t know. But this is garbage time. If you’re watching along at home, this is the time to go smoke or shit or both. Kique wins. Get to know him while you can. Tanner is unceremoniously beaten to death by the official The Voice band.
Things get interesting again for Team Adam with the next battle. Hillary Torchiana, owner of an impossibly cool name, versus Kevin Hawkins, member of the impossibly cool Team Adam.
I’m so happy Kevin Hawkins in on my team. He reminds me of Sisqo, but if Sisqo’s dreams still had a chance of working out. He’s wearing green patent leather boots and a shiny green suit and he and Hillary both sing the shit out of this John Legend song that I don’t think I’ve ever heard before.
Kevin wins. Of course he does. Hillary Torchiana is set ablaze right there on the spot, which feels a little too on the nose, if I’m being honest.
Speaking of Team Adam, up next, the squad’s lone remaining single-named member, Devix, is facing off against some contestant I legitimately don’t remember seeing at any point in this season so far.
Turns out her name is Sasha Hurtado and they are both here, weirdly, to sing “Electric Feel” by MGMT. But like a cool acoustic version. It’s better than the original version, but I’m only saying that because I have friends in a band who don’t get along with that band.
Anyway, the performance is good! Camila picks Devix as the winner, because Team Adam is nothing if not a team of winners. Gwen picks up Camila’s scraps and steals Sasha Hurtado. But also that’s a very rude way to put it. Sasha was really good.
The next battle pits two completely unimportant non-Team Adam contestants from Team Legend against each other. David Andrew, the guy with the fun hair who once worked as John Legend’s voice double, versus Kim Cruse, a contestant I do not recall seeing before this point.
They’re singing a song I don’t know by an artist I’m unfamiliar with.
This could end in WWIII and I’d still have to get hit with a bullet on the battlefield before I cared about the outcome.
That said, the performance is very good on both ends. It just means absolutely nothing for the success of Team Adam and as such, for loyalty reasons, it means nothing to you either.
John picks Kim as the winner. David is run over by a Ford Expedition immediately upon walking down the official The Voice stairs.
Speaking of boring battles that don’t involve Team Adam, that’s a perfect way to describe the remainder of night four of the battle rounds. So hey, let’s just move on to night five, yeah?
Yeah!
The first battle of the night pits former Team Adam disappointment Lana Love versus Omar Jose Cardona, the guy who sang a Journey song during the blind auditions. I already know Lana blows this, I just don’t know how badly or what form her execution takes after the fact.
They’re singing a song from the Frozen 2 soundtrack, so whatever it is, I have not heard it. This seems like it should be right in Lana’s wheelhouse given her musical theater roots. I’m genuinely interested to see how she blows this.
Turns out she’s just not as good of a singer as Omar. Sometimes it’s just that easy. He wins by a country mile. Lana is humanely euthanized, which somehow sounds like the harshest fake-death description I’ve written so far in these recaps. Lana is fine, I promise.
The next battle is very much worth my time. Team Adam contestant and future world leader Andrew Igbokidi is facing off against some nobody named Zach Newbould. They are both Team Camila. They are, very interestingly, singing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston.
Except it’s a sorta-ballad version and everyone involved manages to make it relatively boring. Andrew wins on account of the Team Adam bump no doubt, but the victory is far from decisive. Carson Daly asks Zach if there’s anything he wants to say to his coach, and then snaps his neck action movie-style before he can speak. The crowd gasps before erupting in reluctant but mandated applause.
At this point, the show skips forward a bit by showing a montage of highlights from a bunch of battles instead of showing any of them in full. That’s great, because skipping ahead is precisely what I wanted to do also!
The next battle features Bryce Leatherwood versus The Dryes. The latter of those two used to be the crown jewel of Team Adam before they were snatched from me in the dark of night by forces beyond my control. Now they mean absolutely nothing to me.
They’re all singing “Red Dirt Road” by Brooks & Dunn. The only way to make me care less about this would be to tell me that song is about how great the Reagan administration was or some shit.
The performance is sloppy as shit. Blake picks Bryce Leatherwood as the winner, but also he saves The Dryes. I guess everyone wins.
And against all odds, with that last performance, I am finally caught up on watching The Voice.
Because I am nothing if not built for record label executive stardom in my golden years, Team Adam is still as intact as the borderline fascist rules of The Voice will allow.
Up next, we move on to the three-way knockout rounds, and I think you know what that means. Or I at least hope you know what that means. I certainly don’t, and I watch this show every damn year.