‘The Voice’ Recap: Cee Lo Green Reaches the End of the Road
That’s a wrap for Cee Lo Green on The Voice, as his third and final contestant was sent home last night in as many weeks of viewer voting.
After circling the drain but being instantly saved by America last week, Caroline Pennell could no longer escape her fate. Apparently the17-year-old drab-to-fab starlet’s rendition of Florence and the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over” didn’t impress viewers. And neither did Ray Boudreaux from Blake Shelton‘s team, who also got eliminated.
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Neither was a surprise, though Caroline attempted to rally on Monday night with one of her best performances (despite losing sight of her innocent charm). Also not surprising: that Matthew Schuler from Christina Aguilera‘s team rounded out the bottom three.
While some might call it a “shocking” almost-elimination (he won this week’s insta-save), anyone who really paid attention saw it coming. After two ballads in a row, Matthew went back to his rocker roots with a choreographed performance of Imagine Dragons’ “It’s Time” – and America gave him a stern finger-wagging warning. While his rendition of “Hallelujah” two weeks ago nearly sent him to Number One on the iTunes songs chart, this track barely cracked the top 100. You can almost hear viewers collectively saying, “Never do that again.” And he won’t if he wants to stick around.
Even so, precedent is not in his favor: both previous insta-save winners have been booted the following week (Pennell, Kat Robichaud). However, if anyone can rebound and buck the trend, it’s Matthew. Sadly, though, his bottom-three showing is probably a good indicator that he is not going to win.
At this point, Team Adam Levine looks unstoppable with all three contestants still intact: James Wolpert, Tessanne Chin and new frontrunner Will Champlin. With the competition down to just six hopefuls now, that gives Team Adam a 50 percent chance of walking away the winner – especially now that Blake is down to just one warm body: Cole Vosbury. But don’t count out the bushy-bearded gent just yet – it’s entirely possible that he is the dark horse in the race. (While Team Christina still has two hopefuls, odds seem slim that she’ll be “the first female coach to win this thing.”)
Fluffing up the night was a performance by English singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding (“Burn”) and a god-awful OneRepublic medley by the top eight contestants in which almost every singer sounded terrible. (That’s quite a way to welcome 1R frontman Ryan Tedder into the fold as the show’s first in-house producer and songwriter.)
Then there was the mini-reunion between Cee Lo and Goodie Mob cohort Big Gipp, who really didn’t have much to do on new single “Amy.”
Dressed in a black-and-white striped prison-like ensemble, Cee Lo waddled among angelic, floating “white girls” while Big Gipp basically stood around. The getup, the setup and the lyric – “I’mma try me some new tool / If I work out for you, and it’s mutual boo / My very first white girl, white girl” – conjured reminders of how Cee Lo was recently charged with allegedly drugging a woman before having sex with her. Perhaps his tarnished image (coupled with his outright nastiness this season) contributed to his early ouster from the show. Or maybe it was just because he had the weakest team from the start.
Either way, Cee Lo is going to have to sit back and snarl the rest of the season as Adam, Christina and Blake duke it out for Season Five supremacy.
Previous recap: Will Champlin Pulls Ahead