The Masked Singer 4x02

Okay so this was uhh... a weird night on The Masked Singer. I don't really want to spoil anything (not that anyone who hasn't already seen the episode would read this... right?) so I'm saving the surprise to the end, and instead I'm just going to say this for now: things have definitely improved from last week in terms of singing talent and quality performances. I know the jury was already in awe of Group A, and Nick Cannon even started this night with telling us that "already our panel is calling [season 4] the strongest season yet!" (which I absolutely called last week, by the way), which is obviously still too early to say, BUT, I enjoyed Group B a lot more than I did A. Why? Read on to find out...

 

 

Crocodile

Crocodile is someone who is happiest in water, which could mean a swimmer (we do have an Olympic gold medalist this season), but I think that would be too obvious. He might just be someone who loves to surf or swim as a hobby, or it might be some convoluted pun or reference that I don't yet get. He also talked about growing up in Hollywood, surrounded by heartbreak and instability... possibly a child of divorce, or someone who had a parent die early, but this doesn't necessarily mean famous parents. Still, these were the most useful clues. Other things I spotted included an Italian flag in some weird "fish in pineapple" dish (probably a pun but again, I don't get it), a rainbow, and a hotel. And then he sang It's My Life from Bon Jovi, and HOW! My boyfriend caught me actually lip-syncing to this. He was really, really good, and while I don't think he's an actual rock singer, he brought the form needed very well. So after that I was a little bit disappointed when his answer to Nick's question (why are you here as the crocodile, or something like that, the usual) couldn't have been more formulaic: he had to have tough skin his whole life to survive, but he's really very sensitive on the inside, and the anonymity allows him to show his true self, bla bla... we heard it all before from dozens of previous contestants. Not sure I really believed any of them.

Baby Alien

I'm just going to come out and say what everybody is probably thinking: why? I know Alien was already taken back in season 1, but like... was this the only other option? You could have been literally anything else, and you chose to be Baby Alien? I mean, the costume IS pretty cute, I'll give you that, but... yeah, whatever. You do you, dude, whoever you are. Which I don't know, obviously. He is someone who used to be in the theatre every week, and he even boarded the Tony awards stage at least once, so that seems pretty straightforward. However, singing is a hidden talent of him (and he hid it very well - his version of George Michael's Faith was really damn nice), so probably not a musical actor. Also he's "old news" now, in his own words, so he had to turn to different things, like maybe karate (or was that a ninja turtle?). There was also a cracked bell (even I know that might be a reference to Philadelphia... thanks, HIMYM/IASIP), a big red sportscar, and lots of red roses. Hmm... that's two red things, come to think of it... maybe I'm on to something here.

 

Seahorse

This might be the fewest number of clues I've ever gotten from a package yet. There were many animals: poodles, a frog, a warthog, dolphins... and uhh that's it. She also talked about her insecurity and shyness, and how she now wants to show the dauntless diva within. Which, you know what, if it turns out that she's someone who's already known for being fierce and sexy on stage, I'm gonna be really mad. I'm usually not so cynical but there's only so much of all these celebrities whining about how super shy and awkward they are that I can take. In any case, Seahorse sang a really good Rihanna, and I'd be surprised if she wasn't an actual singer.

 Whatchamacallit

Jeez, I hope I spelt that right. I really like this costume, to be honest! Much nicer than Thingamajig's. Now, the voice uderneath... eh. He was rapping, and you know I'm not the best judge of that. He was good, I guess, and then the judges described him as "freaking amazing" and a "professional artist", so you know... maybe he is. Who am I to say. The important thing is what HE said, anyway, which was a lot, but I got very little out of it: he let others absord his spotlight for a long time (so a group member, maybe), but he also mentioned "dance with stars", which would obviously be too on the nose if it actually referred to the TV show... maybe he was just in lots of duets on stage. And then came potentially the most puzzling clue of all this season so far: a weird clock with a shrimp, a record player, a pair of pants, a triangle (the instrument), and Sarah Palin's bear costume... what does it all MEAN??!! Well, the last one could hint that he's also from Alaska, or maybe that he also has something to do with politics. The rest, I have no idea.

Serpent

Another really great performance tonight: a soulful rendition of I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). It was so good! So good. Serpent is also apparently something of a multi-talent: he might be a writer of self-help books, as evidenced by titles like How to dig yourself out of debt in his package, but he also, at one point, considered to go into medicine, before becoming a musician, and was really torn about his decision. To this day, he just wants to heal pain. He also might be named Someone Jr, because we did see a Serpent Sr in the package, but maybe that just means he has a famous father that we also should know. And what about that map of the Caribbean? Is he from around there, or does he have something to do with my favourite movie series ever? The only musician who has been in it that I can recall off the top of my head is Keith Richards, but this ain't him... I don't know. I'm gonna keep digging.

Gremlin

Now here was an abundance of potential clues, including a couple of things that were just nonsense to me, but might mean a lot to someone else, like Ref# 6219, and a drink/poison labelled 41 Proof. Otherwise the picture he painted of himself was pretty endearing. He's a true romantic who adores all animals (although the image of him beating up a shark kinda goes against that), and loves to cook (chopping carrots was featured prominently). There was also a shot of him ironing which immediately reminded me of that "Ironing Man" meme... maybe he's in the MCU, or one of the Iron Man movies specifically. Then he started to sing and that kind of ruined this nice impression. He's clearly a really old guy who could barely get the notes out, although I did have the feeling that maybe he could sing, once upon a time, it's just that he's really, really old now. He also sang only a very short bit of the song, which further proves that. Of course, the judges can't just come out and say that this really sucked, so they said something about how it was good because of the "many different layers, the texture in it"... sure. That's one way to put it. So I tried to rack my brain to think of a really old singer, and I came up with Jerry Lee Lewis - which Robin instantly agreed on. Thanks, Robin!

And THEN, before we could head into voting, Gremlin started talking about how he wants to take his mask off, which I'll be honest I was pretty worried about, because he genuinely sounded like he was about to collapse. Then of course the editors turned it into this dramatic "will he, won't he" montage, and now I'm not sure if he was really feeling sick or just trying to be subversive, and if so if it was all him or planned in advance... well, in any case, it was Mickey Rourke. 

What do you know, I got one whole clue right: the ironing board WAS a reference to Iron Man 2! I couldn't really be hyped about it though because I was just so utterly perplexed by this whole thing... first of all, I quickly looked up his age, because I knew he can't be THAT old... turns out he's only 68, and I took him for 85 year old JLL, who, in hindsight, I'm sure is still a much better singer than this. I didn't really care for the rest of his clues but for the record, his pen name is Eddie "Cook", and the shark thing was a reference to his boxing career and the movie Rumble Fish. I'll be honest, I don't know too much about him other than the fact that he used to be a pretty big time Hollywood star before he got super into boxing and had to have a million plastic surgeries to repair his face... oh and that he was in the movies Francesco and The Wrestler, which we both watched with my class in high school (the first because it was a Franciscan school and we watched a lot of religious movies, and the second because our class-master was a self-described film connoisseur, so we watched a lot of serious, artsy movies as well), and I remember that the whole class was like "what???" when we found out it was the same guy. So yeah. Obviously he's one of the bigger names yet on The Masked Singer and everyone from host to judges tried to play this little shtick off as well as they could and hype him up as a "legendary icon" and how amazing it is that he's there, but honestly the whole thing was just sad. Nick even had to help him sing his unmasked bit, after which he quickly left the stage, didn't stay one second more than he needed to.

Now me being me, I was still a bit worried if he was really sick, maybe not just at the moment but for real, with a more serious illness, but I looked at his IMDb and apparently he has four movies in pre- and four in post-production, so he can't be THAT sick... hopefully. But that should mean that he simply just took his mask off for kicks, in which case I'm really not sure why he even agreed to do this show. He must have been well aware of his own singing (in)capabilities long beforehand, and wouldn't he have known the first time he tried to practice in costume that his body is simply not fit enough for this? I'm just stumped, honestly. But hey, at least the most deserving constestant went home tonight. I figured it would be him or Watchamacallit.

And now we await next week, and Group C...