The Voice’s Tuesday results show determined which five (yes, five) contestants moved on to next week’s not-so-grand finale — which, like all live variety-format television shows right now, will take place remotely (or more specifically, on Microsoft Teams). You see, with this derailed, curtailed, pandemic-era season now rushing to wrap up, producers decided to reinstate the team quotas that haven’t been in place since Season 2’s finale, with the top vote-getter from each team automatically advancing.
This old/new policy ensured that all four of the coaches would be represented in next week’s finale (a fifth wild-card contestant advanced via Tuesday’s Instant Save sing-off, which I’ll get to in a moment). But unfortunately, it didn’t necessarily ensure that the four overall best singers would make the grade.
It also didn’t ensure that many female singers would make the grade. As it turned out, America voted through exclusively men — Team Nick’s Thunderstorm Artis, Team Legend’s Cammwess, Team Kelly’s Micah Iverson, and Team Blake’s Todd Tilghman — leaving five women to vie for that one remaining spot.
Anyway, for the (obviously pre-taped) Instant Save performances — all grimly shot, prison-lineup-style, against putty-colored walls with seemingly nothing but a single bare interrogation-room light bulb for ambience — Megan kicked things off with “Simple Man.” It was an effective showcase for her gravelly, bluesy voice, but there was a sense of defeat to her stoic performance; perhaps if she’d been in the moment, on a real stage, and in front of an audience, she would have dug in more and brought more fire. Zan’s “Always Remember Us This Way” was also on-brand for her (she’s basically the Ally Maine of this season) and sung beautifully — but this “closing statement,” as her coach awkwardly put it, felt like she was already saying goodbye and had already given up. As for Joanna’s “Unaware,” Allen Stone songs have been done to death on TV talent shows and make little impact at this point. Perhaps Joanna was (wait for it) unaware of that.
