Morgan of Hed

I don't have a problem understanding anybody. Maybe I have a better audio feed. I like Tulip, but they need to give her something better to do than plead with Jesse.

There's a bunch of them that appear on the sidelines every show. I can't imagine they are doing it on their own nickel. NBC is trying to build branded athletes here, I expect they are paying them something. They refer to them as "pros".

Loved Michaela! She has great energy, hope we see her again.

I was surprised she made it that far. She's stronger than she looks.

They only put 27 through, all finishers.

Interesting, sofiah. I have a niece who was pretty good (spent a summer with Royal Winnipeg), and her school had a hard rule, 12 was it. I should ask her if RWB had different rules.

I hope this doesn't mean we will be subjected to Abby again this year.

Yup, never even heard of the comics and I'm in.

Loved the ballet girl but instantly hated her mom. Bullied tall girl's story was affecting but I wish they didn't trot these kids' problems out for ratings. And I hope we're not seeing too many crushed young souls: just show us the good ones, Nigel.

I'm wondering if they will be able to track down the surviving attacker before the cops get to him. If Paige hadn't been there, Elizabeth would have run him down and eliminated the witness. She was forced to leave a loose end lying around.

I thought it was bunches of fun. Love the lack of explanation and the general wackiness of it all. Had no trouble understanding Cassidy: he's a hoot. Hope they can keep up the momentum.

I'm ok with this top 4 although I would have preferred Shalyah to Alisan: if I'm going to get yelled at, may as well be the one who's young enough to have an excuse for it.

We already know he was in the army. I don't think they went into any details about the nature of his service. I expect his real character's background is a mite darker than his persona in episode 1 might suggest.

One would hope there are some real critiques happening behind the scenes.

I think in Emily's case I may be blinded by my love of the song and admiration for her being ballsy enough to pick something that 99% of viewers won't recognize. It's from 1950 and been covered by a lot of famous singers including Nina Simone, but she was pretty much doing the Jeff Buckley version note for note. He's not exactly the classic accurate singer, either.

I can't parse a critique out of what they are saying. The comments range from effusive praise to embarrassingly over the top fawning. I guess getting a mere "you were great" is the new code for "pitchy, Dawg".

Nice to hear a Buckley cover (of a cover) that's not Cohen. One of my favourites off of Grace, chokes me up when I hear it. She was getting pretty worked up singing it. Most everybody else is subscribing to the motto "if it's worth singing, it's worth oversinging".

I'm guessing Phillip just had the disguise handy in the apartment, and he needed some sort of disguise in case the FBI saw him leaving the building.

I'm curious what the actual rules are about underage performers. Here in Canada, or at least in my province, underage performers are perfectly fine. I know this because every St. Patrick's day, my daughter's Irish Dance school would go on a tour of several local pubs and perform. The girls ranged from grade school to college age. I wouldn't be so concerned as a dad about my daughter performing in a pub so much as the lyrical content of that song. I would be very uncomfortable with my 17 year old daughter singing that song. From the show's viewpoint, that's a lot of Cash in that song and not so much Maddie.

I reckon he's already figured it out and is just playing his cards close to his chest.

Per the recap: how exactly is Big Yellow Taxi a cult classic? It's one of Joni's biggest songs and enjoyed a revival a few years back when Counting Crows covered it.

I was kinda hoping for the Elektra of Elektra:Assassin but I guess it would have been less interesting to have her kill or mind control everyone in her path without breaking a sweat.

It was dreadful and unbelievable. The monologue at the start set the tone for me, and it didn't get better. I'm out. As an aside, how is a cop in plain clothes possibly a wet-behind-the-ears rookie? He would have had to be working his ass off to make that rank and get out of uniform.

Concert tours often have lip-synced performances, especially the ones that are big spectacles. Sometimes it's just partial though.

Ricky was awesome. If you enjoy him, check out Alison Krauss and Union Station sometime, another band full of ridiculously talented bluegrass musicians.