niklj

I loved the second mentoring session VTs. Scott Borchetta is 100000x a better mentor than Jimmy Iovine ever was on this show--he actually listens to these kids, seems to care about them, understands what makes each of them special, and just seems like a good all-around guy. And all of their stories were very sweet.

I thought this was another great episode where I either smiled or chuckled throughout almost every single sketch and filmed shorts. WU is on another streak of some pretty good jokes and I feel like Colin has gotten more comfortable up there.

Listening to some of the iTunes recording, Jax really does have a beautiful recording voice as does Clark. I agree with J.Lo (say whaaat?) when she said she liked that Jax didn't put that weird affect to her voice and instead we got to hear a purer vocal from her.

Clark had his Idol moment tonight. Daniel got booted. Kelly was adorable, funny, and fantastic. Too bad that couldn't have been the entire episode.

Haha, good catch! I didn't even notice that. I caught myself telling someone "It's not real, don't feel" recently. Kinda legitimate advice!

That was such a sweet episode. I loved the reunion between Adam and his dad, especially when his little voice broke :') I find this show does a good job with balancing multiple plots--every character was utilized to their fullest potential. I love how enthused Barry was with the bedazzling.

BOOOOO I am still so sad that Anthony got all the weakest people on his team during the initial picks. That all his hope was riding on Ben...sheesh, that's tough. Nothing Ben's done has ever really impressed me, so all I'll say is Dina was one of Anthony's protegees and she won last season, so Anthony can drop his mic right now. The diamond makeup was good. The bunny makeup looked kind of creepy, why put so much attention on how the character would feel like? Emily needs some sleep. Next week looks awesome, though.

I hope they give Bridgit Mendler a bigger part because she is an absolute gem with great comic timing. So far her character seems pretty limited, so I'm really hoping they don't just dumb down her character as the "ditzy waitress" because she really deserves more than that.

Some pretty mature performances from Sarina-Joi and Adanna, I'm impressed. These were all either middling to good performances, which is a step up from last season. I hope they come back to L.A. now, it's really not the same with that tiny little crowd in that theater.

Sarina-Joi was in a class of her own. Everyone else was off-key, but it didn't look like anyone had in-ear monitors so maybe that's why. Yeah...that's why..... Jax reminds me of Siobhan--good singers but they kind of take themselves very seriously.

They uploaded the full-length HOB performances on YouTube/VEVO: https://www.youtube.com/user/VEVO/videos Sarina Joi was amazing tonight. However, some of the drama was pretty boring (bland WGWG 1 vs bland WGWG 2, who cares?) LET'S GET TO THE LIVE ROUNDS, ALREADY!

Nick Fradiani/Poor Man's Adam Levine was really good--he already seemed like a past winner that came back to perform for the "kids" this season. But he seems like he's a better band frontman.

There was also Garrett's Girls. I don't take too much stock in the team names (KYCOL?!!!! Ugh, gross, barf.) Will miss Sal, he seems like a good guy and his voice is like BUTTAH--he probably would've made it farther in the earlier seasons (think John Stevens-era. Yes. John Stevens.) Sarina Joi was one of the few people I remembered from the auditions and she KILLED it. No one else really stood out. There was also that Erika (?) girl in the same group that was also very good. Had no idea what was up with that Helenale or whatever her name was, the girl that wanted to quit her group for no reason and then came back. What? What was that all about?

Poor Leeza is stuck with a pretty lame team. Johnny and Brandi can't bring any money and Kevin doesn't seem to want to. Geraldo "Hey, it's the lady from the front desk!" Rivera at least gets that part right, getting his team to get the big bucks which is how Piers won his season. We know Ian's got the big pockets, so at least he's got that going for him. Let's hope she scores in the event planning (still confused, though, why she refuses to lay down the law with dead weight Johnny and Brandi). Just happy that it wasn't Kenya who came back.

I LOVE group week, I find it hilarious and it gives me a chance to know the contestants' personalities. Where else could we have gotten fabulous quotes like "nuts of wonder"? Really want to see that group who we heard one harmony from after the commercials came back at the 40 minute mark. It was so short but they sounded so good. Team Dimples FTW.

The Wizards are really showing why they are wizards so far this season, which is great. The competition was really close and so far, no one's been repeating the same trick over and over. I'm not really enjoying these fake-out magic tutorials, though.

Said it before and I'll say it again, I miss the spotlight challenges, dammit! Where are the realistic makeup challenges? Where are the beauty makeups? Where are the things THAT WILL ACTUALLY APPEAR IN MOVIES?

As of now, I believe that Emily's talent is on par with Alana's and she totally would've been a regular competitor on any of the other seasons if they hadn't already run out of talent. Poor Anthony, his team is full of suckage.

I can't exactly place my finger on it, but for some reason, Ian's firing was actually more satisfying for me than Kenya's. Maybe it's because Kenya was a sure-thing. Or maybe it's because Ian's douche-a-meter rating went way up, a seemingly impossible feat. Let us count the ways: "So you just want me to sit here doing nothing? Lead, follow, or move the f* out of the way" and many other charming remarks to Brandi. Telling Johnny passive-aggressively to move because he couldn't concentrate on his masterpiece. Correcting Brandi that of COURSE he's a singer in addition to being a director/writer/editor/cinematographer/photographer/marketing genius. Confusing even DONALD TRUMP by saying his jingle would've won and then back-tracking, saying he didn't say it was any good. And it wasn't even entertaining like Geraldo's delusions of grandeur are, just creepy. I will give him props for getting the helicopter (though when Johnny said that Leeza was still their star player for their task, I was LOLing).

It was Michael Orland, one of the music coaches and the guy who's been playing piano during some of the auditions.

GREAT FIRST EPISODE. So happy that Billy is one of the Wizards now, her and Shimshi had a great chemistry. Great addition. I don't know how they did that teleportation hand trick!! The competitors were also very good, although I was sad that they didn't do as well the second round (needed more Sean, it became all about the Greg). But I don't think there's ever been a standing ovation on this show before. Too bad they didn't change anything about the format but oh well. I like the new Teach-A-Trick segment, though.

That girl during the Hollywood or Home/You Be the Judge commercial break segment sounded pretty good and 76% of audience voters thought she was going to Hollywood, so it was weird that she was given the boot and no reason given other than a "no." Can't wait for Hollywood Week!!

The only thing I gotta say about this episode is thank goodness they showed us the Top 24 before these auditions started. Because this episode was like scraping the bottom of the barrel.

One of THE moments of the night. The other was Geraldo going on and on about Ellis Island and how immigrants came, with their meager belongings, poor and haggard, wishing for a better life....while people ate crab legs and sipped champagne. Whooooo! Third favorite moment was Geraldo doing cringey interviews with the Hooters waitresses. You can see why he gets paid the big bucks. Fourth favorite moment was Geraldo saying that he and Sig were kindred spirits because they were both seafarers. What?! Fifth moment was Geraldo and his Blue Monster drink. "It's my job to lubricate things every way I can!" WHAT?! OK at this point I don't care that Trump is protecting Geraldo since we all know this show is fixed anyway. Geraldo is my new Gary Busey. He's the gift that just keeps on giving. He won twice as PM (fundraising tasks). EDIT: NVM, he won the first one as PM but lost the second one to Ian.

Are you sure he was faking, though? He was playing the banjo during Blake Shelton's performances. Why was there no J.Lo in the Family Feud skit? Why did they use Nicki Minaj when she's not even on the show anymore? I could see her not being game to have an impression being done of her (Vanessa could've played her maybe). The amount of Sasheer in this episode further cemented that she is quite limited. Whether she's doing standup at the WU desk or doing an "impression" (which, to be fair, are probably as good as any of Kenan's impressions), her delivery always comes off quite flat and uninspiring. Blake was a good host, though. He had pretty good comic timing, especially during the magic skit.