Dots And Stripes

I’m not convinced that Blake’s dominance is permanent or baked into the rule changes. Kelly was looking very strong last season. She kept her top 3 the longest and won both of her first two seasons. It looked like she might be the most popular judge.This season, her team fell apart really quickly. Even if Team Blake hadn’t taken up so much space she would have been lucky to get Rod in the finale past Shawn. Blake has a great track record, but he has been shut out of the finale in the past. A lot still depends on where the talent chooses to go.

Three guys from Team Adam against Craig Wayne Boyd from Team Blake and CWB won.

The show was live. It's up to TPTB/Carson who gets to talk after the performances. I wanted to like Shawn tonight. He was great last week. I feel like Bruno Mars songs have been the downfall of many artists on this show. I don't think it was a great strategic choice and to me it wasn't his best vocal.

Not quite. Rod and Shawn beat out 2 members of Team Blake. If not for Maelynn, likely someone else from Teams Kelly or John would have gotten through.

Sue's return was the highlight, although it's clear Selena didn't someone that good at their job. Richard having the happiest ending is an optimistic thought. The nice guy got to win in the end. I liked that they waited to make him President rather than having him fail all the way to the top so quickly. Amy jumping to Jonah's campaign still makes no sense, even more so now that we know she didn't go completely insane. She knows Jonah should not be President. What was she doing? I feel like Amy and Kent both retained some sense of right and wrong. Too bad we didn't get more hints of that this season. I was also disappointed that Selena's reliance on Ben seemed to re-write her history with Amy. I've been re-watching early seasons and Amy was a better staffer than Selena would ever give her credit for, particularly in early seasons. So basically, the writers did not do Amy justice this season. I know having her funeral interrupted is supposed to be the ultimate insult for Selena. I don't think it was enough of an insult for all of her dirty deals this season.

I was ridiculously pleased that they revisited who really won the last heist. I had given too much thought to that myself. I would say Holt and Cheddar were my favorites tonight. I thought Amy was going to reveal she really was pregnant and I'm glad she wasn't. I have to say, as much as I shipped Jake and Amy, it's becoming pretty clear they should not be married to each other. The tasers as gifts thing was bad. I think the show has gone to cheap jokes about their relationship so much that it has taken over their dynamic.

Adam learned something! And now that his team got eliminated he may very well unlearn that lesson. I really like the bond between Kim and Blake. As much as his army of country boys is over shadowing a lot right now, I think Blake really shines when he connects with artists who aren't necessarily in his wheelhouse. That said, Carter maybe my dark horse right now. He looked happy when Carson said his name, but then he looked shocked a few seconds later. It seemed like he was just happy for whoever got through and then realized it was him. Maelyn is still my overall favorite. I'm glad she sailed through.

I have no idea his age, but the path to the nomination would be through a brokered convention. I suppose it’s possible that his rapid assent was to give him a vote as a delegate. Maybe it’s a brokered convention and his vote is needed. I do think there is a reason the writers have given him so much good fortune and power so suddenly.

Per Wikipedia, this is season is only slightly shortened. Most seasons have had 10 episodes. Season 1 had 8 episodes. This season has 7. I don’t think they crammed so much plot in this week because they ran out of episodes. I think a lot of shows rush toward the end of the run because they want to telegraph the end half way through the season. I feel like it’s typical to have the last episode or 2 feel rushed.

My two favorite moments tonight were Amy and Dan reuniting and the preview of Selena and Amy reuniting. I've been re-watching early seasons and I miss the dynamic of the group. Catherine choosing to get married in Europe after Selena's suggestion is the most like Selena she's ever been. Selena was mostly awful again tonight, although it is interesting she started to have some sort of a conscience. Feeling bad for doing bad things does not redeem her, but it is at least a step towards making her human again. So we end the episode with Selena's campaign on the downward swing, Richard is on his way up, and Jonah appears to still be building a fringe following. So who becomes the new Veep? I feel like it's got to be Selena. She's been awful and making her Veep again would be the most fitting punishment. Plus, we can't have another series end with her in jail.

I actually like Gina, but she's better in small doses. A lot of things about tonight's episode were too cartoony. Gina's stabbing comes to mind. Also Rosa's situation with her hands. It felt like the writers were running out of ideas. Nikolaj and Charles' Susan Boyle joke were the highlights for me. Maybe I would throw Jake's flight attendant talk in their too.

So to recap: Team Blake - 6 Team John* - 3 Team Kelly - 2 Team Adam - 2** *I'm refusing to go along with Team Legend. **Including the comeback artist. As much as I like Blake, I actually don't think it would have been smart to jump on the band wagon. Blake is not going to spend an infinite amount of time with his team. I think LB was better off picking any other coach who could devote some time and attention to him. The ap makes voting for a team easy, but I don't think Blake fans will be able to carry that many artists with streaming. Based on the team sizes, I think Kelly was definitely an option. She could have been a smart choice too. She has a small team and she's proven to be very good at coaching on this show. Picking Adam at least has the virtue of showing loyalty. I did enjoy that LB milked to moment and made it sound like he was doing Adam a favor. Nice way to take Adam down a yet another peg. I'm actually really surprised Kelly lost so much of her team. I didn't like Jej's performance, but he came in with a lot of hype. It's funny that after Kelly spent the blinds complaining she gets no men on her team, she ends up with an all male team going into the top 13.

Top 8 advance regardless of team. Each coach picks 1 artist. There maybe a slight advantage in being on Team Adam because they all have a 1 in 4 chance of getting picked by their coach now. Clearly though being Team Adam is not a boost with the public votes. I think we actually have a top 13 again with the returning artist from Bebe's team. I wonder if like last year the artist will get to pick his or her coach or if they will be assigned based on numbers. Carson tweeted they were talking about going to a Raider's game.

Blake - 8 Kelly - 6 John - 6 Adam - 4 Each coach started with 8. Blake lost 1 artist, but it evens out with the steal.

Blake has twice as many artists moving on to the next round as Adam. I find that hilarious!

Except she’s been fairly loyal to Selena over a long span of time. She also jumped to a campaign that was irrelevant for a candidate she despises. It wasn’t until 3/4 of the way through tonight’s episode (after trying and failing to make a deal to drop out and endorse someone else) that Amy saw some promise in Jonah’s campaign. Tonight reinforced my feeling that Amy’s choice was wholly contrived. They wanted her to jump campaigns, so they had her jump campaigns. They didn’t bother to set it up in a way that made sense. Last week I wondered if I missed a scene where Amy was fired. I still wouldn’t be surprised if a firing scene was cut. Speaking of firings, last week Dan sounded like he was following Amy only to see him with the Meyers campaign most of this week. I will kind of give the show credit for that Chinese infiltration storyline the week of the Mueller report. Andy Daly just so happening to have extensive ties to the Chinese and finding his way into the campaign is very Paul Manafort. Selena making public overatures to the Chinese felt timely again after the report. I agree Amy has gone full Kellyanne. It was a nice dig at CNN to have the anchor (rightfully) criticize Jonah as frightening then immediately promote the live airing of Jonah’s rally the next day.

Amy has put up with too much abuse from Selena to jump ship without explanation. I thought I had missed a scene where she was fired. No way one phone call from a staff member from a bottom tier candidate she hates would make her run away that quickly. I found Jonah funnier when he had more dimensions. He was always obnoxious but it wasn’t his only mode and we would sometimes see glimpses of a lonely guy under eight the bravado. Jonah being the worst 24/7 is tiring.

This. Some artists always lose out because the saves/steals are gone when they perform or because the coach is saving it with someone else in mind. It’s part of the system when coaches have to save in the moment. I think the fact that this round is moving so fast is also giving people a different perception about how the saves/steals are being used. Across all four judges, there were 8 saves/steals this round. Half of the artists have performed and 5 saves/steals have been used and 3 remain. I don’t think it’s that bad. We can blame Adam for messing up the ratio. Also, there just aren’t that many cuts this round. I each coach started with 8 artists for a total of 32 still competing. Of the 16 who lose their battle, 8 will be saved or stolen, sending 24 to the next round. Only 8 artists are eliminated. It’s not that harsh, IMO. I am curious what would happen if say the last artist to lose a battle is on Team Kelly and Kelly ties to save and Blake tries to steal. Would whoever loses get to pick an eliminated artist? My hunch is producers meddle to much for that to happen.

I don't know what to make of this cross-battle thing. I think it felt too haphazard. I also don't trust this show enough to believe it was all decided on the spot. A few of the artists looked genuinely terrified, so maybe it was more real than I'm giving it credit for. John really does not mind picking a winner. It's not what I'm used to. Also, why is it Team Legend when everyone else goes by their first name? I barely know who anyone is at this stage. Maelyn stood out in a good way. I liked her voice a lot. Celia stood out in a bad way. Adam seemed to get that by telling people not to focus on one performance. I dislike her tone, so I haven't liked any of her other performances any better. I don't get the hype.

I saw it differently. I didn't think Jake being open to maybe someday was a real compromise. He was still a no, just with a possibility of changing. Amy was right that if she waits for years and he never gets to the point of being ready, he will have made the decision for her. I don't think that it was wrong for Jake to not want kids or for Amy to want them, but if they were decidedly on opposite sides of this issue then maybe they shouldn't be married. Knowing some of Goor and Schur's other work, I didn't think this show was actually going to have Jake and Amy split over this.

I was happy to see a Jake and Amy episode because I feel like we haven't seen much of them together this year. Unfortunately I couldn't get past Amy not discussing kids with Jake before getting married, especially since it means so much to her. That was so out of character.

My favorite part was Kelly telling Blake it was Gwen's song like he might not know. Like once wasn't enough, she had to make sure he knew.

Good point! I guess one huge difference is Chidi can't lie and Eleanor is a world class liar. But yeah, he's kind of setting her up for some torture. I'm a little surprised they didn't spell out some of the danger here: Chidi will genuinely like Simone. He won't know that he had chosen Eleanor and in fact a big reason why he left Simone was that he knew more than she did about the afterlife. With them back at the same level of knowledge, they may connect. The show went heavy handed on the Eleanor and Chidi love story that they ended up underplaying how much of a threat Simone is to Eleanor.

It's the season finale. NBC already picked up the show for season 4.

I loved Janet telling Eleanor she was 1 of those 3 things (robot, girl, friend). She's a friend! Awww! I've missed the neighborhood so much, and the Eleanor/Chidi goodbye was sweet. I'm just over the endless reboots.