The Voice Recap: Sweet Caroline

I found this episode of our favorite show to be a bittersweet one. Sure, the Starbucks Chorus appeared, but poor Caroline was eliminated. Now Cee Lo will have no more contestants on This Is the Voice, and for that I am sad. He was such a good coach! He took people to gelato bars!

Ellie Goulding, James, Matthew, and Will, “Burn”
Ellie Goulding is sort of like the British version of Caroline, don’t you think? She has a drawly, folksy voice with very good pitch. See, Caroline? You will have success somewhere and sometime. This song was extremely forgettable even though it is a hit in England. I could not hum it with a gun to my head.

After this, Will was saved. No surprise here — Will’s “At Last” was super popular on the iTunes charts. The Sexist Man Alive’s Failure Plan did not even work! On the commercial break, Carson Daly took the opportunity to design a special Voice-themed Kia. I think it had lights that mimicked the blind audition experience? I don’t even know. What if Carson Daly designed your car? Would you burn it?

Next, Ellie Goulding showed up in the Sprint Skybox to talk about her tour and Carson used the opportunity to talk about how America wanted to spend Thanksgiving with Blake Shelton and Adam Levine more than they wanted to spend it with the Obamas.

Everyone, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”
I like it when it becomes very clear that The Voice is sick of spending money on expensive musical rights and just wants to spend no money on boring songs that were originally Christian hymns. And who were those random moms in the background, you ask? Oh my dear, they were the famous “Starbucks Chorus.” Oh! That famous chorus!!! Now I remember.

And with that, Cole Vosbury was safe.

Cee Lo featuring Goodie Mob, “Amy”
Cee Lo really has the best voice, doesn’t he? But I found this performance strange. It seemed odd for Cee Lo to perform dressed up in a jail uniform in light of the recent accusations against him. It put a bad taste in my mouth, like he was making a mockery of the victims. The thing I unreservedly loved was when Big Gipp, of Goodie Mob fame, kept painting the name “Amy” over and over in the corner. It was a brilliant touch.

And now time for our favorite of all reoccurring gambits: the confessionals. In this one, everyone imitated each other in a horrible way. Christina, who with sobriety became intensely serious, did her part by wearing Cole Vosbury’s beard. I mean, it was really so execrable, even for a Voice confessional. The only thing I realized was that Tessanne’s Boston accent is not the worst. It is way better than Kevin Costner’s, for example.

Then, Jacqui was saved. Everything was coming up roses, this time for me!

Everyone, “Apologize/All the Right Moves”
This was straight-up terrible. Some songs are not meant to be sung en masse, especially ones that don’t really have defined harmonies, like all songs by OneRepublic. Side note: I really don’t understand the sycophantic love This Is the Voice has for OneRepublic. Ryan was a mentor and they always sing his songs all the day long. OneRepublic is probably a sponsor of the show, like Kia Motor cars. Pretty soon, Carson Daly will design a Voice-themed OneRepublic who will sing songs about a magical Starbucks Chorus of Moms inside each and every one of us. And yes, I will buy that song on iTunes.

And finally, Tessanne and James were saved, leaving only Ray, Mathew, and Caroline. Although Matthew is one of my favorites, I was not totally surprised he was in the bottom this week. That song he sang on Monday was straight-up terrible and he had all kinds of problems on it. If I was going to judge this on performance alone (and I am not, because no one ever really does on this show or James would be gone), I think Matthew deserved to go home this week instead of Caroline.

In a not very surprising move, however, the mysterious gaggle of Internet minions controlling everything saved Matthew and allowed Caroline and the continually ignored Ray to get sacrificed instead. I can’t believe Ray lasted that long. I kept forgetting about him and then predicting he would be eliminated soon. Good-bye, Ray and good-bye, Caroline!

And that, my young friends, is our show. Unfortunately, there are no more easy targets and I am worried about who will go home next week! Will the Starbucks Chorus win it all?