The Masked Singer recap: Astronaut blasts off to reveal country crooner
Warning: This article contains spoilers about The Masked Singer season 3, episode 14.
The hyped-up Battle of the Sixes took place tonight on The Masked Singer and IT. WAS. ... fine? Everyone sang well, and guest panelist and "idiot sandwich" maker Gordon Ramsay roasted zero people (he was actually quite lovely). Sorry to disappoint. Maybe the Face-off of the Fives, or whatever they'll call the next episode, will be more dramatic.
Still, somebody had to go home last night, and Astronaut was sent flying. He competed against the other remaining contestants: Kitty, Rhino, Frog, Night Angel, and Turtle. As always, Robin Thicke, Nicole Scherzinger, Jenny McCarthy, and Ken Jeong presided over the show, and Nick Cannon hosted, looking like he was going to rush over to a magician competition after taping.
We're not going to talk about the masked therapy bit in the beginning with Drew Pinsky a.k.a. the Eagle from season 2, because it involved talk of "hand warts" and that is not the Lord's work.
To go along with the famed chef's appearance, the special component of Wednesday's edition required each contestant to bring "masked munchies" on stage as their bonus clue. Find out what all they all picked in EW's clues post.
Kitty went first, putting her own twist on Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." Her dish resembled an opera cake, according to Ramsay, leading him to guess the singer was classical singer Charlotte Church. His logic actually made sense, which is a compliment that many of The Masked Singer panelists rarely hear.
Then, Rhino gave his best performance yet, with a cover of Thomas Rhett's "Die a Happy Man." The gentle giant had been on the verge of getting eliminated, and his effort this time around likely saved him.
Next up was Frog, who challenged himself to go outside of hip-hop by covering Imagine Dragons' "Whatever It Takes."
Night Angel's rendition of Alannah Myles' "Black Velvet" blew the panelists away, with McCarthy calling it the best performance in Masked Singer history. It seems like she says that every other episode, but the purple performer did do a great job.
Afterward, Astronaut sang One Direction's "Story of My Life," and finally, Turtle did his version of Alessia Cara's "Stay."
The audiences and panelists then voted for their favorite of the six performances, and unfortunately, Astronaut didn't make the cut.
He was then revealed to be ... country crooner Hunter Hayes! EW was sure it was him right off the bat, given that he matched the spaceman's vocal quality and height. Then, add in Astronaut's clues about starting his career at a young age, a Guinness World Record, and his comment about getting "a little help from someone from an organized crime family," and we have a winner. The fact that The Godfather star Robert Duvall gifted Hayes his first guitar sealed the deal that the singer was Astronaut.
The only panelist to correctly guess Hayes' identity was Scherzinger, although Thicke and Ramsay's reasoning for Home Improvement star Jonathan Taylor Thomas wasn't too bad. See you next week for more Masked Singer, as the five contestants keep battling it out for a spot in the finals.
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