The Masked Dancer recap: Cricket jumps out, revealed as Grammy-nominated singer
Michael Becker/ FOX
Warning: This article contains spoilers about The Masked Dancer season 1, episode 4.
Four episodes in, and The Masked Dancer has found its stride! While some fans are still unconvinced it has the same eccentric magic as its sister show The Masked Singer (can anything, really?), the Group A playoffs this week might change your mind, or at least make you laugh a bit.
Part of what made the episode work was Paula Abdul getting to shine, plus guest Rob Lowe bounced well off panelists Ken Jeong, Ashley Tisdale, and Brian Austin Green.
It was a comedy power hour tonight, which almost made us forget at times that, oh yeah, it's a dance show!
Cricket went first with Montell Jordan's "This Is How We Do It," before Hammerhead moonwalked and wormed to the Weeknd's "Blinding Lights."
The shredded shark's segment was probably the funniest of the night, thanks to Hammerhead's entertaining persona, but the panelists also seemed to have a blast riffing with one another (and for Green, by blast, we mean bopping like a dad who's chaperoning his daughter's middle school dance and wants to get funky but has been strictly instructed to not embarrass Callie in front of her new friends.)
Abdul also showed off her rock solid lines of questioning.
"You look depressed; did you get married recently?" she asked Hammerhead. After sussing out that he might be Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino from Jersey Shore, Abdul surmised, "You were depressed because you were in jail."
Lowe was quick with his own quip: "As I'm thinking 'depressed, marriage,' I think it could be Emilio Estevez."
The actual performance highlight of the night was Tulip, who stood out in week 1, with another beautiful ballet routine. All the panelists agreed that she was either a trained dancer or a gymnast.
Ultimately, host Craig Robinson announced that Cricket was eliminated.
The contestant was revealed to be ... Grammy Award-nominated artist Brian McKnight!
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Abdul was the only panelist to guess the singer, picking up on the image of a knight in Cricket's clue package. The clocks set at 1 o'clock during Cricket's performance, plus the "back at one" line in the package, also led Abdul to Knight's song of the same name.
This means that Tulip, Exotic Bird, and Hammerhead are headed to the Super Six with Sloth, Zebra, and Cotton Candy.
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