‘The Voice’ Season 26 Episode 16 recap: Simone Biles and Lainey Wilson advise the teams for Snoop and Reba in ‘The Playoffs Part 2’
Tonight on “The Voice,” the Playoffs continued with performances from Team Reba McEntire and Team Snoop Dogg. In this round of the competition, each coach must narrow down their team of five to only two artists with the help of a “playoff advisor.” Helping out Snoop and his team is Olympian Simone Biles and assisting Reba with her team is country artist Lainey Wilson. Rapper MGK advised Gwen Stefani in “The Playoffs Premiere” on Nov. 19. Performances from Team Michael Buble will be showcased in the Nov. 26 episode.
In Team Reba rehearsals, Lainey felt honored to be able to hone the skills of other artists in the same way that she feels she was taught by her own mentors like Reba. She thought Adam Bohanan “had a lot of soul” and told him he can “get sexy on ’em” earlier in the song because it took too long for her to get roped in to his performance. Lainey sees Edward Preble as an “endearing” personality because he is authentic to who he is and noted his charisma when performing. Lainey appreciated that Katie O made her song her own and said that you can tell she “genuinely loves country music” in the way she performs.
More from GoldDerby
After one pass through the song in rehearsal, Lainey got up to give Lauren-Michael Sellers a hug because she was so taken aback by the performance. She told Lauren-Michael it’s okay to smile at a specific point in order to match the lyric and bring the story of the song around. Lainey agreed with Reba on Danny Joseph‘s rehearsal that he can “give it a little dimension” by holding back some of the bigger moments until the end. She also sees him as having potential to go all the way to the end.
Based on the performances — Adam with “Think I’m in Love with You” by Chris Stapleton, Edward with “All of Me” by Frank Sinatra, Katie with “Hang Tight Honey” by Lainey, Lauren-Michael with “I Am Not Okay” by Jelly Roll, and Danny with “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye — Reba told her team that “every step you took was upward” and they all made her proud. She chose Adam and Danny as the two artists to take to the live shows. She sees Adam as a singer with “great range” and wanted to keep her “dirty soul singer” around because of his consistency on stage. With Danny, Reba says he’s “not like anything else on this show” and predicts that the audience will like him as much as she does.
For his team, Snoop thought that bringing in “someone unexpected” and Simone’s knowledge about preparation and how to deal with pressure would be beneficial for artists trying to take that next big step in their career. In rehearsal with Simone, Christina Eagle was touched by the chance to ask her about how to overcome their shared experience of being raised by grandparents. Both Snoop and Simone told Christina that confessing her truth is a huge step in conquering what could otherwise be a paralyzing fear. Simone counseled Aliyah Khaylyn to not be afraid to “bop” to the music because she could tell she wanted to, but held back, and reminded her of the strength of “owning that power” as a Black woman.
Austyns Stancil was excited to work with Simone because it was an opportunity to show his own daughters the possibilities of what young women can become with hard work. Simone thought that he “stayed true to who he was” in his performance and Snoop urged him to stay in his falsetto rather than slip out of it like he did in rehearsal. Simone could tell that Mikaela Ayira was “holding back” in rehearsal and said that she absolutely must “let it go” and taught her some visualization practices to do before going on stage. Simone thought that Jeremy Beloate was “a little bit quiet” at the beginning of his rehearsal and so she told him it’s important to make a stronger impression right from the start.
Based on the performances — Christina with “Fancy” by Reba, Aliyah with “I Have Nothing” by Whitney Houston, Austyns with “Adore” by Prince, Mikaela with “Love” by Keyshia Cole, and Jeremy with “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” by Josh Groban — Snoop said “they all did an exceptional job” and can’t wait to see them all put out records. He chose Jeremy and Christina as the two artists to perform for his team on the live shows. Snoop thinks Jeremy is a “natural-born live performer” and “knows how to control his voice and movements on stage.” He picked Christina because he sees her as the one with “the most room to grow” and thinks she’ll be good on the live shows because she sings “good old-fashioned country music.”
The updated teams:
TEAM SNOOP – Christina Eagle, Jeremy Beloate
TEAM REBA – Adam Bohanan, Danny Joseph
TEAM GWEN – Jan Dan, Sydney Sterlace
TEAM BUBLE – Cameron Wright, Jaukeem Fortson, Shye, Sloane Simon, Sofronio Vasquez
The four-time Emmy Award-winning musical competition series “The Voice” is in its 26th season featuring five stages of competition: Blind Auditions, Battle Rounds, Knockouts, Playoffs and Live Performance Shows. In the coaches’ chairs, Reba is the defending champion after winning season 25 with Asher HaVon, the show’s first openly LGBTQ champ. She is joined by Gwen, in her 8th season, and Snoop and Michael, both competing for the first time.
Best of GoldDerby
Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
