The NBC brass really hyped the arrival of new The Voice coach Ariana Grande this fall, no doubt hoping that a young, current pop star like her could freshen up the franchise in its tired 21st season. But when the five contestants moving on to next week’s finale were revealed Tuesday, there was no Team Ariana representation in the mix. That means that next Monday and Tuesday, Ariana will sit out her first finale, after her one contestant still in the competition, father/son folk duo Jim & Sasha Allen, failed to get the votes this week.
The Voice stopped adhering to team quotas way back in Season 3, but when the show’s last three seasons were shortened due to COVID, those quotas were reinstated. Now, with the rules back to normal — meaning that none of coaches were guaranteed a contestant spot in the season’s finale — of course The Voice was back to looking like The Blake & Kelly Show. The first four finalists announced by Carson Daly on Tuesday’s live results episode all represented the current panel’s longest-running and most popular coaches: Blake Shelton’s soul powerhouses Wendy Moten and Paris Winningham, and Kelly Clarkson’s family folk band Girl Named Tom (the first trio to ever make it to a Voice finale) and teen pop prodigy Hailey Mia. I then assumed that Team Blake’s Lana Scott, the only country singer still in the competition, would easily win the Instant Save — and that would mean that John Legend would be sitting on the sidelines right next to Ariana next week.
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