‘Masked Singer Australia’ S1E5 Recap: The Important Thing Is That Lindsay Is Having Fun

Five episodes in, I am deeply concerned about the well being of Masked Singer Australia‘s guessing panel. As if in a Lynchian horror, they’re slowly warping into a mundane hell — one where they mindlessly repeat guesses and one-liners as if they are without a past and have no hope for the future. There is only an ever receding present, dying as it is bor– wait, is that Dannii Minogue’s ex???

Masked Singer was filmed back-to-back in July/August, which helps explain why the panel seems to exist in its own concept of time. This show is enough of a fever dream as it is; to sit through six hours+ of filming every other day over three or so weeks would drive you mad. There is nothing to hold onto. It is a free fall.

We’re three weeks in, and according to Osher Günsberg, next week is the semi-finals. Assumedly that means we’ve still got at least five more episodes to go, and oh God, we’re not sure we can hold out. This week was decidedly less exciting than previous: as the clues roll in, we’re nearing 100 percent certainty of who is behind each mask, and the show’s way of mixing things up isn’t quite doing it.

With Luke McGregor joining the panel this week and essentially making the same jokes we do at home, it’s clear that it’s a hard gig; what can you even poke fun of in this show, other than its ‘wacky’ concept?

This week, we were helped out with some personal items being brought in from home by each contestant. Mostly they were medals, but Wolf bought a lawnmower so he thoughtfully can run me over and drink my blood from my hacked corpse.

There was also a group rendition of Taylor Swift’s worst song, ‘ME!’, further proof this show is a long-con into making me ‘do the robot’, which here means, ‘slowly shutting off emotionally in order to survive’. While watching Wolf, Robot, Prawn and Lion sing together, Lindsay Lohan says “this is so much harder now”, assumedly misunderstanding that the group performance didn’t replace the individuals?

There are ‘reports’ from an anonymous source that Lohan won’t be back for S2 of Masked Singer Australia due to her difficult behaviour on-set and ‘complete lack of respect’ for time schedules, and we hope it’s not the case. Plus, we know from Lohan (as well as the Unicorn, Stevie Nicks,) that it’s best to not trust ‘Rumours’, which she must be ‘sick and tired’ of hearing.

If anything, Lohan would leave for a better opportunity on a talent show elsewhere, but hopefully CH10 know that she’s one of the show’s biggest draw-cards.

This week, we said bye to Prawn, who turned out to be Darrell Lea Darren McMullen, The Voice host and Scottish-Australian man. Sorry for misspeaking, but I was confused, since you all seem to think he’s some sort of sweet treat after he flashed those pearly whites — and then swapped the traditional meaning of a prawn over on his Instagram.

I’m still waiting for Wolf to swallow me whole and blow my house down, but I am happy for the McMullen hive.

View this post on Instagram

Thanks for the memories Prawn. Had an absolute ball on #themaskedsingerau Did anyone guess ?

A post shared by Darren McMullen (@darrenmcmullen) on Oct 7, 2019 at 2:42am PDT

Let’s ‘Guess’

Cody Simpson, what is the point of pretending any more

Lindsay Lohan guessing Robot was Aaron Carter, then proceeding to rattle off 10,000 facts about him was really stunning. The two dated back in 2003 for a few months, and it seems like she’s kept up with his career since.

For a moment, it’s worth imagining him on this show, but we think an image rehabilitation might be well and truly too late. Carter has had a tough few weeks, between his Rihanna face tattoo and his brother Nick getting a restraining order between them after he allegedly threatened Nick’s then-pregnant wife.

It’s bizarre to hear his name thrown so casually into the ring, given his dark past: Lohan seems to believe in redemption for all.

Lion

After Kate Ceberano was forced to sing ‘ME!’, she undoubtably threatened to walk unless she could do a Bowie song. It’s a great performance, and we’re finally convinced that they are actually sung live, as the show claims. If you listen not-so closely, you can hear the beads over Lion’s mouth bristle against the mic — while Ceberano is talented, not even she can create tones like that.

As for the head-scratching clues, Ceberano used to be in a band called Models, hence the casting photos, and in 1993 won a Logie for most popular music video, a since discontinued award. It’s her, though once again Lohan’s guess of Tyra Banks opens up a portal to another world. Just imagine.

Wolf

We wonder if Rob Mills objected to the voiceover clue where he called himself a “notorious predator”? What a thing to have said on record; obviously it doesn’t quite mean what we’re used to, but God, what a line.

Last week, Millsy hopped on radio to say he had ‘no time’ to film Masked Singer, since he’s been super busy with Neighbours. This is a lie.

The show is obsessed with establishing that each celebrity has ‘done many things’ and most of them have ‘had bad boy/girl’ periods, the latter of which remains fascinating to see them admit — even behind a mask. The show’s sense of celebrity remains fairly tragic, bleeding through a bit of humility before they reveal themselves and smile for the camera, putting the shield back up again.

Prawn

Prawn, as mentioned, turns out to be Darren McMullen, which we didn’t guess because we don’t care. To be very polite, we’re hoping next season brings some higher calibre celebrities, even if we did enjoy him going in on his Prawn persona, explaining his character choices as if this was Inside The Actors Studio.

Then again, maybe it is. Tonight, the rest compete, and time stands still.

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Masked Singer Australia airs on Channel 10/Win at 7.30pm Mondays and Tuesdays, and is available to stream on 10 Play.

Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and would like to see Bert Newton on S2 of Masked Singer as ‘Egg’. Follow him on Twitter.