‘Masked Singer Australia’ Recap: Julia Morris Is A National Treasure
She was in a back brace during all of this? Kitten was robbed!
Dannii Minogue may be immune from mandatory hotel quarantine, but she isn’t above one of the biggest pandemic trends: doing something drastic to your hair. Yep, the lead for my recap is the fact that Dannii dyed her hair pink, that’s what Masked Singer‘s offering us eight episodes in.
Actually, I’m being harsh. Lots happened this episode: we learned that Hughesy bought a new phone and cracked the back immediately. That’s television gold, baby — give him a Logie to go alongside that ARIA!
Now we’re getting down to the wire, the performances — mostly painful at first — are now the best part of the show. All are excellent singers: well, not Puppet, who remains deeply uncomfortable to watch and has far too low of a voice for most songs they give him. Queen’s rendition of Selena Gomez’s ‘Lose You To Love Me’ was genuinely stunning, and I hope Kate Miller-Heidke records a cover.
But Julia Morris’ post-reveal rendition of ‘You Don’t Own Me’ was purr-fection, rolling around on the floor and screaming out the lyrics with more abandon than Diane Keaton in First Wives Club.
The weird thing about this show — yes, the one weird thing — is that the reveal performances right at the end are sometimes the best part. I wish we saw Julia Morris sing in a giant kitten costume but no mask every week, but, as philosopher Naomi Smalls reminds us, life isn’t fair.
Puppet
I get that the show is making Puppet as creepy on purpose as a talking point, but back-up mime dancers? Really???
Speaking of life’s cruelties, Pupper remains on this show. It’s no slander to Simon Pryce (who matches up with his celebrity link Judi Dench via having both played Old Deuteronomy in Cats), but just to the costume.
I sound like a baby, but me no like watch Puppet! The New Wave background during his performance of ‘Take On Me’ by A-Ha was cute though?
Queen
Queen gives out a red card to prevent someone from being decapitated. It’s probably just a throwback club to Queen’s grandad being a card-carrying communist, but gosh this show loves incoherently mixing imagery and metaphors. Like moths to a flame, these are the wasted hours of my fading youth.
Obsessed that Dannii’s reaction to a man about to be beheaded was to say “awww, bit harsh!”. Queen of prisoners’ rights!
At one part of the clues, Hughesy says “we all need helpers” with such a resignation that I’m ready to sign up as his remote intern — and no, that’s not innuendo. I’d learn how to do that on the job, from the master.
He also continues to display the taste levels of a gay 26-year-old recapper. Last night, he threw out a reference to United States Of Tara, and this episode, he’s out here stanning KMH’s 2009 single ‘The Last Day On Earth’ with the rabid enthusiasm usually only seen on stan Twitter and Reddit where people argue over 10-year-old singles that “shoudn’t have flopped”. Hughesy outsold!
Anyway, Queen’s celebrity clue is Jay-Z, who played Coachella 2010. As did KMH. Last recap, I guessed she might go home this episode given her new album’s out Friday: now, I’m hoping for Queen to win. You could say it’s the only thing that matters to me anymore. The only thing that ever mattered.
Bushranger
This is what my notes for this show look like. In fact they’re even more extensive than Jackie O’s. You could even say that I deserve a WALE (Walkley, ARIA, Logie, End Of Global Pandemic). You could say this. Please.
It turns out Bonnie Anderson is the featured voice on that Justice Crew stain of a song I heard everywhere in 2012 as a fresh-faced 18-year-old exclusively going to terrible clubs.
Between this and tonight’s song choice of Lady A’s ‘Need You Now’ — a song nobody has ever actively chosen to listen to but only ever heard in a chemist — I regret to say that I am invoking my right as a Blue Tick on Twitter to use ‘cancel culture’ to cancel Bonnie Anderson. Sorry, those are the rules.
As I only get one cancellation per financial year, I sure hope nobody does anything worse anytime soon. :)
Hughesy half-reined in the sleazy comments last night with some line about slotting in a “letter” that said good job into Bushrangers slot, but tonight he’s back in fine form, telling her to expect a drunk dial at 1am. He also guesses that it could be Nicole Kidman, which even Osher can’t entertain given her height. This has been Hughesy watch.
The celebrity connection clue here is Dylan Alcott, who beat out Anderson for Best New Talent at last year’s Logies. Unfortunately, that was Anderson’s one chance to win a Logie, as I have alerted the voting board of her cancellation.
Frillneck
As Kirstie Alley tweeted in tribute to the late Stephen Hawking, I would like to thank the judges for their guesses.. they had a good go at it.
Eddie Perfect seems like a nice man. Just a vibe.
Cockatoos keep popping up in Frillneck’s clue reels, which references Perfect’s paintings of birds. His celebrity clue is Jack Black, and their connection is King Kong: Black starred in the Peter Jackson adaptation, while Perfect worked on the score for the recent musical adaptation.
Perfect sung Macklemore’s ‘Can’t Hold Us’, another song which takes me back to Thursday nights in 2012 at Mona Vale Pub. Unfortunately, I have already used up my cancel card for the financial year, and so he rides free for now.
Next week is the finale. Channel 10 is tight-lipped right now about their plans, given they’re one episode short: truthfully, I’m hoping they just never finish the show and don’t acknowledge it.
2020 is just one big cliffhanger anyway, plus it’d be very chic if the sadness and desperation of S2 that I’ve been craving was actually the audience all along. Go girl, give us nothing!
Masked Singer Australia is on Channel 10 each Monday and Tuesday at 7.30pm AEST, and available to stream on 10Play.
Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and on Twitter.