‘The X Factor’ USA review: Rion Paige, Ellona Santiago, and Danie Geimer fight for chairs

Last night on “The X Factor,” Kelly Rowland’s group of Overs started off the four-chair challenge round with some drama, some predictability, and the general feeling was that this twist was just extremely cruel for no good reason at all. It made the feeling of accomplishment from getting a chair bad when you had to send someone else home.

Before we get into this episode, click here to see the Overs that are advancing, and get into some specifics about how the first four girls on Demi Lovato’s team of Girls that are advancing to the next round. We’ll tell you that going into this, Bree Randall, Khaya Cohen, Ashly Williams, and Jamie Pineda are the ones sitting in the chairs.

Simone Torres – A very good performance from Simone, but only in contrast to some of the other performers in Demi’s group at this point. There is no reason to believe that she is going to be good enough to actually keep the chair. Replaces Bree Randall. However, she was replaced immediately.

Danie Geimer – The attitude for Danie was a little off in auditions, but she is both quirky and an incredible singer. The biggest thing that she has to work on for the live shows is trying to figure out how to make herself extremely likable to the masses. Good luck with that, Danie. Seated in chair, replacing Simone. In Demi’s top 4.

Rylie Brown and Primrose Martin – We don’t want to waste much time on these two, mostly because their performances were vocal disasters. Not only that, but Primrose was a little off-putting by deciding to keep on singing after she bombed her performance, thinking that this was going to get her a little more love from the judges. No chairs.

Rion Paige – There was almost no doubt that Rion was going to get through to the live shows. Demi loves an inspiring story, but she also likes have a little bit of diversity. Rion is the only country singer in her bunch, and her voice is actually so good that it really doesn’t matter that she has something else about her that makes people want to cheer for her. Seated in chair, replaces Ashly Williams.

Ellona Santiago – Who is shocked that Ellona was great? How about no one. She was good enough to make the live shows in a group two years ago, and she’s a great singer who has one of those powerful, pop-ready voices. While we don’t think people from past live shows should be eligible again (since it’s a huge advantage in terms of experience on the show), she deserves to be a favorite with the rules in place. One latter piece of irony here: We’ve compared here to Jessica Sanchez all season, and she goes and does a song in ‘Clarity” that Jessica performed on “Glee.” Seated in chair, replaces Jamie Pineda.

What do you think about the performers on Demi Lovato’s team, and did she make the right picks? Be sure to share below! Take a look here if you want to read some more highlights related to the show.

Photo: Fox