‘America’s Got Talent’ review: Ray Jessel, Darik Santos, Beach Avenue, and ‘She Ratchet’
We’re a little later than usual on this “America’s Got Talent” review thanks to our site moving over to a new place, but we’ll be consistent the rest of the season. But since there was so much good stuff to talk about with this episode, we’re still going to dive into it now with a full review.
Since there are so many “apples to oranges” acts here and the editing was different for many of them, we feel the fairest way to rank at this moment is to just put the advancing performers (or at least the ones we saw plenty of) in chronological order.
Rogue – A good magic act to start the show! His delivery was at times a little frenzied, but that was probably due to him building the danger of Mel B nearly stapling things into his head. It certainly was a good way to get your blood pumping.
Emmanuel & Phillip Hudson, “She Ratchet” – Howie Mandel’s golden buzzer act is a hit on YouTube already, and we get part of the comedy behind it. However, to us this is inferior to Dustin’s Dojo or the “B-O-O-T-Y” guys from last year since it was hard to understand.
Loop Rawlins – Good Wild West acts are hard to come by, and we really appreciate it when we see someone like Loop turn up and prove that the craft is still out there alive. Not only did he prove this point, but he was also fantastic in the process!
Beach Avenue – Quite possibly our favorite band ever on the show. They sound a little like the child of the Goo Goo Dolls, Matchbox 20, and the Lumineers. Great job doing an original song, especially one that we would want to hear again.
Joe Matarese – The whole “I hate my kids” shtick was perfected really by Louis CK over the past decade, but Joe has his own unique spin on this. He’s a very good comic who is seasoned, but we’ll have to see how his material holds up in the later rounds.
Sal Gonzales – Every “America’s Got Talent” season has a contestant like Sal, who is pretty talented but also helped by an emotional story. We don’t think based on his singing ability that he should make it deep into the competition, but advancing this time around was fine. He is going to be a force to be reckoned with, though, as both a singer and a veteran who lost his leg in combat. (America tends to support both of these.)
Joe the Bird Man – No way Joe wins and he’ll probably be buzzed during the live shows. But he is pretty good at teaching parrots to say random things; it’s just not the most exciting thing in the world.
Kelli Glover – We’re a little all over the place on this one. We’ll start by saying that she is a brilliant singer, but she’s already had two cracks at the reality TV machine already. She narrowly missed the cut on “American Idol” season 1, and she had a rather emotional exit from this show five years ago in a similar position. Also, we remember the sort of “this is my last shot” edit from the last time she was around. As we said, great performance, but we hated that she did Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing,” the most overplayed song in reality TV history, even more than “I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”
Darik Santos – It’s Taylor Williamson all over again! Actually, he may be even more awkward than Taylor. He’s a master of puns and even more generally-strange behavior. We hope he remains a part of this season for at least a few more weeks so we can see more of what he has.
Ray Jessel – This is not exactly what we envisioned closing “America’s Got Talent” this week: An 84-year old man singing about meeting a woman who was perfect for him … minus the fact that she was hiding a certain part of her anatomy. This was just pure comedy from start to finish, and as long as you were in on the joke, it’s hard to see you not really enjoying this.
Who was your favorite on the show Tuesday night? Sound off below.