‘America’s Got Talent’ finale rankings: Will Drew Lynch, Piff the Magic Dragon, or Paul Zerdin win?

Going into the season ten finale of “America’s Got Talent” Tuesday night, we’ve got an interesting group remaining. There are zero dance acts, only two singers, and zero women. We feel like there is an article to be written about the struggles of the female contestant on this show, and whether there is something that the show is doing from a casting or editing perspective to make it harder for women to break through. (The first season is the only season to have a female winner.) This is something we’re probably going to dive into more in an article on Tuesday morning.

For this article, though, we don’t want to penalize or trivialize the contestants remaining for their own achievements. They’ve all done a great job to make it this far, not only with talent but also with getting the voting public on their side. So who can win? Let’s take a look at the remaining contestants, and do our best to rank them based on performance quality, voting history, and also whether or not they are unique enough to stand out from the group.

10. Uzeyer Novruzov – It’s awesome that someone like Uzeyer made it to this point, given that he is a circus performer and it is going to be extremely hard for someone like him to break through on any other show. However, we still a little bit weird that it feels like a sympathy vote, and if he fails to complete the trick again this time, do we say that the public really got this wrong?

9. Gary Vider – It’s great that we have Gary in the finale, but he’s going to struggle getting the comedy vote against someone in Drew who has both humor and the inspirational story on his side. Just getting this far, though, is an extremely great step in his career, and he’ll probably get many more gigs as a result of this.

8. Oz Pearlman – This is mostly just a reflection on the fact that there are so many acts who utilize some sort of magic in the finale, and while he’s not a magician per se, it is going to be hard to blow people away at this stage using mind-reading unless he comes up with a really cool idea.

7. Benton Blount – Benton surprisingly needed the Dunkin’ Save to advance to this point, which does tell us that we may have overrated the size of his voting block. He’s probably helped by being the only solo singer left, but we don’t really get the sense that the show is going to push him hard as a winner candidate.

6. Derek Hughes – Derek’s probably is similar somewhat to Oz’s, mostly in that there are so many magic / illusion acts in the finale! He’s probably the best pure magician of the group in that he can do these huge, super-innovative tricks, but he may not have the gimmick or the twist needed.

5. The CraigLewis Band – We think these guys are probably the most underrated talent left, and we do think that they have their best work ahead of them. With that being said, we may have them a little too high given that they needed the judges to get this far. We just don’t think they should be forgotten about.

4. The Professional Regurgitator – This is where things get really tough. He’s obviously a more formidable act than we’ve given him credit for, but while he is extremely entertaining and we’ve never seen anything like him, we still don’t know if we see enough of the American public voting for him to win.

3. Drew Lynch – Drew is the sort of act that we can easily see America giving the grand prize to, and in a sense he could probably use the money the most out of the people in the top four since we think the others are ready-made already for Las Vegas and comedy is such a crowded field. He’s really funny, but he needs to go to another level even still to win.

2. Paul Zerdin – We’ve gone back and forth so many times on the top two. We never thought we’d see a ventriloquist who was anywhere close to being as good as Terry Fator, but Paul is that guy! The coolest thing is that he finds new ways to make this original, and he is not just going out there and doing what we’ve seen before on other shows.

1. Piff the Magic Dragon – Ultimately, we’re still going with our gut here, even though Piff has not been perfect in the live shows. We just think that his style and his humor really appeals to people out there, and he’s got such a catchy name and gimmick behind most of his tricks. He’s also been planning something for the live shows for some time, and he’s going to be ready to come out and try to win.

Now, it’s your turn to share your thoughts. Let us know in the poll and the comments who you are rooting for, and sign up here to get some other TV updates on all we cover, sent right to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)