‘The X Factor’ USA spoilers: Jennel Garcia, Tate Stevens to take on divas

“The X Factor” USA has wasted no time at all following their elimination episode Thursday night to figure out where they wanted to go next, and hopefully recover from what has been a disappointing two-week start to the live shows. In addition to the awful and charisma-free hosting thus far, there have not been too many performances that are something that we would watch to watch again and again on YouTube.

Could next week change that? Considering that the theme here this time is “divas,” it’s possible. (Is someone going to sing “I Have Nothing” by Whitney Houston again?) Thanks to the interesting twist of revealing just where everyone stands in the competition, we are actually in the rare position now that we know not only who are the favorites to go far (Tate Stevens, Carly Rose Sonenclar), but also who the artists are who are just barely safe from the public vote at the moment (Arin Ray, Beatrice Miller). This was a novel twist in itself, as it may motivate some of the projected favorites like Emblem3 to do better, especially since it turns out that they are not as popular as they may have otherwise expected. Will they capitalize on it? That much is still to be uncovered.

In addition to knowing the performance lineup now, we also know that Taylor Swift is going to be performing during next week’s results show, one week after Simon Cowell brought over his supergroup One Direction to perform a pair of songs for the first time ever on an American talent show.  (Oh, and they also participated in some idiotic product placement with Pepsi.)

What do you think about the voting, and do you think knowing where they stand on the leaderboard is going to help or hurt most artists?