America’s Got Talent Recap Season 15, Episode 20: BTS and Colin Cloud

After the most impressive single night of talent on “America’s Got Talent” yet this season, we were not ready for a brutal slashing that sent more than half of them home.

And yet, that’s the name of the game. After all, by the end of this whole thing, only one poet — ahem, we mean act can win the whole thing. That doesn’t make it hurt any less to see people’s hopes and dreams shattered on live television.

Especially when they really were fantastic, and against other competition might have made it all the way.

It also created another dilemma for us in particular, as we like to make our predictions each week as to who should go through and who we think will go through. Our overall track record through the years has been pretty strong, but we had absolutely no confidence in ourselves this week.

Despite this not being our personal Top 5, we felt America would vote through BAD Salsa, Cristina Rae, Voices of Our City Choir, Celina and W.A.F.F.L.E. Crew. For us personally, we had Jonathan Goodwin and Daneliya Tuleshova also in our Top 5, but suspected they would fall to the feel-good power of W.A.F.F.L.E. and Voices. Did they?

Along the way, we got a look at another recent fan favorite who fell just short of his dreams, and managed to fulfill some of them anyway. “AGT” is a great platform regardless of who wins if you springboard off of it just right.

This season’s contestants will have the extra challenge of COVID-19 in the way of carrying on this momentum, but seeing acts like Colin Cloud can only serve as inspiration that this moment can be good for them, no matter how it turns out.

And then, “AGT” went bigger than big with one of the biggest acts on the planet hitting the stage. K-Pop sensation BTS broke records with their all-English debut “Dynamite,” and tonight they blew up “AGT” — and social media — with a live performance of it.

Who do I think I am? you ask. Well, I spent nearly a decade of my life sweating and bleeding to the music as a dancer. From a young boy learning a shuffle-ball-change to performing with the St. Louis Ballet Company, I experienced the ups and downs of one of the most difficult physically demanding sports on the planet. During this time, I was also a member of the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, as well as a gymnast, writer and cartoonist. I had a lot more energy in my younger years. And I’ve spent the last eighteen years analyzing and critiquing reality competition shows for various media publications. I’ve got this.

Colin is always a lot of fun to watch, and we love how he incorporated the last three winners of “AGT” as part of his act predicting what the judges would think of with what appeared to be some of that suggestion Max Majors revealed in the quarterfinals. He has such a slick and cool delivery, he really knows how to make this type of act entertaining, without ever really slowing down as some do — and Max did this week.

Consummate performers, this could have been another music video for their smash hit “Dynamite.” The group always knows how to share the spotlight among members both vocally and visually, and their combination of dance to voice is second to none. It’s taken them a surprisingly long time to break into the mainstream in America — K-Pop stans have known for years now — so apparently it just took a song in all English!

For the last time, the overly confusing Dunkin’ Save created an hour of extra drama by putting the fourth, fifth and sixth place acts through the ringers with two of the three of them ultimately surviving the night, either by insta-save or the judges.

This week’s “lucky” contestants were Kenadi Dodds, BAD Salsa and Max Major, which just goes to show how differently we watched this show. These three comprise our top act of the week and our bottom, along with our 8th place finisher in Max — clearly America wasn’t as confused as Howie and Sofia by his act.

We knew this week was going to be a mess when it came to trying to predict America’s votes, but we had no idea just how wild it was going to get. We attribute it to Terry Crews’ note that this was the tightest vote of the season, meaning fractions of percentages could have separated so many acts.

By this point we were at a total loss as to what had happened with the vote. When Terry called up Celina and Cristina Rae, we got what we had suspected might happen. We weren’t sure if both could advance — and even changed our prediction last minute in hopes they could — but it wasn’t to be.

It’s no real surprise that of the two of them, Cristina Rae was the one who carried on. Her voice soars like an angel and she has that adorable son, and we know America votes for the whole package. Here’s hoping Celina sticks with it, though, as she is incredible in her own right.

Next to face the firing squad were Voices of Our City Choir, Daneliya Tuleshova and W.A.F.F.L.E. Crew. Here, again, are acts that we thought all could be contenders and worthy of advancing, and yet only one would. So it’s the choir, right? Their mission, their voices, the story. It’s too much to resist.

Nope! In fact, neither the crew or the choir got through, as a stunned little Daneliya Tuleshova all alone between these large groups of people couldn’t believe she’d just heard her name. She’s a kid singer — America loves those — though this wasn’t her strongest week.

That left Jonathan Goodwin, Bello Sisters and Brett Loudermilk for the final pre-Dunkin’ slot. Of the three, we had Jonathan in our Top 5, but did America agree that he brought the strongest act and had the most potential to wow even more in the finals?

They absolutely did not, as America decided they wanted to see more of the Bello Sisters. Now they just have to figure out how to make a three-way pretzel even more twisted and dangerous.

The Dunkin’ Save trio hit the stage to wrap up the show, so did Kenadi Dodds hold on to her early lead in voting over BAD Salsa and Max Major? Does America love kid singers that much? Not to knock on this too much, but we just didn’t think she was stronger than a lot of these acts already eliminated.

But it didn’t matter what we thought, because America wanted to see more of Kenadi Dodds and so they will, as she took the fourth spot.

That left the indescribable BAD Salsa and Max Major to face the judges, which had us feeling pretty convinced that it would be bad news for Max. We’ve had good mentalists before, but nothing like BAD Salsa.

Maybe that’s why we didn’t even get to Heidi’s vote as both Sofia and Howie quickly sent BAD Salsa into the finals, sending poor Max packing. But if he plays his cards right, he can do just as well as Colin Cloud from this opportunity alone.

As four our predictions, three of our actual Top 5 acts made it through, as did our lowest-ranked act on the night — so we did both okay and terrible all at once. And we totally blew trying to guess what you would do.

And yet, we’re going to still try and predict your picks for the big finale of this wild ride next week. Maybe we’re gluttons for punishment (or embarrassment).

“America’s Got Talent” crowns its Season 15 winner next week on Tuesday and Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.

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