‘AGT’ Recap: Dwyane Wade SHOCKS Indian Dance Group With Golden Buzzer!
NBC Reading Time: 5 minutes
The second Judge Cuts episode of America’s Got Talent saw Gabrielle Union bring her NBA Superstar husband Dwayne Wade on to judge alongside her for what proved to be a super-competitive week. Who got the Golden Buzzer and who else will we see in the live shows? Let’s look back on all the acts we saw!
Dwyane Wade’s Golden Buzzer
Based on that “y’all” we heard from Dwayne in the previews, we had a feeling his Golden Buzzer was going to go to one of the group acts, of which there were several in this episode. Sure enough, acro dance team V Unbeatable was the act who he gave it to. They did some wild tricks and even incorporated the judges’s table into their routine, which must have been an absolute rush for the judges sitting at it to have experienced live. With that kind of “wow” factor, is it any wonder Dwayne chose them to send straight to the live shows?
The Acts Advancing To The Live Shows
Bir Khalsa Group was a crowd favorite during auditions, and they won over yet another audience during Judge Cuts! The judges also enjoyed them, and Simon gave a standing ovation, saying they were the type of act we could only see on AGT.
Young girl group GFORCE sounded good together during auditions, but this performance didn’t quite pack the same punch. Their singing was good but the rapping wasn’t as strong and pulled down the rest of the performance a bit. Points for originality with their own song “Simon Says”, though!
Before his performance, Dom Chambers claimed to be making an effort to modernize magic and take the art in new directions. And we knew he meant business when he revealed his assistant to be none other than SIRI. He stuck to his alcohol theme from auditions, but this time the trick was about cocktails, not beer. Classy stuff!
Alex Dowis took us all the way to the moon with his blacklight painting performance. The way he did the rocket blasting off really elevated the performance from other art acts, and made us wish we could have seen his performance from the audition round! (Also pretty good timing from AGT to air this episode right after the 50th anniversary of the moon landing!)
Robert Finley was without a doubt the most soulful singer of the night! His passion elevated his performance as described by Howie, who said music should move people and complimented him on his authenticity. (Also, Simon’s comment about his disdain for singing shows not allowing contestants over the age of 29 was GREAT and is another reason why AGT is great for providing opportunities for acts who can’t go on other competition shows.)
Ryan Niemiller had a blast during auditions and was eager to show more of his stuff in Judge Cuts. And what he delivered was one of the best comedy performances we’ve seen on AGT in awhile. The jokes were great and his delivery elevated them further. Our only complaint is that we won’t be able to see a full set from Ryan on AGT due to the nature of the competition, but we’ll happily take another performance in the quarter-finals!
The Eliminated Acts
Last week a lot of singing acts made it through, but this week we lost more than we retained. This was a week with a lot of big personalities so anyone who didn’t immediately “pop” got lost in the shuffle.
Among those who got eliminated are singer Olivia Calderon (probably the strongest pure voice of the evening) Lamont Landers (the judges cut him a lot of slack last round, but he was out of luck this time) and Adaline Bates (if she’d done something new with the whole “half-drag” thing I think she may have had a better chance).
And then, of course, there were Valerie Sassyfras and Gingzilla, who perhaps had the opposite problem of style and personality over substance.
We also lost quite a few people who looked like potential frontrunners during the auditions. This was a very competitive week, particularly on the dance side of things, but it was tough to see interesting story-based dance groups ADEM Show and Verba Shadow get the boot, as well as the promising Izzy and Easton.
We also lost Michael Paul, who wasn’t a dancer but was another act who looked to have a ton of potential based on his ventriloquism act in the first round.
And then there were the acts we never really got to know, but would have liked to have seen more of. Mat Ricardo‘s knife and table tricks looked fun, and Duo Fusion‘s balancing was also pretty cool.
Will we see these performers or any of the other eliminated acts as wildcards in the live shows? Look out for our thoughts on that soon!
VOTE HERE: Which act would you want to bring back as the ‘AGT’ Wildcard act?
Were you surprised by the results this week? Did your favorite make it through? Which act did you love the most this week? Let us know in the comments below!
