I’m Pretty Sure I Watched ‘The Masked Singer’ Last Night

After an excruciating two-week absence, The Masked Singer returned last night with two brand new episodes. That’s right, a solid 120-minute block of rich animal pageantry, not unlike Cinderella’s ball if the fairy godmother had only partially turned all of Cinderella’s animal friends into human servants, and then forced them to compete in a talent show for the right to reverse their transformation and be freed from the prison of agony formed by unnaturally twisting their skeletons into hideous bipedal shapes for the purposes of fitting into fashionable evening wear. Truly, there has never been a greater show about celebrity acquaintances playing an elaborate version of the card game from Inglourious Basterds, except on The Masked Singer everyone has to pretend they aren’t getting hammered.

Last night, we saw all twelve remaining performers sing their famous little hearts out, and by the end of the night, two were unmasked. Penguin was revealed to be actress and former The View host Sherri Shepherd, and the teenagers in the audience were forced to react as if they knew who she was. (After the eliminations of Dr. Drew Pinsky and Paul Shaffer in previous weeks, they’ve had a fair amount of practice in this particular area.) Meanwhile, Black Widow turned out to be Raven-Symone, a turn of events so shocking that guest panelist Anthony Anderson pulled a pillow seemingly from the ether and threw it a legitimately shocking distance. It was a night of incomprehensible spectacle. And I’m pretty sure I watched it.

I mean, I definitely remember sitting down to watch it. I settled into my new Wednesday ritual of wrapping myself up in a blanket and placing my laptop on the table in front of me for easy note-taking. But everything that followed was a phantasmagoric blur, a kaleidoscope of Mardi Gras parade floats acting out lightly-choreographed musical numbers in exchange for praise from a panel of judges with only a 50% rate of having anything to do with music. At some point, I lost consciousness. The Masked Singer is almost certainly being used to awaken sleeper agents.

Normally, I’m only tuning in for a mere hour of Top 40 hits as performed by the works of Lewis Carroll, but last night’s double header might’ve been too much of a good thing. My eyes start to twitch involuntarily right around the fourth time the celebrity panelists stand up in the middle of a song for no apparent reason, so maybe I should’ve taken a break once the credits began to roll on episode one of two. But much like the Masked Singers themselves, I was in it to win it. And while my memory may have failed me, my notes did not, as I apparently kept on writing well past the point where my brain stopped recording anything.

So I bring to you, as a historical document, my notes from last night’s back-to-back airing of The Masked Singer, presented without revision or context.

Nick Cannon is dressed like a Batman villain.

The Tree looks like the kind of bullshit you’d find at The Sharper Image. If Charlie Brown had brought Tree from the Christmas tree lot, the Peanuts gang would’ve beaten him to death with Schroeder’s piano.

Robin Thicke could go as Vanilla Ice every Halloween and nobody would ever know he was wearing a costume.

I legitimately can’t tell if I’m hallucinating.

Robin Thicke always looks like he’s being operated remotely.

I just noticed there is a pair of binoculars on the panelists’ table. What is this, the fucking opera?

Rottweiler is the only Masked Singer with painted-on abs. I trust him implicitly.

Robin Thicke just called Ken Jeong “Dr. Kennel,” because they’re passing judgment on a man in a dog costume. Jesus, Robin, your dad was a sitcom star.

Ken Jeong really likes the band Train. I don’t know what to do with this information, but now you and I share it.

Joey Fatone just showed up to quickly give each panelist a kiss and then immediately left the building entirely. Is this a regular part of the show? Does Joey Fatone show up midway through the season to give everyone a good luck kiss?

The Power Rangers are going to flip in here and break this up any second now.

Robin Thicke gave Ken Jeong a Robin Thicke towel. Like, an embroidered towel with his own initials on it. Is this a thing he does? Does he give these away as gifts?

The panelists all dance like there’s a time delay.

Ok, Fox is Wayne Brady. I have to revise my previous insistence that Fox is Jamie Foxx. There was a clue shown of the Fox holding an Emmy award, and Wayne Brady has won five Emmys. Jamie Foxx has not won a single Emmy. Although I’m starting to notice that they throw in deceptive clues to trick us. Curse your hidden mysteries, Brady Foxx.

Every episode ends with an animal trying to pull off its own head while an entire arena chants “take it off!” like we’re trying to woo a harvest god.

Nick Cannon introduced episode six by calling it “TV’s most outrageous fever dream” and now I can no longer convince myself that he is not making direct eye contact with me.

Black Widow’s backup dancers are all wearing Farmer Johns and Lisa Frank casts. This message is impossible to decipher.

The Masked Singers are wheeling out a bunch of random junk drawer bullshit they brought from home as if this is going to trigger a Columbo moment from the likes of Robin Thicke.

WHAT THE FUCK THEY ALL HAVE BINOCULARS? ARE WE ON THE WESTERN FRONT?

They just wheeled out crackers and whipped cream and that’s supposed to be a clue. I’m afraid to move because I’ll fall into an alternate dimension where this makes some kind of sense.

I think Nicole Scherzinger wants to sleep with this Troll doll.

Thingamajig just wheeled out a sign language dictionary. Further confirmation that Thingamajig is Victor Oladipo, because Oladipo has a deaf sister. Either that or Thingamajig has been signing “please help they have my family” this whole time and has grown bold in his desperation.

Nick Cannon just said “This show doesn’t make sense at all!” BLINK TWICE IF YOU CAN SEE ME, NICK.

You could seamlessly insert any moment of this show into the motion picture The Cell.

The backup dancers just haul ass off the stage right after the performances end. One of the Butterfly dancers sprinted to the back like they were trying to thwart a kidnapping.

They wheeled out a forensic case as the Butterfly snarled “I once had to choose between life or death.” She’s killed before, and she’ll kill again. She gave us all the clues. Also, I still think she’s Adrienne Bailon because they showed a nurse hat and Bailon went to a medical prep school. Which means Adrienne Bailon is a murderess.

Robin Thicke is making cat paws at the air. Nick Cannon accepted a proposal of marriage from a man in a leopard costume and an Elizabethan gown. The room is spinning.

Jenny McCarthy legitimately looked through the wrong end of her binoculars. Maybe she needs chelation therapy to learn how to use them.

The Grubhub guy did not want to come inside and watch Masked Singer with me.