Music

‘Masked Singer Australia’ Recap: Puppet Can’t Hurt Us Anymore, But The Recap Episode Sure Can

We know you didn't watch the recap episode, so here's a recap.

by Jared Richards  8 September 2020
Masked Singer Australia S2E10 recap

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Because of the little 17-person COVID outbreak on-set, Masked Singer Australia‘s finale should’ve been tonight. Instead, they’re literally filming it right now.

So on Tuesday, we got a filler episode instead — and because I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to recap the recap episode, knowing that probably no one would want to actually watch it. And you know what? It actually wasn’t that boring.

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Sure, there were clip packages of the judges’ best jokes and recaps of the top 3’s best moments, but there were also some good BTS stuff, and an explanation of some of the more obfuscating clues — and also a reminder of who has been on this show, because I forget as soon as each episode ends.

Did you know, for example, that Isiah Firebrace used to travel six hours a day via bus for singing lessons? Or that Lucy Durack held a toy horse as Cactus because her husband is Chris Horsey? Or that Kitten saying “holy moly, it’s getting hot” referenced Julia Morris’ work with cancer awareness?

Okay, the episode wasn’t that interesting at all. But hey, you’ve clicked this link and I’ve agreed to do this, so let’s go! I also missed Monday’s episode because I gave myself food poisoning for the second time this year (…), so consider this a kind of self-flagellation for missing yesterday’s recap. Here are the four big takeaways.

1) Hughesy Is Hot! I Said It!

Masked Singer Australia S2E10 recap

Hughesy could lose it anytime :)

Given this is my penultimate chance to live my truth, it’s time to admit that Dave Hughes is kind of hot. This vegan 49-year-old volvo driver with a tooth gap and a hairstyle straight out of a Tim Winton novel is hot, even if he can’t dance for shit.

Easily the best part of this episode was the short segment dedicated to Hughesy’s dance moves — we even saw footage of him rehearsing a dance for Kesha’s ‘Tik Tok’ and then utterly fucking them up when watching the performance. Maybe that says more about this episode than Hughesy.

Anyway, he’s an absolute light on this show, even with his horny comments about using the Bushranger’s costume for some role play with his wife.

2) Give Tim Chappel A Logie

Tonight we met Masked Singer‘s costume designer Tim Chappel, who despite his work on Priscilla, Miss Congeniality and with Cher, described the show as one of his biggest challenges yet.

An entire episode about the production itself — both the costumes and the COVID precautions — would have been genuinely fascinating, but instead we just get just a few tidbits.

All the costumes are 3D printed (new to this year), and pretty heavy, too — Puppet’s head alone is 15kgs, so Simon Pryce must be super strong.

Masked Singer Australia S2E10 recap

Did you know that the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed?

It wasn’t in this episode, but he said on the Project that the eyes and mouth were remote-controlled and that when they closed his mouth, he couldn’t see what he was doing. He wasn’t, uh, my favourite, but credit’s due: that’s a hard gig.

Queen, meanwhile, has a gate in her that opens out at the push of a button to let her out; Frillneck’s frills were also remote-controlled, and Bushranger has 3,500 Swarovskis on her costume.

Mildly interesting trivia for ya! It’s a shame they didn’t go a bit deeper.

3) The Finale Clues Confirm Everything We Know

Packed right into the end of the episode were new clues, in the hopes that people would remain tuned-in, I guess.

With Puppet going last night (bye bitch!), we’re down to our top three: Bonnie ‘Bushranger’ Anderson, Eddie ‘Frillneck’ Perfect and Kate Miller-‘Queen’-Heidke.

The clues we were given just confirmed what was long ago confirmed: if anything, the identity of these three may be the most certain thing in our collective lives right now.

Masked Singer Australia S2E10 recap

Know this is from Monday’s episode, but Osher accidentally tearing off puppet’s hand deserves its moment here. The pure terror.

Queen’s clues reference a lyric about not being ‘afraid of death’ in ‘The Last Day On Earth’, and a talk-show, which admittedly I don’t quite follow but who cares! It’s her, and she simply must win this pointless competition.

Frillneck’s clues mention the eighth wonder of the world and 1930 skyscrapers, both of which are references to Perfect’s work on King Kong: The Musical. The clock references and the 16.51 in the background on one clock are for 9 to 5: The Musical, too.

And finally, Bushranger’s clues mentioned Roses, a reference to her boxer granddaddy, Lionel Roses.

The unmasking is pointless by now, save for the spectacle. But I want to scream ‘TAKE IT OFF’ at my tv, I want to bite my lip and taste the blood as I scream and let it spurt out over my TV. Can’t wait!

Masked Singer Australia S2E10 recap

When you face the pure Truth and Light of eternity at the end of your life but you’ve left your YAS QUEEN fan back on Earth.

4) Wait, So How Does The Finale Actually Work? You Know, With The COVID Of It All?

The recap episode revealed next-to-nothing about how the finale will work, given its safe-to-assume the production was more than a little rattled by the 17 COVID-19 cases among its team. Thankfully, we’ve found out elsewhere.

According to SMH, things will look a little different on Monday. The top 3, Hughesy and Dannii will still film from Melbourne, but Jackie O and Osher have already fucked off to Sydney for understandable reasons, and Urzila’s back in New Zealand — currently in hotel quarantine, no less.

That means filming will take place in three spots: the Melbourne and Sydney studios, and Urzila’s hotel room. Geez, this could be a little rough.

We also learned that the show made the switch to Melbourne from Sydney this year because they needed more space. I guess this ended up being particularly true to the social distancing on-set, but then again, clearly, it wasn’t enough.

Assumedly, this episode was a bit of a scramble to fill air-time, though if it was, they did a good job of hiding it. The interviews, Osher ‘hosting’, the talking heads — all could have been done with a sparse-team or even in front of a green-screen, but it wasn’t particularly noticeable. Hats off to the team for pushing through a terrible situation completely of their own making.

Still, all-in-all this entire episode was less entertaining than these two Tweets from Dannii Minogue, which have me convinced that the only requisite for being a judge on Masked Singer is that you have to be terrible at social media.

See you Monday. We’re almost there, gang. We’ve done it.

Masked Singer Australia’s finale is on Channel 10 next Monday at 7.30pm AEST, with episodes available to stream on 10Play.

Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and on Twitter.