‘The Masked Singer’ Season 2 Premiere: The Phenomenon Returns & Doesn’t Miss a Note

Written by Erin Doyle

TV’s craziest night of singing is back! In a two-hour star-filled episode, The Masked Singer  Season 2 Premiere did not disappoint. After a hit first season, FOX’s reality show that places celebrities in elaborate costumes to sing their hearts out has returned.

If you have absolutely no idea how The Masked Singer works, each episode a portion of the competitors are paired off into face-off competitions. Both contestants will perform a song of their choice and after each face-off, the panelists and live audience votes; the winner is safe for the week while the loser is put up for elimination. At the end of the episode, the contestants that didn’t make it through have another showdown to fight to stay for the upcoming week. The eliminated singer will then take off their mask to reveal their identity.

Split between all the competitors this season there are: 140 films, 69 Emmy Award nominations, 42 Grammy Award nominations, 31 Billboard No. 1 singles, 22 Broadway shows, 20 platinum records, 19 Emmy wins, 7 Super Bowl wins, 6 multi-platinum records, 5 Hall of Famers, three New York Times bestsellers, and two have been named Time magazine’s Most Influential People. 

With the amount of reputation that these celebrities hold, I went into this season with higher expectations than last. The premiere did not disappoint and went above and beyond last year’s inaugural season. Compared to last year, the contestants were actually bearable. Although one could tell not every singer was experienced, all were talented in their own ways and put on a show. All celebrities had an amazing stage presence. 

In the premiere, we met 8 celebrities: the Butterfly, Thingamajig, Egg, Skeleton, Ladybug, Rottweiler, Tree, and Ice Cream. The Egg and Ice Cream were both eliminated. The Egg turned out to be U.S national-champion figure-skater and Olympic commentator Johnny Weir and the Ice Cream was Twitch streamer Ninja!

The two-hour installment was both predictable and surprising. I called the Egg, but honestly had no idea who Ice Cream was until he took off the mask. Even then, I only knew him because my nephew is obsessed with Fortnite. My takeaway from the season’s first elimination: Fox has added family appeal. We are going to see stars from different generations with different skillsets and backgrounds of entertainment. Anyone can watch this show and is guaranteed to resonate with one of its performers. After the Ninja reveal, I now begin to understand that I won’t always know everyone under the mask- even without the mask- but it will mean huge to someone else.

The clue packages this year are very misleading compared to last. I was able to figure out most of the contestants by their second performance but honestly, I have no idea who most of these people are!

My somewhat confident guesses include:

• The Butterfly is famous-singer Michelle Williams from Destiny’s Child.
• The Thingamajig is Wayne Brady.
• The Ladybug is Kelly Osbourne (only because of the ham in the clue package).
• The Rottweiler is Chris Daughtry but that’s a long shot.
• The Skeleton is a complete wildcard and gave us so many SNL clues which point to Martin Short, but I’m still not convinced.

Next week we meet another eight contestants.

The Masked Singer Season 2 airs Wednesday nights at 8 p.m ET on FOX. Fans can watch and stream the show online with the FOXNOW app with a cable login, or the next day on Hulu. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9O3u5LDj0g