‘The Masked Singer’ Recap: Banana Peeled

The Masked Singer quarterfinals kicked off Wednesday as the final five faced off, and one costumed contestant had to hang up their mask.

OK so the bad news is that The Masked Singer only has four creatures left in the game. Sad face! This bad news is softened a little bit by the fact that plans for Season 4 are already underway and it might be here sooner than we thought, but still.

And then there were five, fair viewers. It truly feels like this Masked Singer season has been chugging along for about 17 months, but we’re now down to the final handful of disguised crooners.Our reliable panel of, um, experts -- that would be Robin Thicke, Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg, Ken Jeong and Nicole Scherzinger -- is joined this week by Jeff Dye, who is apparently a comedian.

The Masked Singer quarterfinals kicked off Wednesday as the final five faced off, and one costumed contestant had to hang up their mask.

The show will go on for

You gotta love Ken Jeong. Every week on The Masked Singer, the onetime physician turned comedian and actor keeps the show lively with his off-the-wall antics, throwing out names of celebrities who couldn't possibly be on stage. (For his part, bless his heart, Ken freely admits that he's the "dumbest" judge on the show.) Remember that time he thought Flower — clearly Patti LaBelle -- was Björk? And that time he also thought Swan was Björk? Oh Ken, you're too cute.

Here’s one of the multitude of things that’s classy about The Masked Singer: They’re literally just making this up as the show goes along. The Super 9? The Battle Of The Sixes? MASKED MUNCHIES?

“The Masked Singer” returned on Wednesday for the “Battle of the Sixes,” as the top six contestants returned to the stage for a musical battle royale.

returned on Wednesday for the «Battle of the Sixes,» as the top six contestants returned to the stage for a musical battle royale.

The Astronaut has been unmasked, and the final five have been revealed.  The Masked Singer just said goodbye to its spaceman, who turned out to be country superstar Hunter Hayes. While the guesses were all over the place all season, Nicole Scherzinger hit the nail on the head with her final guess.  "It's been an unbelievable experience," Hayes told the panel.

They've made us laugh. They've made us cry. They've made us cover our ears to stop the bleeding, and they've made thirst queen Nicole Scherzinger flip frantically through Monster Brides magazine as she fantasized about the perfect dress to wear while marrying one of her baes in disguise.

The Masked Singer is narrowing the field as the weeks roll on, and though the clues aren't getting any easier, the compound effect of all these hints over time just makes the singers' identities harder and harder to conceal. Of course, we'll never know for sure until those heads come off, but below you'll see the results of super sleuthing and internet scouring that have led us to make some very informed guesses about who's who.

The Masked Singer returned after a week off to trim the herd a bit more, but before the festivities got underway the panel launched into an assessment of Nick Cannon's latest ensemble that was almost as entertaining as the show itself. Nicole Scherzinger started by saying "Oooh shiny!," and I smiled, knowing this could've been audio dubbed on top of any of the show's episodes so far.

returned to its regularly scheduled competition on Wednesday after last week's highlight reel/sing-along special, with this week seeing The Kitty face off against The Frog and The Banana showdown against The Rhino.

Peeling away the hints! The judges were not surprised by the reveal on the Wednesday, April 22, episode of The Masked Singer.