‘Criss Angel’s Magic with the Stars’ Recap: ‘Metamorphosis’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Three of ‘Criss Angel’s Magic with the Stars’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
​
Thus far, our journey through the wonderful world of magic, via The CW series, Criss Angel’s Magic with the Stars, has featured one particular constant. In that, every single competitor that has taken the stage to try and take home the Golden Wand, has had some kind of stage or screen experience. Allowing for everyone to work the crowd and put on a show and keep the crowd enthralled in the process, and of course… that keeps the scoring close. Since charisma and performance is critical to putting on a great show, as we’ve now learned. But this week, the show broke from that mold and made it seem as though… perhaps for the first time ever, we’d be in for one lopsided battle.
​
Because Frankie Muniz, star of Malcolm in the Middle, went head-to-head with Olympic Athlete Lolo Jones and what made that potentially one-sided… was that Lolo wasn’t super familiar with showmanship. But as it turned out, competitive fire can bring out the best in people as evidenced by the Mentalist illusions that kicked off ‘Metamorphosis’. Because while Frankie immediately came out and worked the crowd with his extensive stage and screen skills, Lolo quickly held her own. For she was simply, herself, and found a way to connect with the crowd, making it clear that she was here to win and would do her best to hang with Frankie. 

Which she certainly did. Because she found a way to really relate to the crowd in the Close-Up competition. By using her experience at the Olympics to really sell a slick illusion, and even Criss himself pointed out how great of a job she did with that and thank heavens she did, because Frankie brought the thunder in his illusion. For he knew exactly how to warm up the crowd and keep them laughing and enjoying the show. But Lolo did enough to keep the competition close once again and didn’t waver in her confidence in the slightest. That is until the Grand Illusion competition came into play. For this week, the magicians were going to have to replicate the Metamorphosis Illusion, and that required A LOT from Frankie and Lolo.

Specifically, whomever took the stage to perform this illusion had to genuinely be a powerhouse showman. For this was an illusion that required connecting with the crowd in utter silence and they had to use showman skills to sell the power of the illusion and she wasn’t sure she could do it. In fact, she briefly spoke to potentially just quitting because of how out of depth she felt. Leaving all of us wonder, how she would do come showtime. A question that we had to wait to have answered since Frankie went first… and SLAYED. He was just simply sublime, making it seem as though, that was it. Lolo was done. But she wasn’t. Because she came out and held her own again and dug deep and found the performer within, making life quite difficult for the judges and Criss… since she did such an amazing job on stage.

Which of course, begs the question… did she win? Well… we haven’t spoiled the winner in this competition yet, and we aren’t going to start now. So, that’s as far as we go here because you need to see how it ends. But what we are going to do, is celebrate one epic episode. One that informed us that mixing it up when it comes to what kind of stars take the stage, only adds to the wonder of this competition. Because going head-to-head with a television icon, really pushed Lolo to give us her best, and she did, and that made for one satisfying competition. One that leaves us wondering, what kind of other unique matchups await us as season one of this delightful and entertaining show continues along. Until next time.  

---

Powered by JustWatch