Spoilers ahead for the February 6 episode of America's Got Talent: All-Stars.
The best of the best of the AGT franchise have returned to primetime in America's Got Talent: All-Stars, and the star-studded season saved some of the most talented acts for the very last night of auditions. Sure, the final night of auditions also brought back some acts (including Sethward, who has come a long way from flashing the judges as a caterpillar man back in 2018) whose odds of making the finals weren't the best, but with former champions on the stage and no golden buzzers left, the competition was stiff. Still, all that Season 14 winner Kodi Lee needed to secure a spot in the finals was a piano and a few minutes in the spotlight to blow the judges away!
Kodi Lee, whose Season 14 victory seemed all but inevitable from his debut appearance and golden buzzer from then-judge Gabrielle Union, chose to cover Calum Scott's "Biblical" in his first competitive return to AGT, and I can't be the only one who fully expected him to win the night after watching! Take a look:
Kodi Lee didn't seem to be in need of a confidence boost, but the crowd chanting his name before he even played his first note on the piano probably didn't make him feel less supported! Even the judges, who have repeated time and time again in All-Stars that voting is up to the superfans rather than them, seemed ready to just give him an honorary golden buzzer for the heck of it after he blew them all away. They were out of golden buzzers after giving singer Tom Bell the group buzzer in the previous episode, and Lee didn't end up needing it.
In any other episode, history-making Season 16 champion and spoken word poet Brandon Leake (whose daughter even came on stage to raise the cuteness level) or Season 16 standout standup comedian Josh Blue might have sailed through to the finals, and they were both in the Top 3 with Kodi Lee. But, as Simon Cowell commented to fellow judges Heidi Klum and Howie Mandel, Lee is just "in a different league" than everybody else. I would say that the other finalists should start worrying about Lee as the competitor who might easily win the entire season!
Of course, this wasn't Kodi Lee's first return to the AGT stage since winning Season 14, as he has appeared as a guest in the years since. But he said "Heck yeah" to the possibility of winning again, and now is one step closer to becoming an AGT champion for the second time. Interestingly, he also performed a cover rather than his new single, called "Hello World." Original songs can do quite well on AGT, as proved just last year with acts like country singing trio Chapel Hart and singer Drake Milligan (who surprised Simon Cowell by not quitting the competition).
It's impossible to say that Lee would do better with his own single, considering that he's headed to the finals, and voters will have the chance to help him change the world all over again! With Kodi Lee's advancement, the last of the finalists has been decided. He'll go up against Bello Sisters, Light Balance Kids, Aidan Bryant, Detroit Youth Choir, Avery Dixon, Mike E. Winfield, Power Duo, Aidan McCann, Ana-Maria Mărgean, and Tom Ball. Keep tuning in to NBC on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET for updates in the very first All-Stars season of America's Got Talent, and revisit past episodes streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription.
