Spoiler alert: This story contains some of the results from The Voice episode that aired September 29. You can stream this season with a Peacock subscription if you’re not caught up.
The Voice has been around for nearly 15 years, and it’s pretty typical for rules to be added and changed from season to season. For the current cycle airing in the 2025 TV schedule, the big twist involved Carson Daly, as he was given the Carson Callback card. The host took his newfound power out for a test drive in the Season 28 premiere, and now I’m furious that he was unable to help a different artist.
Justin Jenks knew his voice was going to be a surprise to The Voice coaches when he took the stage on the third night of Blind Auditions, but he definitely hoped for a different result. The 32-year-old put a unique spin on Marcy Playground’s “Sex and Candy,” but was unable to entice anyone to turn their chair. Michael Bublé and Niall Horan hung their heads in frustration when they saw Jenks, saying they thought they were listening to a duet. Bublé said:
Justin, please come back, because today there just happened to be an idiot sitting in my seat.
Reba McEntire echoed those thoughts, as she and Snoop Dogg admitted they thought Justin Jenks was a woman (Snoop even made the artist sing to prove he’d been the one uttering those high-pitched notes.) McEntire said:
I think you oughta come back, and maybe you’ll have four intelligent coaches sitting here instead of us.
This is quite upsetting, because this scenario is EXACTLY what the Carson Callback is for — to keep deserving artists from slipping through the cracks. The card was introduced on the first night of Blind Auditions, when the host got mad that nobody turned for Ryan Mitchell. The artist was invited to come back the following night to audition again with a different song, and he made it onto Reba McEntire’s team.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m super happy for Ryan Mitchell and hope he does well with the country queen. I’m just frustrated that Carson Daly has already used the only chance for anyone to save an artist for this whole round of competition.
What happened to the Coach Replay? I know I was on the fence about that rule when it was first introduced, but Justin Jenks is the proof I needed to see just how valuable it is. Now, instead of each coach getting to save one person they didn’t push their button for, only Carson Daly has that power to save one person. And he already did it in the season premiere.
Check out Jenks’ audition below and see if you agree he belongs on a team:
I’ll just have to hope that we see Justin Jenks again, and theoretically we might not have to wait too long. The Voice’s revamped Season 29 filmed its pre-taped rounds simultaneously with the Season 28 episodes we’re watching now, so maybe he just stuck around? Only time will tell.
Until then, I hope no more mistakes are made on the coaches’ parts, because there’s no Carson Callback to help them now. The Voice airs at 8 p.m. ET Mondays and Tuesdays on NBC and can be streamed the next day on Peacock.
