If someone had said eight weeks ago that I would still be following Fox's surreal breakout hit The Masked Singer up until the finale, I would have been... Well, not surprised exactly, because I love garbage television. But no one could have predicted that it would consistently carry between 7 and 9 million viewers a week through its finale, either, so here we are.

Now the competition has come down to Bee, Peacock, and Monster, and if anyone is acutely aware of how bananas that sentence is, it’s me. But I’m not sticking with the most insane show of 2019 because I’m dying to know who’s behind the masks—I’m sticking around because a part of my soul already knows. Somehow, in all of this madness, I’ve become intensely emotional about the resurrection of T-Pain’s music career. Stay with me. Listen to this performance, and welcome to the good fight.

The fans of The Masked Singer—which, again, are more numerous than you'd think—seem to have the final three masked performers narrowed down to their alleged personas. Peacock is allegedly Donny Osmond. The Bee is allegedly Chaka Khan or Gladys Knight, which is a shame because both of those women have done more than enough to not ever have to perform in a bee costume. But most importantly is Monster. This performer has somehow managed to take the most Dollar Store version of Monsters Inc. cosplay into something strangely endearing. His narrative has been a redemptive one, and if the internet's collective guess is correct, Monster is in fact T-Pain.

If T-Pain has somehow managed to put Jenny McCarthy and me on the same side of history, then what else can he do?

First things first. Every week comes with its own set of hints that could lead you to the truth. In Episode One, Monster gave us a clue: "I was on top of my game, but the game turned on me." That could easily be T-Pain, but the music industry has turned on a lot of people. He talks about growing up in the South (T-Pain is from Tallahassee), and that a lot of people don't see him as the real deal (he's gotten a lot of flack for having used so much autotune in the past). But in the penultimate episode of the season, Monster almost gave himself away, explaining that he's been waiting for this comeback for a decade and that he's been vilified for "sounding like a ringtone."

So now you're caught up—and I swear, if you haven't watched that damn video, scroll back up right now. I want you to cry with me. I want you to feel. Because in this insane world in which everything is problematic and bad and pessimistic and on the verge of being hashtag-cancelled, I want us to rally around this cast-off singer they've put in a monster suit with the hopes of winning us over. I mean, if T-Pain has somehow managed to put Jenny McCarthy and me on the same side of history, then what else can he do?

Let's venture back to T-Pain's Tiny Desk concert with NPR. The fact that this exists after years of T-Pain singing into a literal voice-scrambler makes me livid. I know that someone emerged from the garbage fire that was the early aughts and told T-Pain that he shouldn't be singing without autotune, and it all led to this. If we had been listening—you know, really listening—to T-Pain from the start, then maybe we wouldn't have had to shove him in this big dumb suit that some production assistant had to comb and style just so he could perform a Sam Smith cover. But maybe that's why we are here, watching The Masked Singer. In 2019, we need to be reminded of the good things we have; when the disguises inevitably come off and reveal that someone shoved 10-time Grammy winner Gladys Knight into a bee costume, we'll think to ourselves, Who have I been sleeping on for too long?

I love Gladys. I feel slightly more positive than lukewarm about Donny Osmond. But if there is anything good left in this world after Jenny McCarthy and Robin Thicke have finished their judging duties, the monster head will come off and reveal that it was T-Pain, and he will finally be the winner he deserves to be.

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