Lunch break is over so we’re back here for part 2 of kitchen sink day!

Iceland
For all of the attention this received in the build-up, this is essentially exactly what it had always been. There are a lot of red lights and BDSM choreography and styling and there are some props – but nothing crazy. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about this – there has been a lot of fantastic camerawork for other songs, but this feels quite standard and unimaginative. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s one of those “fine for what it is but didn’t really push the envelope” things. Unlike Georgia, they also made no effort to make this accessible to anyone who is not really the audience of this to begin with.

They did opt for a full BDSM dancing crew instead of a backing vocalist, though, so the high pitched section still suffers a lot, being thin at its best and murdering my hearing at worst.

This will have its audience, and should probably still qualify in this semi, but I still have no clue why anyone thinks it’s more than a midtable finisher which might be amplified by some very creative PR. For what it’s worth, I do respect them for coming in and just doing their thing.

Estonia
Estonia managed to both overrun its time slot AND not actually have a full run through due to using green screen and overlaying effects. They spent most of their allotted time just taping segments for the green screen, and managed to sneak in one sort-of full run through but without the effects and the green screen bits out of sync. Can’t say much about this, really.

Portugal
Closing the middle session of the second day, our singer/dancer dynamic duo is dressed up in sparkly green and looks like rare plants with a very dark backdrop with red roses. It’s a mash of complete darkness, lot of wide and long shots and the concessional shot of choreography that looks a lot weirder than usually just because we spend so much time away from the performers and never get to follow the story all the way through. It got tedious to watch pretty quickly, not just for me but for everyone around me, and unless something dramatic happens in their next rehearsal session, this should safely do the normal Portugal thing and stay in the semi.

All images from eurovision.tv