‘The World’s Best’ Finale Recap: Who is The World’s Best?
CBS Reading Time: 5 minutes
We just saw The World’s Best finale, consisting of the remaining two divisional finals, the category finals, and the final head-to-head round between the top two acts!
Group Vairety Finals: Kukkiwon (South Korea) vs. Dundu Giants of Light (Germany) vs. Shaolin Yanze (China)
Kukkiwon showed some impressive skills in their previous performances, but this time they turned it into a full-on stage act with a set and moving walls. Using these, and of course their amazing martial arts skills, they created the illusion of a fireworks show. Afterwards, RuPaul told them he could watch it all day.
Dundu continued the stories told in their previous showings by having the couple they’d already introduced have a child. Throwing in an undersea aspect featuring some amazing jellyfish puppets really took this over the top. The act brought Drew to tears, but over on the wall, Sisco was so unimpressed he didn’t bother to give them any advice for improvement.
Shaolin Yanze decided to incorporate a storyline into their kung-fu routine for this round, as well as a couple of cool new tricks (spinning while attached to a suction cup, anyone?) to the delight of the judges. (Ru was even brought up for a fun demonstration!)
It was then revealed that Shaolin Yanze came in third place for the round. This was going to be a hard cut no matter what; all three acts improved on their previous performances.
Kukkiwon
Drew: 50
RuPaul: 50
Faith: 50
Judges’ Average: 50
Total Score: 83
Nina Conti
Drew: 50
RuPaul: 45
Faith: 50
Judges’ Average: 48
Total Score: 65
Advancing to the Finals and Receiving $50,000 US: Kukkiwon
Solo Music Finals: Daneliya Tuleshova (Kazakhstan) vs. Dimash Kudaibergen (Kazakhstan) vs. Lydian Nadhaswaram (India)
Daneliya kicked off the final category championship round with a cover of “What About Us” by P!nk. The judges continue to be in awe of her voice and performance level.
In the spirit of Hollywood, Lydian played a bunch of movie themes on the piano, including Harry Potter, Mission Impossible, Jurassic Park, and Superman. Afterwards, James got up and played a bit of movie music himself…the JAWS theme!
Dimash ended the round with another powerful performance, but in the most shocking moment of the season, he then announced his withdrawal from the competition in order to let the two children have a chance to move forward.
Faith, Ru, and some of the experts were very upset about this. (“This is BS!” cried Ru.) but ultimately, they couldn’t force Dimash to stay.
Daneliya Tuleshova
Drew: 48
RuPaul: 48
Faith: 47
Judges’ Average: 48
Total Score: 55
Lydian Nadhaswaram
Drew: 44
RuPaul: 40
Faith: 47
Judges’ Average: 44
Total Score: 87
Advancing to the Finals and Receiving $50,000 US: Lydian Nadhaswaram
Lydian was a bit of a dark horse in this competition, but he managed to pull through and last the entire season. Kudos to him for that!
Music Finals: Lydian Nadhaswaram (India) vs. Naturally 7 (United States)
Lydian started thing off by going back to focusing on the speed factor of his music. He played a very fast version of “Moonlight Sonata” on the piano, then headed over to the drum kit to “duet” with a playback of his performance, finishing off with a fun drum solo!
Naturally 7’s performance incorporated mimicking instruments with their voices, rapping, and, of course, singing some soulful a capella. After their performance Ru called them “superstars”.
Lydian Nadhaswaram
Drew: 50
RuPaul: 40
Faith: 50
Judges’ Average: 47
Total Score: 81
Naturally 7
Drew: 45
RuPaul: 50
Faith: 49
Judges’ Average: 48
Total Score: 64
Advancing to the Finals and Receiving $50,000 US: Lydian Nadhaswaram
The dark horse strikes again!
Variety Finals: Kukkiwon (South Korea) vs. Nina Conti (United Kingdom)
Kukkiwon scaled back the spectacle of their act, but made up for it by stepping it up with their skills (which is really the most important part anyway). They did some of their most jaw-dropping stunts yet and got a ton of well-deserved praise for it!
Nina brought back the monkey for this act and did a fun comedy act. Admittedly, it did feel like she was holding back a bit, but in terms of technical skill as a ventriloquist she’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.
Kukkiwon
Drew: 48
RuPaul: 45
Faith: 50
Judges’ Average: 48
Total Score: 78
Nina Conti
Drew: 45
RuPaul: 40
Faith: 45
Judges’ Average: 43
Total Score: 63
Advancing to the Finals and Receiving $50,000 US: Kukkiwon
THE FINAL ROUND: Kukkiwon (South Korea) vs. Lydian Nadhaswaram (India)
Kukkiwon has been amazing all season, but they put on one of their most epic performances of all by breaking boards midair jumping over walls, blindfolded, and finally, several all at once. It was short, but certainly packed a punch. Drew loved the story, and Sisco told them they made him regret not sticking with taekwondo as a kid.
For his final performance, Lydian played “Für Elise” and “Etude”…on two pianos…simultaneously. Nothing else needs to be said! Amazing!
Kukkiwon
Drew: 50
RuPaul: 50
Faith: 50
Judges’ Average: 50
Total Score: 63
Lydian Nadhaswaram
Drew: 50
RuPaul: 40
Faith: 50
Judges’ Average: 47
Total Score: 84
And with that, Lydian Nadhaswaram becomes “The World’s Best”! He had quite the journey on the show, going from child prodigy with a gimmick to proving himself as a multi-talented artist whose skills and achievements are very impressive for any age. Congratulations to him!
While Lydian is a deserving winner, the whole situation does have a bit of an asterisk beside it considering what happened with Dimash. We’ll never know how thing would have played out had he stayed (I think he would have been a frontrunner for the win) and his reasoning for dropping out sort of adds the connotation to Lydian’s victory of it being a result of him being a kid, whether or not that’s actually true.
This finale raised a lot of questions, with no clear answers, but we want to know what you think! Tell us i the comments how you felt about Dimash’s surprise withdrawal and reasoning for doing so, as well as the other performances and results of the night!
