‘The Voice’ recap: Daniel Passino heads home as Top 9 move on

You had to feel for Daniel Passino of Team Pharrell, who was sent home by “The Voice” voters on Tuesday after barely avoiding elimination last week.

He’d clearly taken last week’s near miss hard and, perhaps to some degree as a consequence, hadn’t performed terribly well on Monday.

And then on Tuesday’s results show, even before he had even officially been remanded to the bottom two alongside Team Christina’s Nick Hagelin, Passino already sounded valedictory when Carson Daly asked him what he had learned from being on “The Voice.”

“I think this competition has taught me to surround myself with good people. I think that’s what Pharrell has basically tried to drill into me is that it really doesn’t matter how far you go in this competition. It doesn’t matter how far you go in anything because whatever happens was meant to happen,” he said. “And as long as you surround yourself with good people that are there to support you the entire time, you could fall off the side of a cliff but as long as they have your support and your love, it doesn’t matter.”

No, it didn’t make total sense, but what seemed clear enough was that Passino had spent time making peace with his imminent departure.

So it appeared had his coach, Pharrell Williams, who, when asked to explain why he had driven home to his team members the message that success didn’t happen overnight, took the opportunity to offer what may have been words of comfort for Passino in particular.

“Oftentimes … we want things to happen when we want them to and sometimes you’re selling yourself short,” he said. “You have no idea what is ahead of you.”

But Passino, like the rest of us, actually probably did have a pretty good idea of what was ahead of him: His number on “The Voice” was clearly up.

The rest of the results show, which included performances by the pop group DNCE and Season 8 winner Sawyer Fredericks and a tribute to the contestants’ and coaches’ moms (Happy Mother’s Day), seemed like a formality.

One by one, eight of the top 10 contestants were waved through to the top nine, leaving Passino and Hagelin behind to duke it out for the last spot via the instant save.

Hagelin looked like a serious pop star as he comfortably and commandingly strolled the stage and smooth-crooned his way through Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud,” flashing his winning smile.

Adam Levine didn’t even wait to hear Passino perform before throwing his weight behind Hagelin. It wasn’t just that Hagelin was talented and had been making consistent progress, Levine said, but also how “articulate and eloquent” he had shown himself to be earlier, when he had told Daly that he no longer thought of the show as a “competition” but rather as “development, an opportunity for me to refine my craft and for me to become a better artist.”

“I think you’re the one that should be moving forward,” Levine told Hagelin, before Aguilera appealed to Hagelin’s fans to vote him through.

Passino bore up under pressure and gave an energetic performance of Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk,” which seemed a rather random song choice for the occasion.

But even Passino’s own coach appeared to have given up on him, saying yes, sure, he hoped he moved forward, but whatever, he was “content” with Passino’s time on the show as it was.

By the time Daly moved to break for the pre-results commercials, in which viewers would tweet to save their preferred contender, Passino’s fate seemed more than sealed. He himself pointed to Hagelin, as if to encourage viewers to vote for his rival.

And vote for Hagelin they did. The results revealed in graphics during the commercial break ranged from 19% for Passino to 81% for Hagelin all the way up to 23% for Passino and 77% for Hagelin. It was hard to see how Passino would be able to bounce back from that in the final minute after the standings were removed from the bottom of our screens.

“If you haven’t already, you guys, please vote for this guy … #voicesavenick,” Aguilera urged, likely unnecessarily.

“If this is it, congratulations. This is the beginning your life,” Williams told Passino, just before Daly officially declared Hagelin the winner of the save.

Congratulations, Daniel. Good luck with whatever life brings you next.

Oh, and Nick? Congratulations to you too. Happy to see you come back next week to continue your development as part of the top nine.