Having been recruited to be on Cee Lo Green's team, Vicci Martinez was made to compete in order to move on to the round of audience eliminations. This was the first episode of NBC's The Voice with "battles," which I knew would be crazy, but I had no idea would be so genuinely perverse.

Two teammates stand in a Thunderdome-ish ring, forced to sing a duet. After they are done, their coach will decide who stays and who goes. The idea of competitively singing a duet against your partner is fucking bananas, and it made for real tension each battle (even though the choices coaches made were rarely surprising).

Martinez battled last, facing off against another soulful singer named Niki, and working with Pink's "Perfect." The night's earlier duets carried a palpable tension, but this one had so much good energy. Vicci and Niki supported each other, harmonized, backed off when the other would go for a run, and they even hugged afterward. Coach Adam Levine (of Maroon 5, yo!) said it was the best duet of the night, and I can't really disagree. Martinez is really bringing it on this show.

Cee Lo ultimately decided on Martinez, which was really thrilling to see. This means that, by my estimation, we won't see Martinez on the show again for about four weeks (the amount of time it will take for the teams to be whittled down to four members - then they'll face at-home voting).

So, until then, Tacoma.

INTERVIEW LINK: Vicci Martinez talks about being on The Voice