Howie Mandel has his hand over the queen of hearts. Nine-year-old Shoji holds the queen of spades. Then Shoji blows on his card and shows the queen of hearts instead. Howie still insists he has that card, until he checks his own hand. He now has the queen of spades.
The pleasure of this America’s Got Talent collection is watching children put adults in that position: certain of what they have seen, then unable to explain what happens next. The young performers work with coins, cards, puppets and predictions. They also know when to pause, when to tease a judge and when to let an adult’s confusion carry the show.
Before Shoji reaches the judges’ desk, though, a 12-year-old from Paw Paw, Michigan, arrives with a pink puppet and a disagreement to settle.
Bryn Cummings lets her puppet take over
Bryn Cummings introduces herself as a ventriloquist. She says watching Darci Lynne on AGT inspired her to turn to her parents and announce, “That’s what I’m gonna do.” Asked about the million-dollar prize, she imagines touring, getting a tour bus and buying a bearded dragon. Her plans leave room for both a career and a pet.
Her puppet, Penelope, has a different plan for the audition. Bryn prepares to cue the music, but Penelope refuses to sing. They have practiced for weeks, Bryn protests. Penelope wants to try mentalism.
That argument gives Bryn two jobs. She plays the worried performer whose routine has fallen apart while giving voice to the partner who claims to know exactly what to do. Penelope tells her to approach the judges and check her pocket for a deck of cards. Bryn acts startled to find it.
Heidi Klum cuts the deck. Howie takes the top card, and Bryn turns away and closes her eyes. Penelope asks to see it, then claims she will send her thoughts to Bryn. Asked what comes to mind, Bryn answers, “A migraine.”
She then identifies a black card, a club, and finally the seven of clubs. The joke and the reveal belong to the same exchange. Bryn keeps the puppet’s bossy character intact even as she delivers the answer.
For the next test, Sofía Vergara takes something from her purse while Simon Cowell gets an object from someone in the audience. Terry Crews holds a blindfold up to the lights and says he cannot see through it, then puts it on Bryn. She identifies Sofía’s object as a cookie and Simon’s as an Apple Watch.
Penelope offers little help with Simon’s object beyond saying it can fit inside the room. Bryn has to pull an answer out of that useless clue while maintaining the fiction that her own puppet is making her life difficult. The routine depends on that relationship as much as on the hidden objects.
The judges praise her mix of ventriloquism, mentalism and comedy. Simon tells her that audiences want to see something “better or different,” and says she has delivered it. After four yeses, Bryn calls it “the best moment of my life.”
Shoji brings the magic within arm’s reach
Shoji, a nine-year-old from New York City, says he started magic almost three years earlier. His prize-money ambitions are smaller than Bryn’s tour bus: “Maybe buy some tacos and maybe a dog.” He specifies carne asada. When Simon asks whether he was born with magic powers, he answers yes.
At the judges’ desk, he begins by showing empty hands. He blows, and a coin appears. His explanation is that coins can be reduced to atoms and released. He makes the coin vanish and return several times, giving the judges repeated chances to watch his fingers.
Then he takes out a deck made by one of his favorite magicians, Shin Lim. That reference places Shoji among the young performers here who have watched an established act and begun building their own. Bryn names Darci Lynne; Shoji brings a favorite magician’s deck straight to the desk.
For the card exchange, Shoji asks Howie to say stop, then places the queen of hearts beneath Howie’s hand. Shoji keeps the queen of spades. When the cards appear to trade places, Howie has to uncover his own card to confirm the result. He becomes the person who verifies the trick.
The judges compare Shoji favorably with much older performers. He responds with a qualification: “I mean, I’m okay, but I’m not.” A judge encourages that room for improvement. After such a clean finish, his reluctance to accept the praise is almost as disarming as his entrance.
The voting gives him one more surprise. Asked how many yeses he needs to advance, he says three. He gets those, then a fourth. Shoji covers his face and cries. Backstage, he says, “I’m in a dream.” Terry assures him that it is real.
Ryland plants his answer before the choices begin
Ten-year-old Ryland, from England, says he has practiced magic since he was two. His father is a magician, and Ryland explains that his dad passed along some magical powers he no longer needed. If he wins, he plans to give money to his mother, sister and father, then spend the rest on Lego.
His routine requires more moving parts than a coin or two cards. He first hands the judges envelopes containing drawings and tells them not to look inside or let anyone else touch them. He then introduces a group of helpers wearing numbered shirts.
The judges choose helpers, numbers and positions for illustrated boards. Simon even gets the option to swap a position. Ryland keeps the process moving through each choice, then shows the unused drawings before turning to the selected four: a snake, a slice of lime, a house and mountains.
Each picture resembles a letter. Together, they spell “SCAM.” Ryland makes it the new magic word and asks everyone to shout it. The joke is unusually well suited to an act built around apparent freedom of choice.
Then he begins revealing how far ahead he claims to have been. The judges open the envelopes they received at the start. The drawings match. His helpers turn around to show another prediction on their shirts.
Ryland has saved the largest reveal for the judges’ own desk. After a recorded sequence of him inside the theater, ultraviolet light exposes “SCAM” written repeatedly across it. The judges have been sitting behind the final prediction throughout the act. Ryland adds a brief apology: “Sorry, Simon.”
From a covered card to a divided box
Later performers expand the scale. A young magician cuts through a cardboard box with a buzzing chainsaw, then separates the halves in an illusion that appears to divide his sister’s body. The visible movement in the separated sections supplies the unsettling finish. It is a very different demand on an audience from watching a coin vanish between small fingers.
Another act builds toward a purple octopus. Terry pops a green balloon, an octopus card falls to the stage, and Heidi pulls a plush purple octopus from a gift box. Hundreds of balloons then fall into the audience. By the judges’ response, Howie has the toy balanced on his head.
Elsewhere, Howie and Mel B struggle to lift a cardboard box from a table. The task looks ordinary enough that their failure becomes the spectacle. Across these routines, the children assign the adults work: cover a card, choose a picture, inspect a blindfold, lift a box. The judges’ attempts give the audience something concrete to test against the final reveal.
Watch the full video for those exchanges as well as the finishes. Follow Howie’s hand during Shoji’s card routine, Bryn’s argument with Penelope and the envelopes Ryland distributes before anyone chooses a drawing. Each performer sets the conditions early, then gives the judges a reason to check what they thought they knew.
