The Masked Singer is back and OH GOD WHAT IS THAT

Time, as reckoned by the horrifying creatures, living tacos, vaccine deniers, and other eldritch monsters of The Masked Singer franchise can be a tricky thing. How else are we to explain the fact that the show—which debuted back in 2019—is already gearing up for its fifth season, a relentless tide of B- and C-list celebrity singing that not even the literal infection of its literal host with a literal pandemic could stop. The Masked Singer is coming, folks, and there’s simply nothing we can do to—OH SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT

Uh, sorry, folks, didn’t mean to have an outburst like that. We just got a little, y’know, discombobulated by looking at, well *gestures upward*. We haven’t watched TMS in a minute, admittedly; has the game become not so much about guessing which Osmond is in which costume, as trying to figure out what the creatures are even supposed to be? (Cyber Woodchuck? RoboRoadkill? The Verminator?)

Some of the other designs at least look, you know, cool, like the firebird, or the disco gecko, or Ken Jeong 5.0. (And, hey: Even if it’s for a sad reason, we’ll always take more Niecy Nash.) But still: What is that? We can’t even make any more guesses, because we don’t want to look back up there. What if it’s looking back? What if it’s getting closer?

The Masked Singer debuts its fifth season, in all its “A Freak Like Me Needs Company” glory, on March 10.