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Fun fact: this is my first ever Eurovision blog post to surpass 10,000 words! The Word document containing this post has a grand total of 10,168 words, which is just insane, I know.
Introduction
After the low-budget productions of the two semifinals, it’s obvious from the opening act that the bulk of Israel’s funds for Eurovision went to producing the grand final. It starts with an opening film featuring Netta Barzilai flying an airplane commanded by Jon Ola Sand on the way to Tel Aviv.
Then comes a flag parade set to a medley of the host country’s Eurovision entries old and new, as well as a bunch of Israeli dance music that I assume is an original composition. I wish Portugal did some kind of medley like this last year, instead of constantly referencing “Amar pelos dois”. It features the instrumental of “Toy” from 2018, “Diva” from 1998, “Ey Sham” from 1973, and “Golden Boy” from 2015, as well as a song called “Tel Aviv” by Dana International. The flag parade alone is enough to tell the Israelis were absolutely joyed to host Eurovision again. The flag parade features a host saying welcome in each country’s language, then the country’s name in English. I wish the countries’ names were in their native languages, because it’s so weird to hear “willkommen, Germany”.
I didn’t discuss the hosts and postcards in the final, so I’ll do those now. After Ukraine said “men can host Eurovision too, let’s give us three dudes” and Portugal rebutted with “nuh-uh, four ladies are better!”, Israel gave us a gender-balanced quartet each of different ethnicities. Erez Tal is a Mizrahi Jew, Bar Refaeli is an Ashkenazi Jew, Assi Azar is a Yemenite Jew, and Lucy Ayoub is an Israeli Arab.
The postcards are the best of both worlds like last year, showcasing both the contestants and scenes of the host country, with the added twist of them performing dance routines set to a wide variety of music. They’re quite an extensive tour of Israel, a true showcase of the entire country! I’m thankful it’s not just Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, but single-city postcards can work: I’m quite fond of the postcards touring Gothenburg in 1985. This year has delightful postcards and they might be my second favorites ever, behind the flag postcards of 2014.
This is the first year where the voting sequence looks pretty much exactly as we know it today: the televote points are now delivered not from fewest to most televotes, but from bottom to top of the jury votes which is exactly the most exciting and logical way to do it. The only oddity in the voting sequence is that the countries started off in alphabetical order this year, instead of the usual running order.
I watched the grand final once more with Swedish commentary along with my friend Liv, then once more with German commentary alone.
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