Episode Report Card Kim: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Perfect
By Kim | Season 12 | Episode 18 | Aired on 05.23.2011
Bruno thought her feet and musicality were great, but she looked at the floor instead of the audience at times. Carrie Ann mentions Chelsea but pretends like Kirstie was fine anyway. Len also says that they're both appealing, and thinks Kirstie was natural, though she could have been crisper. Scores: Carrie Ann 9, Len 9, and Bruno 9. I totally called it.
And obviously, Len went to visit Hines and Kym in rehearsal. The judges assigned them the quickstep as their do-over dance, and Len wants to make Hines's feet sharper. Len does a few steps in frame with Kym and it makes me wish yet again that we could see each of the judges do an entire routine with one of the pros. I would love that. Anyway, Hines's routine is great. Another great idea that I'll give the producers for free, though: show the previous routine right before we see the new one, so we can see the improvement. The footwork is on point about 99% of the time, and I love Kym's choreography. Holy crap, though. Kym is totally cross-eyed. What is going on? Is she having a stroke? It is FREAKING ME OUT! She's never been cross-eyed before. Are they going to mention it? Anyway, this routine would get a 9 any other week, but I bet this week it gets a 10.
Carrie Ann says that it was a lot of fun, and she can't believe his charisma. Len thought it was a vast improvement, but he doesn't think Hines is quite to Mirror Ball Trophy levels yet. Bruno disagrees, because he thought there was excitement and glitz, and he also can't believe Hines's charisma. Kym doesn't seem quite as cross-eyed when she's not dancing. Scores: Carrie Ann 10, Len 9, and Bruno 10.
And now it's time for the freestyles. I kind of hate the freestyles and here's why: the whole season has been about learning to do ballroom and Latin dances, and if the stars do well in that job, they get to stay. And now it gets to the finals, where we are saying to them, "Now we will judge which of the three of you has done the best job learning these dances." And in order to make that decision, we ask them to do a dance that is neither ballroom nor Latin. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I get that they are crowd pleasers. Actually, no, I don't get that. Are they? The show tells us that they are, but how do they know? Do people write in and say, "MORE FREESTYLES!" Anyway, it just seems counterintuitive is all.
So Mark and Chelsea, the rebels, are going first. In rehearsals, Mark is doing all this crazy choreography and Chelsea is just watching him going, "WTF?" She even rolls her eyes, which was awesome. And then Mark says, "It's so swag," as if I didn't hate him enough. He is the worst. EVER. At one point, they are practicing a spin where Chelsea has her legs on Mark's shoulders and he's totally pulling her pants down and doesn't know it and she's fighting desperately to pull them back up, which cracks me up. I saw Chelsea's underwear! So the actual dance starts with Mark and Chelsea riding in on a low rider bike for no apparent reason. And then they start dancing and it's a lot of lifts and spins and not much actual dancing. And then the lights go out and they have mini-lights on their hands and feet, which is kind of cool, and they are in perfect sync, although honestly, the choreography doesn't look that difficult. Says the woman sitting on her couch watching. Anyway, Chelsea's lights go out at one point and I don't think that was planned. It's fine. It's a very Mark performance, but I was kind of expecting more difficult choreography, like that I would go, "WHOA!" at one point. And I didn't. It could also be because they showed the biggest lifts in the rehearsal footage. They're totally going to get 10s, though.