Episode Report Card Kim: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT That's Why They Call It The Blues
By Kim | Season 13 | Episode 12 | Aired on 10.25.2011
This is the first time we've seen Maks in an interview situation as Brooke is backstage with Rob and Hope and their partners. Rob babbles on and on about how he hopes he makes it through to next week. Brooke asks for Hope's take on last night's situation. Hope says that Maks is her teammate and she stands by him, and she loves opinionated people. Brooke downplays what Len said and asks Maks if the judges are allowed to have opinions. Maks says they are, and so is he. Brooke wonders if Maks had been feeling things for a while and finally vented, and Maks says that's definitely true, and then corrects what he said last night, explaining that he had an idea in his head and it came out wrong. He didn't mean to say that it's his show, because he's one part of an amazing cast and crew. I got that. I think he meant it's his show in the sense that he takes ownership of it, and feels personally involved in how the show comes off. He didn't mean the show is all about him and him alone, although he didn't express that very well in the heat of the moment. I still don't agree with him about Hope's scores - I thought they were fair. But I do agree that the judges are being more strict with some couples than others when it comes to scoring technique.
Tom cracks, "Damn, I was going to ask [Maks] for a raise." Oh, Tom. Never change. Rob and Cheryl hope that they did enough to stick around and then the weirdest thing happens. In mid-sentence, Rob just starts crying. Was it the emotional letdown after the dance? What in the hell was that? And it passes without comment. It was so sudden that I thought he was throwing up at first. Like he was just talking and then sputtered and put his head on Cheryl's shoulder. I had to rewatch three times to make sure it wasn't a joke. Weird.
Watching Hope's dance again, I totally see what Len was saying. Most of the time, she looks like a little girl trying to act fancy. I don't know if it's lack of confidence or lack of rehearsal and if she just can't dance, but it's not good. They show the whole Maks/Len debacle again, and we see the judges listening to Maks's interview afterwards as they are shocked to hear him say that it's his show and all agree that Hope's dance was awful. In his confessional, Maks is actually way more tame than I expected as he reiterates that Hope is being judged on technical things and others are not. Hope says that she's not a dancer so she's starting behind a lot of people Who? Rob? David? Nancy? None of them have any dance background. JR really doesn't either. I think the only one who does is Ricki, from being in Hairspray, and that wasn't ballroom. What is she talking about? She seems like she has a bit of a persecution complex and I don't think being partnered with Maks is helping, because he ALWAYS feels that way. She needs a partner like Derek or Tristan who would tell her to leave it behind and move on, and not dwell on whether or not it's fair.