It's Vegas week, which means the culling can begin. So all the dancers whom we've come to root for over the past few shows? Say goodbye, no matter how heartwarming your story! Heartstring-tugging time is over -- the dancers are going to be put through their paces by Shane, Mary, and Mia, and those who can't master the choreography are heading home.
The first challenge? Mastering some Shane Sparks moves. I discover that I really enjoy the nonsense syllables choreographers use when they're demonstrating moves. Boom! Kah-kah boom pah-pah!
We're told that a lot of dancers were liking their chances. But Olivia Usey is not one of them. To be fair, her dancing not only has to get her through to the round, but also cure her mom's cancer. Olivia gets almost as much screen time as Nigel does tonight. If I'm being honest, I think the ratio should skew a little more in her favour. Great. Now I'm the perv.
Anyway, we're adding choreographer Mia Michaels to the judges' table, and each dancer needs the OK from at least three of the judges to move on. If the vote is a tie, the dancer will perform a solo routine in his or her own style. "In effect, they will dance for their life," Cat tells us. Whew! Just when I was worried this show didn't take itself seriously enough!
Remember dance teacher Katie Watts and her student Ashley Keegan, who shop at the same booty-shorts store? They're gone. Remember Brianna, the perky blonde who became a woman on a cruise ship? Gone. Remember Myles Johnson, the heartthrob former quarterback rebuilding a strained relationship with his dad, who now loves his living gay son? Gone.
Michael and Evita, the Lindy hoppers? They gamely do their best to master a hip-hop routine. They're judged individually, but the results are identical. Nigel and Mary say yes, but Mia and Shane say no. Nigel says he's basing it more on what he already knows they can do (i.e. the old-timey Lindy hopping) than their hip-hop performance. They'll dance for their lives (we hear this enough times tonight to make a drinking game approaching the "Roxanne" drinking game in terms of its potential to kill you.
After some more screen time for Olivia, she gets three of four votes (Mia is the holdout) and moves on.
Dancing for their lives, Michael and Evita wear black-and-white outfits. This time, Mia sees their appeal, and calls them adorable, Shane likewise says yes. In all, 62 dancers don't make it through, though.
And now Mary's going to be teaching the samba. I image her interpretation has a lot of screaming and laughing in it. She also has brought along Dmitry from last season to help her demonstrate, and to serve as the Benjamin Braddock to her Mrs. Robinson.
Kaelyn Gray was at the Atlanta auditions with her husband and her adorable three-year-old son. Neither she nor her new partner, Jay Gamlin, have ever done any ballroom dancing. They get along famously during rehearsal, but when Jay gets cut and Kaelyn moves on, he cries and whines and throws her under the bus, saying he was dragging her across the stage. She overhears him saying so, and demonstrates a lot more class than he does (of course, that's easier to do when you've been successful). Later, he snaps at the cameraman to stop filming him. I don't know why he's bothering; since he's being booted from the show, being on camera's not something he's going to have to worry about much longer.
Pasha Kovalev, paired with the one-armed Janet Bombard, is in the first group. Pasha's unanimously through, as is Janet. Nigel says he keeps forgetting she's only got one arm. That used to be true of the drummer for Def Leppard, at least until that damn Bloodhound Gang song. We hear Cat say that "contestant after contestant" sambaed their way into the round, while the closed-captioning is a little more specific: Two-thirds of the contests are moving on. We see Olivia again, and a couple of others who I think I might recognize, but I'm not sure (a lot of these dancers are blurring together, and the show's not displaying their names on screen anymore).
On Day 2, the dancers will be doing some contemporary choreography with Mia Michaels, whom one of the dancers says is known for "bringing irrationality from the stars to physicality." I don't know what that means, but as Mia goes to work, I get a new choreographer sound: "Kun-kah!" "This is the hardest bleep I've ever done in my life," says, I think, Steven "Twitch" Boss. Jessi "Baby Oil" Peralta, I think, calls Mia a "gangster."
Yesenia Gomez is clearly struggling, in her group with Michael and Evita the Lindy hoppers. Michael is unanimously sent home. Yesenia looks horrible doing her routine, and gets blasted by Nigel, who says that up until now she's overcome her size, but this time she looked like a "lump bouncing around out there." Eva gets votes from Mary and Shane, so she's going to be dancing for her life again. Nigel tells her her personality is wonderful, but that's not always enough. Cat asks the two of them afterwards if it'll be weird for them if she makes it, after he got cut. Michael admits it'll be strange, but he's also sweetly encouraging to Evita, who starts crying. She wants it so bad, you guys!
D'Trix, Hok, Twitch, and Jamal are likewise dancing for their lives. Some new guy we haven't seen yet, Ricky Palomino, is deemed amazing by Mia. She loves him. She looks ready to jump him, and she says he's her favourite male competitor. He's a unanimous yes. On second viewing, Ricky might have been the guy babbling about Mia's irrationality turning into physicality. It's hard to tell. All white people look the same to me.
Dance for your life, Twitch! He's fantastic, freestyle. Mary's screaming by the end, which is kind of an unfortunate byproduct of great routines. She even turns around to yell at the other wannabes, "Take a lesson! THAT WAS ENTERTAINMENT." Some guy (is it D'Trix? They teased him just before the commercial break, but I've already forgotten what he looks like) who spins on his head for about twenty minutes is also through. "You're stupid!" says Mia, which is meant as a compliment, somehow. Hok dances to some Latin funk, which has the judges laughing and applauding, and it's a unanimous yes.
And then…Jamal. Oh, Jamal. It could have been so beautiful. Could have been so right. But we'll never hold what could've been, on a cold and lonely night. Jamal's decided to tap. To hip-hop music. It's not great, but gets worse when he kicks off the tap shoes, and continues to tap. In his sock feet. His last-second freestyling is the dancing equivalent of football's Hail Mary pass, but it's not enough. He's clearly running on empty. Shane looks almost pissed. Everyone tells him no, but Nigel gives him a special sendoff, extolling his personality.
Evita's dancing for her life again, and she gets to use Michael for some more old-timey dancing. But Nigel says, "I can't keep putting you through on your personality." Actually, last time he declined to put her through. But anyway. It's not enough this time, and Michael and Evita head off into the sunset to dance the Charleston or whatever on top of a flagpole, and then buy milk for two cents a gallon.
By the end of Day 2, only 63 dancers are left, and they get called back to the stage. Cat tells them the day isn't over yet; they're going to be put into 15 groups, get one of five random songs, and they have until tomorrow morning to choreograph a routine.
We see Faina Savich, Collette Williams, Michael Pasante, and Jaimie Goodwin. They're dancing to a little soul. Faina stars to lose her shit when she can't get it right away. And then it's 3:30 AM, everyone's ready for bed, but Faina has all kinds of questions about the routine, which frustrates the tired group, who feel she should have asked her questions before. To their credit, they decide to work through the night, so they're performing with no sleep. They don't seem very good to me, but I have no idea, and for all I know, I'm confusing "I don't like this kind of dancing" with "they're not very good." Michael gets only Shane's vote, but the girls get through. Michael screams and cries backstage.
Hanna-Lee, the dancer who survived the building collapse, has hurt her ankle. She's with Olivia Usey, Lauren Gottlieb, Kevin Hunt (the closed-captioning calls him "Kevin Hill"), and Dallas Blagg, and for some reason, the group decides to have both Kevin and Lauren work out the choreography. I suppose it's because they're dancing to hip-hop, which is the specialty of both Lauren and Kevin, but it makes for some head-butting during practice. Olivia, who maybe by now has figured out that the camera is seeking her out a lot, spends as much time as possible making Jim Halpert faces at the camera, and has a little temper tantrum. She says if she winds up going home because of this, she's going to be furious: "I'm going to be out of control, and I'm just saying it now." So, so pretty. So, so annoying.
Then, after all that, their hip-hop routine is pretty good, despite all the tension. I can't believe the editing on a reality show led me to believe one thing was going to happen, and then the opposite happened! Should someone notify the FCC? The group, with the exception of Hanna-Lee, gets sent through. Hanna-Lee will be dancing for her life. If this show feels any shame about its overwrought "dancing for her life" theme when this contestant ACTUALLY ALMOST DIED DANCING, it doesn't show.
Jessi Peralta, she of the baby oil and very literal choreography and strong resemblance to Evangeline Lilly, starts her contemporary routine folded up in a suitcase while the rest of her group writhes around the stage. Despite the judges' delight at Jessi's suitcase entrance, Nigel calls the routine a mess and says he can't give them any of them his vote. Mary says the exact same thing. And Nigel says if the other judges all feel the same way, the dancers will all dance for their lives. Wait -- if the other judges feel the same, shouldn't they all be going home? Anyway, Jessi pipes up, "I'd rather dance for my life than go home!" while the other dancers glumly wish they'd thought of something so steadfastly determined to say so quickly.
Hanna-Lee, backstage, is doing the best she can trying to come up with a solo routine on a bum ankle. Jessi Peralta dances to that Corinne Bailey Rae song again, but doesn't grease herself up this time, and to me she just looks like some stoned chick swaying in the crowd at a Lilith Fair show, but all the judges love her. This is why I think it's a problem that I don't know anything at all about dance. She's nice and fluid, but…yeah, I guess maybe I don't like this type of dancing. It bores me. But as far as her competence, I'm more than willing to defer to four industry folks who all love her.
Hanna-Lee does what seems to be an admirable job of dancing with a sore ankle, but this is the end of the road for her, thanks to Nigel and Mary. I kind of thought the work she's done on a lame ankle shows her determination and adaptability. Shane and Mia both vote yes, and Mia's quite complimentary, but it won't be enough for Hanna-Lee. Backstage, a teary-eyed Hanna-Lee says it meant a lot when Mia complimented her.
We're down to fifty dancers now, and up, tomorrow night, the dancers will be performing a solo routine that won't be critiqued (to their faces, anyway) by the judges. But after viewing the routines, the judges will knock the fifty down to twenty. This means: tears, screaming, and at least one performer who loses her will to live.