After a montage of all our past winners -- hey, Lauren Sanchez, crowning Nick Lazzarini! -- the entire Top 20 is back for the opening round-off. Hey, Amber! Hi Amelia! Lookin' good, Matthew! Aw, Will! Aw, George! I love the routines and traditions of this show, I have to say.
Cat promises brand new group numbers, Carly Rae Jepsen, and both a male and female winner before the night is out. She also introduces our six jidges: Nigel, Mary, Tyce Diorio, Debbie Allen, Adam Shankman, and Lil' C. Those six have really solidified as the show's Council of Learned Elders, haven't they? My darling Debbie is dressed like a revival of The Wiz is imminent and they're casting the wicked witch and LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
Top 20 Group Routine (choreographed by Christopher Scott and Sonya Tayeh)
There is INSANE build-up to this routine, complete with, like, a trailer for it, plus Nigel pre-selling it as the best group routine ever on the show. Whyyyy does he do this? Why not allow the audience to be surprised by their reactions? He also mentions that the show won an Emmy for lighting over the weekend, but fails to mention that neither the show nor Travis Wall for Dancing with the Stars won for choreography (damn that Smash!).
The group performance itself is very cinematic, with the wind machine and the crazy (Emmy-worthy!) lights. The women are dressed in these dramatic long-sleeved dresses, while the men are in these flowy robe-type things. The movement is like Anna Karenina in a wind tunnel, all madly formal one moment and desperate the . I really wish they hadn't oversold it and made me constantly compare it to others. It's really great stuff.
As always, the judges will be choosing their favorite routines from the season to be reprised tonight. Starting with ...
NIGEL'S CHOICE: Matthew and Audrey: Contemporary (Travis Wall)
It's strange and a little sad to watch this after Matthew and Audrey flamed out so harshly. It still might be my favorite routine of the season, though.
What I Said Then: ... it is HOT AS SHIT, you guys. Their chemistry is off the charts. There's a thrilling dissonance to have such a high degree of sensuality in a routine that moves this quickly. Matthew and Audrey are moving all over the place, but they're never apart for longer than a heartbeat. Shades of Travis's Jeanine/Jason bit from Season 5. Audrey makes a lot of hay with how limber her legs are as she kicks into some SICK splits. Meanwhile, Matthew's lines are his strong suit; you could draw HIM like your French girls.
I stand by all of that. Also, Nigel totally mentioned the Jeanine/Jason dance in his introduction. Great minds, Nigel.
LIL' C'S CHOICE: Witney and Twitch: Hip-Hop (Luther Brown)
Hey, C. Missed you this season. I didn't recap this episode, and at first I didn't remember the routine, until I saw Witney with all that hair strutting to the front of the stage. DAMN, she really did have star power. WTF happened, America? Did you stop liking magnetic blondes all of a sudden?
DEBBIE'S CHOICE: Tiffany and George: Contemporary (Sonya Tayeh)
I feel like I need to mention Sonya's new Nelly Furtado bangs and plaid suit straight out of the Cher Horowitz collection. Anyway, George! Oh, George. I have missed George.
What I Said Then: Smooth and light and lovely and connected, all what Sonya needed from them. Both dancers display stunning control of their bodies, and there's an elemental connection between them. George is the real deal. He dances through his fingertips, through his toenails, a line that Nigel totally steals from me.
I've come around on Tiffany in a major way since that first routine. Still think George was the best of the two of them in this dance, though.
ADAM'S CHOICE: Cole and Lindsay: Paso Doble (Jason Gilkison)
Adam prefaces his choice by saying he's grateful we have this show, which is a sad reminder that the show has still not been renewed for summer.
What I Said Then: Cole is such an intriguing unknown quantity, with the martial arts background and all. Meanwhile, Lindsay is a poison that is inflicting Cole. In the routine! In the routine. On stage, Cole sure cuts a figure in his bullfighter's stance. This style fits really well with him actually. Lots of dramatic battle poses. As ever for a paso, the routine is dramatic as hell. Mary says it was Jason's best paso ever, and Nigel later agrees that it was the best of its genre ever on this show before. I'm not sure I was THAT blown away by it, but I can't find a whole lot of flaws in it either.
Sorry, still think the routine -- and Cole, and Lindsay -- doesn't live up to the hype.
TYCE'S CHOICE: Amelia and Will: Hip Hop (Tabitha and Napoleon)
When is Tyce going to just give up the ghost and pick one of his own routines? You know it's going to happen some year. Anyway, this is that alley cats routine set to The Cure song. As all great hip-hop routines are. New mom Tabitha is there in the audience for the first time since the baby. It's kinda weird that all these routines so far have been from Top 20 week, right? Can no one see past week 1?
What I Said Then: Tabitha and Napoleon call it "character-pop" from the break, so you know it's going to offend the hip-hop purists. Will plays Amelia's leg like a stand-up bass at one point, which is a move I have absolutely seen before and which makes this whole enterprise look like a rejected Stray Cats music video. What I haven't seen before is this insane lift that fools us into thinking Will just hauled Amelia up onto his shoulders by her leg. Amazing. Otherwise, the dance seems pretty retrograde, but the synchronization is on point. Still, it earns a standing ovation from the crowd and an all-time grosses comment from Kenny, when he tells Amelia that "If we had a kitty like you, we would play with you all day long." EW, KENNY ORTEGA!
It's really a very silly routine, and both Will and Amelia were much better on some of their other routines. Still love that lift, though.
MARY'S CHOICE: Chehon and Kathryn: Contemporary (Tyce Diorio)
Suddenly, this routine that was originally sold as being about generalized "tragedy" in the world is now explicitly about the Holocaust? (Or, per Mary, the "Hollycaust"...) This seems like serious revisionist history. I usually really like Tyce much better on contemporary, but this one never really connected on any level, big ideas or not. After it's done, we cut directly to Tyce and that ever-present PRAISE-ME FACE that, now that I've seen it, I can't un-see.
ELIANA'S CHOICE: Eliana and Alex: Contemporary (Stacey Tookey)
Oooh, I like this wrinkle of having a Dancer's Choice selection for each of the finalists. It's a nice window into the personality of the dancer, something that's been an issue this season. This seems like an obvious choice for Eliana, the first of her two collaborations with Alex and her first real triumph after breaking out of Cyrus's shadow.
What I Said Then: The dancing is humid and liquid and intense, but I think it was going for dangerous and sultry and it fell a bit short of that. Two delicious concurrent solos, but I'm not sure the chemistry was what it could've been.
I like it better this time around. The music really is such a huge part of the routine, and Eliana and Alex both really ride that wave. I think after having worked together again, their chemistry is even better this time. Afterwards, Nigel tells Eliana that she's his favorite, like, REALLY? WE HADN'T HEARD.
CAT'S CHOICE: Tiffany and Brandon: Disco (Doriana Sanchez)
Aw, leave it to Cat Deeley to go for the glitzy fun of d-i-s-c-o.
What I Said Then: ... disco is so often hard to evaluate. In particular, so much of the heavy lifting on this one is done by Brandon, or the outfit, or the camerawork. But Tiffany sells it. There are a few clunky transitions, but she pulled it together near the end and zipped through some hip-shaking. The lifts are all ostentatious and impressive, sure, but they're all spotlighted so much that they never surprise you. They feel a bit labored.
Sorry, I'm always going to go back to Brandon and Janette's disco and compare this one a bit harshly to it. And this one still feels labored in comparison. Not VERY much, but enough.
CHEHON'S CHOICE: Chehon and Anya: Argentine Tango (Miriam Larici
Leonardo Barrionuevo)
In the video package before the routine, Chehon talks about how he had to break through that emotional wall of ballet, ballet being the equivalent of a giant block of ice where dancers are imprisoned. It's an odd characterization that this show constantly returns to -- you should read this article by former TWoP recapper Sarah Blackwood about, in part, this very subject. Anyway, I'm proud of Chehon for showcasing ballroom in his encore performance, since he was so bedeviled by it during the season. And Mary's so proud of him too, which is the more important thing. I should also note that Mary is wearing a giant poinsettia on her shoulder, and good for her.
The group performance is a Hip Hip Showcase, featuring Twitch, Comfort, Cyrus, and Christopher Scott. The concept is that they're four card sharks engaged in a pitched game of poker. Right near the beginning, they do a human freeze-frame effect, as the camera does a 360-degree pan around them, and OH MY GOD THAT WAS SO AWESOME. I actually had to pause the TV and have a private little freak-out. They're all dressed sharply as casino dealer types and the animation is SEVERE and so fantastic. I have to once AGAIN stop and freak out after Cyrus and Christopher do a little hand-choreography segment -- I looooove some hand choreography. Holy fuck, that was amazing, the whole routine. I think I'm okay with Cyrus winning now. Sure, he's a one-genre wonder, but if his one genre can give us THAT, it's every bit as wonderful as Chehon's best contemporary/ballet routines. Good for him.
TIFFANY'S CHOICE: Tiffany and Ade: Contemporary (Mandy Moore)
There was some debate online tonight as to Tiffany's best routine. I'd say it was her jive with Benji, but this is her home style, so I get it. It's kind of a standard romantic contemporary, but she dances it so well. Afterwards, Tiff looks like she's got a mark on her forehead from a bump or something, and since she's also emotional about the occasion of being in the finals, it all adds up to her looking quite distressed. After she gets her compliments from the judges, Cat whispers "you did good," which is exactly why I love Cat.
Throughout the show, Cat presents the top 5 moments from the auditions:
#5: Heavy LeRoy, the after-school programs, dude.
#4: That mom with the adorable two kids.
#3: The Ninja Twins, who said their father gave them a choice between dance and sports, and they chose dance because they're fabulous.
#2: Mary's dramatic reaction to that Exorcist dance (I still really like it, as overwrought as it was).
The #1 moment is given to Dragon House, who get to showcase their stuff on stage, joined by perennial SYTYCD favorite Brian Gaynor. Cyrus doesn't perform with them, but they really make the most of their spotlight. They're so musical in their trickery, I love it.
Carly Rae Jepsen does NOT perform "Call Me Maybe," which I guess if your good news if you're sick of that song, which I am NOT. The new song, "This Kiss," is okay, I guess. I was mostly scanning the backup dancers for familiar faces. I think it was just Nathan Trasoras and Ryan Ramirez, and good for them.
CYRUS'S CHOICE: Cyrus and Twitch: Animation (Christopher Scott)
What I Said Then: Due to Cyrus's expert level at this style, I'm almost watching Twitch more to see how he's doing with this style. I'm so proud of Twitch, you guys! (Also, hi, Twitch managed to get good at the other styles during his season, so you know why I am expecting more of Cyrus.) The two men have insane control over their bodies and they earn a standing O. Their support for each other is awesome.
This was only last week. Can't say I expected my opinion to change much. Nigel tells Cyrus, "You stole the season," which is actually true, though not the purely positive statement Nigel thinks it is. He urges Cyrus to keep learning other styles and grow into a multi-faceted dancer, which I'm not sure ever really happens with the dancers on this show, and I think if anybody's going to do it, Cyrus hasn't shown much promise in the other styles to be the one to break out.
The second big group routine of the night features the Season 9 Top 10 + the All-Stars in a hip-hop routine by Tabitha and Napoleon. The All-Stars on hand: Comfort, Twitch, Alex, Ade, Allison, Melanie, Kathryn, Marko, Brandon, and Anya. The concept is pretty much summed up by the music: the District 78 remix of "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King. It looks like a lot of fun, with tons of jungle movement. It makes me wonder why hasn't someone created a Broadway show -- a real Broadway show -- for these kids, because I would see the hell out of that. Marko does an awesome cheetah leap over two dancers at one point, in my favorite move. It's interesting to watch NapTab trying to wrest the hip-hop choreography crown back from Christopher Scott. I'm not sure they have yet.
Time for a winner! Or two winners! The girls are up first, and the pre-announcement montage leaves both women in tears. Cat announces that ELIANA is the winner, and she immediately drops to her knees, which: girl, I love you, but you can't be THAT surprised. Nigel's been touting you as the winner since like Top 16.
The outcome of the Guys' competition is a bit more in doubt, though I still firmly think Cyrus is the favorite. But when Cat announces the winner ... it's CHEHON! That darling boy! I'm sorry, I just love Chehon so much, and it seemed for so long that America just wasn't catching on to him. Hey, go TEAM BALLET! Two ballet winners! Oh man, you had to see Alex Wong LEAP into Chehon's arms once they allowed the other dancers to storm the stage. I have never once doubted the honest love the dancers on this show have for each other, and watching them assemble a scrum of love and support for Chehon and Eliana (and Tiffany and Cyrus and Cat Deeley) in the middle of the stage makes me so happy as the season comes to a close.
I love this show so much, you guys. I love every dancer who ever crossed that stage, even the ones I didn't. They made me believe in art and beauty right there on fucking FOX primetime. I don't know if it's coming back. I don't know if that confetti-strewn shot of Will lifting Cat Deeley off her feet is the last I will see of this show I adore. If it is, I guess I should say thanks. If not, I'll see you all summer.
Joe R is going to need a moment. Questions, comments, and unadulterated love can be sent to him at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.