Aw Shucks and All-Star Anya: cha cha. Anya’s makeup is horrendous. Kent started dancing this with some genuine Latin flavour and then suddenly it just all went away as he stopped dancing from his hips, which is disappointing because there have been many more cha chas on SYTCYD which have been far more complex than this one. He also really fucked up that last final big lift by not letting Anya down easily. Mia complains that Kent still has dorkface, to which Kent basically says “but I like having dorkface.”
Robert and All-Star Kathryn: contemporary. Nice little reversal by Stacey Tookey having the girl be the going-away soldier rather than the guy. Anyway, this was quite excellent, and really the biggest single justification for the All-Star concept is getting to see Kathryn dance basically every week, as she is probably the dancer most unfairly excluded from the finals in the show’s history and is awesome. Robert was good in his usual forgettable way. This was good. Really, I don’t have much else to say here.
Adechike and All-Star Courtney: jazz. This was great fun, not least because I can’t recall at present the last time a jazz routine was actually danced to jazz music on this show. Adechike outdanced his partner for what I think is the first time all season, continuing his general trend of steady improvement. Inventive choreo from Tasty, too.
Not Legacy and All-Star Comfort: hip-hop. So that’s two-for-two with Jose dancing hip-hop with Comfort and not doing it very well, which is doubly bad because Comfort, unsurprisingly, nailed it. Nigel explains that Jose hasn’t been in the group routines because Jose has injured his groin, which makes this approximately four billion injuries this season.
Lauren and All-Star Allison: Broadway. Oh, Tasty Oreo, why must your Broadway choreo be so boring? It’s like the moment somebody says “imagine this is on a stage in New York City” he turns into Dark Tasty. Anyway. Predictable, unremarkable choreography, danced very well, which was expected.
Billy and All-Star Ade: contemporary. Ade only did two big lifts in this routine. I believe that is a record low for him. Genuinely fantastic work from all concerned; Billy hits his high point with this. Stacey Tookey is having an excellent night, isn’t she? Nigel explains that not eliminating injured Billy last week was the right call. Ashley, sitting somewhere else, swears at him.
Aw Shucks and Not Legacy: Broadway. Kent’s dorkface was in full display here, which was really the only complaint one can make about his dancing. Jose was honestly quite good as well, not as good as Kent was, but of course this was quite in Kent’s wheelhouse and not in Jose’s. (Jose’s wheelhouse is basically nonexistent.) Jose genuinely is improving as a dancer all around; now he’s at the point where other dancers get eliminated from the top 20 in the first week. Spencer Liff’s Broadway is about ten thousand times better than Tasty’s.
Lauren and Adechike: foxtrot. Finally a foxtrot! And… not a very good one, to be honest. Lauren postroutine looks like she is going to collapse, and if Lauren has to leave the show because of an injury then I am just not gonna watch the rest of this season because whoever wins (IE, Kent) will have basically an asterisk over their victory forever, because they didn’t beat Alex, Ashley OR Lauren.
Billy and Robert: Bollywood. Boy I sure am glad Billy’s knee injury healed up totally after one week so he could dance this. It is like a miracle! (No, not really. He was limping afterwards.) The dance was good; I think Bollywood routines get overpraised because the judges don’t really know how to judge them, and this is no exception, but it was fun and there have been many worse Bollywood dances on the show.
Should go home: Jose and Robert.
Will go home: Jose and Adechike.
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Can’t really disagree with you on anything here. What sets Tyce’s Broadway apart from Spencer Liff’s (in a bad way) for me is the absolute lack of intention–it’s a storytelling style, supposedly, and I can never get just what damn story he’s trying to tell. This week’s was no exception, though he at least does seem to have finally figured out: “Oh wait, even girrrrlz like Alison and Lauren can probably do back-flips and such, though of course not as well as BOYS do.”
I thought Lauren’s dehydration actually became apparent about halfway through her broadway number. Glad to see her already out of the hospital and ready to do a solo last night. I do like her, but I thought she got some of the less memorable dances of the season last night (that broadway number — ugh), so coupled with being dehydrated, it’s no wonder she was in the bottom.
I kinda feel badly for Billy, though, ’cause it was his best night yet. His Stacey Tookie number with Ade was as good as any dancing I’ve seen on this show. It really should have been either Adechike or Robert who went home instead of him. I so much appreciate Billy for breaking from contemporary dogma and doing solos to music other than Sarah McLaughlin or Maxwell.
It’s funny that Mia keeps harping on Kent for pulling his face, but around my house the one with the nickname “Smiley” is Robert. Speaking of, what was up with Robert’s cheesy shock-face at being safe? That boy need to turn down the melodrama dial about 6 notches.
On a lighter note, although the wildly popular contemporary sub-genre named “Cancer Dance” was absent, its lesser-known distant cousin, “Called to Active Duty,” made sure the contempoary dance gods will be somewhat placated for at least one more week.
(BTW, did anyone else, upon seeing Thursday’s group number was a table-and-chair dace set to an old Police song, assume it was from Mandy Moore and not Mia? Quite lovely, that dance was, regardless of who choreoed it.)
Actually Kathryn wasn’t excluded from the finals of her season she finished third behind Jacob and Russell… but I thought she certainly could have won that season, but a lot of talented female dancers get underrated (yes I’m still bitter Kayla isn’t an All-Star).
I think the problem with Billy is that so few dancers are in his league, that he has a problem connecting with his fellow dancers. His best routines this season (including Rich Man / Poor Man) all had large portions where Billy was essentially doing a solo.
It seems obvious that Kent will win, he’s just too popular not to, but there’s definitely going to be an asterisk since both Lauren and Ashley got hurt.