The season finale of Dancing with the Stars is tonight, so the three remaining pairs (Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough, Kyle Massey and Lacey Schwimmer, and Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas) each performed two dances: a “redemption dance,” which gave them another shot at a routine they did poorly with earlier on in the season, and a “freestyle dance.” Let’s start with the “redemption dances.”
Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough gave the paso doble another shot. The first time she performed it, she looked lost and seemed to make a mockery of the dance itself. Carrie Ann Inaba rightfully called her “out of control” and “disjointed.” So when they were rehearsing for the redemption round, Carrie came in told Jennifer to stop dancing inside a box. When the time came for them to dance in front of all three judges, they really did give a superb performance. They were rewarded with a perfect score that won’t matter because Tea Partiers have those big monster cell phones from American Psycho will crazy texting (and therefore, voting) abilities.
Kyle Massey and Lacey Schwimmer were asked to do the foxtrot for their redemption dance, which the first time around, was a horrible something vomitous from the 70s that I really enjoyed. They decided this time around, they were going to class it up, and were visited by Len Goodman, who gave them the harshest score the first time around. Len told Kyle not to be slow when he’s supposed to be quick, and not to be quick when he’s supposed to be slow. When they did the real dance, it was good…but pretty boring to watch. They got 27 points.
Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas did the Jive for their redemption dance, as the last time they did it they wore monkey suits. To help her succeed, Bruno stopped by and coached her on how to avoid making the same mistakes she did last time, but she really only learned how to say in a nice way that she has a boring personality. Her performance was not anything to do anything over because she’d clearly rather stay in her hole than come out shimmy like her kid just became an Alaskan clam. They got 27 points.
In terms of the freestyle dance (which is always the last dance the audience watches before voting for the season’s champion begins), Jennifer said in rehearsal that she refused to do anything that lifted her off the ground because she was afraid of re-injuring her neck…even though the whole point of the freestyle dance is to stun viewers with tricks and spins. But of course they did some tricks, which got them another perfect score because of how fun it was to watch. They really deserve to win. It’s sad that they won’t.
Kyle’s freestyle dance was fantastic, and I’m going to do it at my wedding. They got 29 points.
And finally, Bristol Palin‘s freestyle was a recreation of the Cell Block Tango from Chicago, which Bristol had never seen nor heard of. She had a really hard time during rehearsals because she felt defeated and had no frame of reference to perform the dance, WHCH WAS EVIDENT BY HER NON-MOVEMENT. Bruno complimented them for aiming so high, which was a very nice way of telling them to stop applying to Harvard when they barely have the grades for Penn State. They got 25 points.
So who’s going to win! Let us know in the comments!
