Reality Roll Call

By Lakiya Emerson

This week’s nine couples must reveal their partner’s best and worst qualities during their montages, but before I get into who is crushing on whom, I have to point out the fact that the judges have made a few color changes. Mia Michaels has dyed her hair platinum and Mary has dyed herself orange. Combined with a leopard print off the shoulder top and huge gold and black beads that practically swallow her neck, Mary is looking like a cougar at happy hour, but not in a good way. In fact, at one point I was pretty sure her boobs were going to lose circulation.

Moving on, the first couple to perform was Thayne and Chelsea, who I’ve finally decided is a dead ringer for actress Kerry Washington. Chelsea’s best quality is that she’s positive and, her worst quality is that she falls asleep whenever Thayne needs her to practice. Thayne’s best quality is that he’s always in a good mood, which can also be annoying. However, more annoying than his perpetual good mood are his superstitious tendencies. Thayne knocks on every piece of wood available to diminish the possibility of choking during their performance, but all that knocking was for naught.

Let’s start with the problem of the costumes. Choreographer Mandy Moore had created a story line based on the romance between a king and his lover. Wardrobe dressed Thayne in an 18^th century dandy/Pirates of the Caribbean-style garb, with a white ruffled v-necked shirt under a black and white striped vest and tights. Chelsea (poor, poor Chelsea) had one of those 16^th century style neck ruffles, a black and white striped vest, and black panties with a white bustle—and one thing this girl doesn’t need is a bustle. When the judges weren’t totally distracted by the costumes, they talked about the fact that the dance wasn’t well executed. Mia said Thayne looked dumpy, Mary said she was moving them from her hot tamale train to the caboose, and Nigel said Chelsea’s ruffle made her look like a clown—her awful pink make-up didn’t help.

Mark and Chelsea do an Argentine Tango, but first he tells the audience that Chelsea is allergic to him and she says she’s weirded out by how close and intimate they have to be in the choreography because, she says, “he’s kind of like my big brother.” Mark says he likes the intensity of the dance. The judges like it too. Mia says she’s in love with the two of them as they combine beauty and quirkiness. Mary calls it fantastic, saying Chelsea’s leg action was phenomenal and that Mark, who was wearing a black satin suit and had slicked back hair, looked like a movie star. Nigel says Mark was perfect, but that he wasn’t overwhelmed by Chelsea’s performance. He said she should have been more sleazy. I’m sure that’s the first time she’s ever heard that. I must add that Chelsea’s toe slipped out of her shoe, and Cat kneeled in her dress (which had an aggressive mammal looking thing eating her legs) and fixed the shoe’s strap so that her toe returned to its rightful place. Very cool.

Jessica says about her partner Will that his focus is his best quality, but sometimes he’s too serious. Will says about Jessica, that she laughs and likes to have lots of fun, but her self-confidence is easily shaken, despite being a great dancer. Indeed, in last week’s show she talked about not being sure she was good enough to even be in the competition. After her performance this week (and the judge’s reaction), I’m sure Will is going to have an even harder time convincing Jessica she’s good enough. They do a hip hop routine by choreographers Olisa Thompson and Cicely Bradley. The routine is a mix of hip hop and pop and lock, set to Nicole Sherzinger’s song Whatever You Like (which has got to be the biggest waste of singing talent ever). The crowd loves their performance. Mia calls the choreography ridiculous and tells Will he’s phenomenal, which even Cat had to point out is a serious honor. Mia is a tough judge and she went back into character when she tells Jessica that she performed like a cheerleader. Mary calls Will a dancing machine but tells Jessica that she needs to step it up. Nigel says he thought Jessica did a good job, and then bounces in his seat, and throws up what appears to be a West side symbol. I swear he did.

Kourtni and Matt were next. Matt is enamored with Kourtni’s body, and Kourtni is enamored with the fact that Matt is enamored. Jean-Marc Generoux choreographs a foxtrot for them that was worthy of an MGM musical. Mia thought it had a great Hollywood ending. She said Matt was amazing, refined, and elegant but that Kourtni didn’t own her size and relied too much on her ability to put her leg in the air. (I’m sure there are a few “dancing” establishments who wouldn’t mind that). Mary said she loved the choreography, but she was slightly disappointed in the performance. Nigel tells Matt that he’s very strong to lift Kourtni (which was a serious back-handed compliment at the girls’ expense), but that he’s too soft in his arms and he seems a bit twee. Nigel adds that their faces looked fake and proceeded to jut his teeth out in the ugliest fake-movie smile I’ve ever seen.

Gev has a crush on Courtney, unfortunately she has a boyfriend, but hasn’t stopped anyone before. Courtney says she likes how hard working he is, but she doesn’t like the fact that when she wears heels, she’s the same height as he is. Mandy Moore creates a contemporary dance based on another love story. It’s beautiful and puts a knot in my stomach. Even Cat says she has chills, but Mia says that Courtney needs more organic purity (whatever that means) and that she was leading like a man—though I must note that Gev was doing all the lifting. Mary gives her first real scream of the season and Nigel says they fit each other, though he didn’t really believe the emotion. He said Gev has more emotion for her outside of the dance than within the dance. Yeah, it didn’t make much sense to me either, but I figure it has something to do with Gev’s crush on Courtney.

As Katy and Joshua prepare to do their Broadway dance routine, Joshua talks about Katy’s great smile and weird nervous dancing ticks, and Katy complains about Joshua’s nitpicking. Their performance was a Vaudeville based routine choreographed by Ty Pennington, and it involved a lot of running and jazz hands among other things. The judges love it. Mary adds them to the “tra la la” section of her heart. Nigel screams “That’s what I’ve been waiting for.” He then proceeds to say, in a seriously heavy accent, “he’s a poopper doing brrrooaadway.” You had to have heard it, it was pretty funny. Mia calls Katy and Joshua’s chemistry amazing and says they’re a force to be reckoned with.

Both Marquise and Susie like each other, but Marquise is always eating stinky chips and Susie’s ratty hair is always smacking Marquise in the face. They get to do a salsa choreographed by Alex Da Silva who is truly excited to work with them until he starts working with them. Marquise is of Puerto Rican decent and Susie is Cuban, but like a true American, Marquise only speaks English, and Susie, apparently, only does street salsa. Alex is disappointed. To say Susie is daunted by the choreography is an understatement and during their performance, not only does the couple display a stunted chemistry, but none of the fire that got Susie on the show is on display. The judges pan their performance and talk about how disappointed they were. Susie looks as though she’s ready to cry.

Twitchington are next and their montage is full of jokes, as usual. They dance a Viennese Waltz by Jean-Marc Generoux whose daughter, sadly and ironically, has lost function of all her motor and speech skills because of Rhett Syndrome. He feels the song A New Day Has Come by Celine Dion reflects his daughter’s story and tells Twitch and Kherington that even though his daughter cannot move, she loves to see others do so. Not only is the choreography beautiful, but Twitchington float through it with the ease of a couple who are truly passionate about what they’re doing. Cat said Kherington looked like Grace Kelly, but not everyone was happy with the performance. Mia took five minutes to say that she was annoyed by the fact that Kherington smiled the whole time. Nigel corrects her by saying that the dance was about uplifting Jean-Marc’s daughter. Mia proceeds to put her foot in her mouth for another five minutes by responding that basically she’s entitled to her opinion and she felt like smiling through the entire performance took away from the gravity of the situation. Cat diffuses the situation, and displays why she’s such a great hostess, by asking Jean Marc about his intention. Jean-Marc very kindly indicates that Mia is wrong and that he intended for the dance to be a happy one. Mia finally shuts up, giving the other judges to gush over Twitch, and tell Kherington she’s beautiful.

Comfort, who is versatile but talks too fast, and Chris, who is humble but sweats too much gave the final performance. They do a lackluster Krump routine by Lil’C. I seriously think the judges were too scared to say that the choreography was not good. They were probably trying not to burn a bridge, but they really might need to break out the lighter fluid on this one. Unfortunately, since they couldn’t call out the fact that Lil C, who annoyingly wore sunglasses throughout the entire segment (seriously, no one should be wearing sunglasses at all times unless they’re blind) Chris and Comfort bore the blame for not “hitting it” enough. There was a bit of banter where Mia called Chris out on his “white boy moments,” but I think Chris did a good job for someone who had never even heard of Krumping. Though, I must share the funniest part of the night. Nigel says his granny is more “gangsta” than Chris, and then proceeds to stand up tp demonstrate proper crotch-grabbing technique. He said it looked like Chris was telling his mother he’d gone “pi pi.” Yes, Nigel get’s a bit more crunk each year.