Aliens and Vampyres and Ballerinas - OH MY!

Fi-fucking-nally!! It is about DAMN TIME this season started living up to its predecessors. Last night was just the epitome of what this show is about: Mia Michaels' guest jidgeship, Cat's frilly pink frock, amazing dances with STORIES, sigh… In one fell swoop, it made up for last week. And every shitty dance in the weeks before that.

Of course, about 0.0003 seconds after introducing Mia as the guest jidge, Cat… and Nigel… and Mary… and, let's be honest, America asked Mia if her opinion had remotely changed about *ahem* any one of the contestants. All of this was not only blatantly obvious/searching, but completely unnecessary since it was going to be addressed in mere minutes, as Brandon David and Conchita Marinara were the first to go on the stage…

[Brandon and Janette]
Brandon Davey and Chili Pepper got a Cha-Cha-Cha (yes, third "Cha"). Before we got to rehearsal, we learned that this was the week for reflection… because, apparently, this season's audience is filled with goldfish and need to be taken down the long journey of THREE WEEKS. Luckily, I was too busy getting my nails did when the show actually aired, so I had the luxury of ffw'ing during all of this exposition and memory and heartache and lows and highs and when will they just shut the hell up?! But then we finally got to rehearsals, where the choreographer, Jean-Marc Généreux, and his wife, Marie Antionette meets Run Lola Run, proceeded to make sexy time in front of me. The dance itself, despite being a CHA-CHA (3 "Cha"s is excessive, Wikipedia can suck it) to the PUSSYCAT DOLLS, was probably one of the best routines in the season, thus far. BranDave was all masculine and winking and there was something good happening with his carriage that I'm sure someone qualified could tell you. Nigel thought it was the jam, Mary thought it was the jam, J-M Gén thought it was the jam, and - GASP! - Mia liked it! She really liked it! She also fed BD some Jedi master/Padawan learner shit - he ate it up and cried like the blubbering lady we know he is.

[Kupono and Kayla]
Ohhhhh my god, if I was the sort of person that said "the tits," I would SO describe this performance as such! Everything was just PERFECT for me! Firstly, Kayla is amazing and the best thing to happen to blondes' credibility since… well, I'm sure someone can comment me a credible blonde. Then they picked Sonya! Sonya is the epitome of why dancers need to never open their mouths. Her work is ri-goddamn-diculously wonderful, but when she speaks/ogles contestants auditioning, I just to curl up into a ball of second-hand embarrassment. The piece was "vampyyyre-themed", though I think that was just Sonya's way of getting out of putting a piece focusing on death forth onto a national dance competition viewed by millions. Whatevs, it was the tits. The music was so good I've been listening to it all day, and the entire piece focused on Kayla's legs. Ku'uou'p'oau'uoa'no was great, because he's quirky and "gets" Sonya's "sick and demented mind." (i.e., he's a watered down version of last season's Mark Catamaran Boat and was thus made for Sonya's choreo). Man, it was just perfect and made me wish Shanks was there to claw his eyes out/"bleeping" censor himself again!




[Evan and Randi]
Evan and Broadway! Evan. Had. Broadway. The minute this Joey Whathaveyou, after being introduced as the newest choreographer on the block, told me that this piece wasn't going to be a "traditional Broadway" number, I got annoyed. You have a Kaz..zak bro, fool, give the kid a "traditional Broadway"!! Regardless, they danced to a number from Sweet Charity, and it was all Fosse-fied. Randi has been impressing the shit out of me, lately, which is really saying something. Kaz..zak had a tousled hair look, which made me squeal like a little teeny bopper. It also made me happy to be somewhat attracted to my favorite male dancer on the show. The jidges were annoyed that he wasn't flinging his hands around like wilted flowers. Also, I'm pretty sure Mia called Randi fat. So, needless to say, while the number definitely made me happy (though, unfortunately came after back-to-back AMAZING routines), the jidges were all merely adequately pleased.

[Jason and Caitlin]
Ohhh, Brian Friedman… You so just want everyone to know you're an artiste, don't you? I think everyone was a little mystified by his choice of choreographing an aliens-impregnating-humans inspired number. Though, I suppose we should've seen this coming, since his style has taken a page out of the Romulan Handbook for Grooming. Frieds had some sort of gender reversal - or no one explained to him that human males don't gestate - plot behind his piece, requiring Caitlin to wear a skin-tight, full-length, black unitard… with aluminum foil all over her. I have to admit, it was a lot better than I thought it would be. The use of "Creator" by SantOgold irked me a bit, because it was clearly Frieds using "an indie song" his friends introduced to him (1 year ago, when it came out) and then developing the least "artistic", most arbitrarily trite choreography he could manage. Or maybe I'm just a SantOgold snob. Who's to say?

[Philip and Jeanine]
No one seemed to make mention of the fact that Ch'Beeby and Chongalicious had some Nappy Tabs AGAIN, which is pretty unfair… yet kind of fun to watch. It's pretty clear that Naps and Tabs are putting a hiatus on the tortured romantic Ne-Yo hippy hoppies, in favor for some story with PROPS! They had a chain that, I only realized when Mia said it during her critique, ended up distracting the audience from the popping and locking and jamming and… well, you get it. Also, I live in the land where ALL Kanye West songs get replayed, ad nauseum, so I am still not ready to hear "Love Lockdown" again. I'm also not quite sure why the costume department decided that Chongs needed to dress like a mechanic. All in all, I didn't luuurve it as much as the jidges, but I lurve Ch'Beebs enough, and it's pretty obvious that they'll never be shoved to the Bottom 3, so there it is.

[Ade and Melissa]
Thank the LAWD that Miss Havisham and Gatorade got to dance a "Classical Pas de Deux". I'm going to give the show, and its integrity, the benefit of the doubt, and just assume that they had picked out just a plain 'ol Pas de Deux, which changed to a "Classical…" upon realizing that half of the duo was a ballerina. They performed Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet, and ohhhhhh my god, let's just say it's rare that I find things to be "pretty" and "beautiful", specifically, but no other words could do it justice. I think they need to make Miss Havs be a ballerina every single episode. I'm not really even sure what Gatorade was doing, but it must not have sucked, because the jidges were down. If that's not asked to be performed again during the finale, I will eat these here virtual words before you.

[Vitolio and Karla]
I thought the episode was going to go south FAST, after seeing that the two dancers who had been lapped by all the other dancers about 39483294x were the ones to pull the dreaded Quick Step out of the hat. That being said, I was actually pretty impressed with their performance (of course, I was frantically running around my apartment, cleaning, at this point - my parents are coming in town this weekend - so I wasn't paying very close attention). Part of me wants to believe that the quick steps of their quick step looked slower because they were doing them so well, but a bigger part of me recognizes that they probably received a watered down version. I always enjoy when Mia is confused, so I give props to Vitrola for apparently having duped her (wild one week, proper the next… AHH!) -- of course, then he had to go and speak and I decided I'd rather go scrub my toilet. Tim should get some credit in pointing out that we still have yet to know what a GOOD quick step actually looks like.

All in all, it was the kind of episode that this series is all about -- and not a moment too soon!

My prediction for the Bottom 3: Vitrola and Whatshername, Jason Danny Glover and Gymnastic Alien, and -- ahh! I don't want to admit it, but it's likely true -- Kaz…zak and Randi.