America’s Best Dance Crew: Usher. Crusher of Saltines

Tonight is the Usher challenge on America’s Best Dance Crew. I honestly would never have said that I am an Usher fan, but given the way this episode turned out, I sure like him a whole lot now.

Of course, finding this picture didn’t hurt either!! 

This glorious evening starts with the five remaining crews on stage with Mario, waiting to see who will move forward in the competition and who will battle it out for the fourth spot.

Mario’s going to go to Jungle Boogie and Blueprint Cru first. One of them is definitely moving on to next week’s show, the other is in the bottom two and will be battling to stay. I like both of these crews so I’m not thrilled about the prospect of either of them being in the bottom two.

The crew that’s definitely moving on to next week’s show is………

Not surprising, right? Let’s face it; Blueprint Cru doesn’t have much of a following, so unless something drastic happens I think they’re going to continue to hit the bottom two until the judges send them home. It’s sad because they’re really good, and yet not, because, HI, not from AMERICA.

Mario tells us that Usher is one of the hottest names in music and dance, and apparently he also has timeless moves and innovative style. I wonder if he’s avant garde too? I’m kidding! We all know he’s not avant garde. He’d have to wear weird costumes to attain that status.

Each crew has been given an Usher video and they must create a routine inspired by his cool moves. In addition, they’ll each get a special challenge that Mario wants us to believe Usher thought up himself. Sure, I believe that. Just show me Usher’s name under the list of producers and I totally buy that one. Anyway, Usher will be telling the crews all about their challenge himself.

Just not in person 

Jungle Boogie is up first, and the pressure is on for them since they are from Usher’s hometown. Don’t shame the ATL, Jungle Boogie! Usher has assigned them “Love In This Club” for their music video with the added challenge of tricking out their routine with hot glides.

There is talk about how tough it is to glide, and Codie tells us it’s not something that can be taught overnight. Let’s see if they can pull it off.

This was good, not great. I liked the knee glides, they were cool, as was the peel off they did moving across the stage. But the guy doing the actual foot glides wasn’t really good at all; they seemed really choppy, and they should really look like your feet are almost floating on the floor. I also didn’t get why they ended the dance with Raqi pulling his pants down. I thought that was stupid. 

I love these guys, so I hope they make it through next week, I just feel like they can do so much better.

JC is up first and he tells them that the routine was hot and cold for him. And then he gets booed.

Will we ever get intelligent people at these tapings??? 

He says the routine was full of moments, but he doesn’t know if it was magical all the way through. Once again, he has hit the nail on the head. I totally agree with him. He continues to agree with me by giving props to the knee glide, but not loving the foot glide.

We are so on the same page tonight. I love it! 

Omoron’s turn. “A……..A …………A.”  

A what? You are A dimwit? A twit? A imbecile? A dumb ass? What????? 

He thinks they showed musiCALity. They repped for the ATL. He really has such amazing insight, doesn’t he? Dope.

Lil Mama thinks they’re hot. For sure, for sure. She says they were clean from beginning to end, and they were painting pictures up there. Picture after picture after picture, and they nailed it. They hit it hard and smoov at the same time.

Someone hit you hard. In the head. A long time ago. 

Time for more results. Poreotix, Saltines, and Hype 5-0 are left. Two will move forward to next week’s show, one will be up against Blueprint Cru for elimination. The first crew that will be back next week is……

That’s not surprising either, is it? In fact, I’m going to say it right now; unless something drastic happens, I think these guys are going to be one of the top two crews. I don’t think they should be based on what we’ve seen so far, but somehow I think that’s what’s going to happen.

So now it’s down to Hype 5-0 and Saltines. Which one will be moving forward???

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Wait! Did that really just happen? That I actually understood? Saltines is in the bottom two and could be eliminated tonight. Oh. Yeah.

Next to perform is going to be Poreotix. Their assigned video is “Yeah” with the challenge of taking the lyric of “take that and rewind it back” and making it a reality in their routine. Oh, I like that one. That could be really cool.

They tell us that it’s challenging to do moves in reverse because if people don’t see it, they just think you’re doing a regular dance move. They want to make people think there’s six ushers dancing on stage. 

Mario asks us, “Ooooh, can these fast forward poppers rock it in rewind?” Ugh, Mario. Maybe you should go on strike until they start writing you better lines to read.

So this is my thing with these guys: there’s plenty to like about this routine, but their weird homophobic section really irritated me. They have the mentality and humor of thirteen year old boys, and it fucking annoys the piss out of me.

When they’re NOT doing that, I actually like a lot of what they’ve been doing dance-wise. I mean, I absolutely loved that rewind section; they really nailed it. And I also like that they’ve been doing more actual dancing. I thought this performance was good, but would have definitely liked it more without the fake “Tee hee hee, look I’m a  guy touching another guy’s butt.” Grow the fuck up.

Lil Mama thinks they’re silly. For real. Straight up. There were a few times when they had her on the floor almost.

Why am I not surprised by that? 

JC says this song was a club smash, and he liked how the beginning of the routine was like them busting through the door of a club. He thinks it was really, really fun. He says we’re finally seeing them give a little more dimension instead of just the popping.

Omoron thinks they have tremendous, tremendous potential. But he would like to see them level up their difficulty in their choreography. After he says this someone yells out “WHAT?!?!?!” 

This is what happens when you yell WHAT at Omoron. Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. 

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! I love that! Hey WHAT guy! Call me! I’d love to buy you a drink.

Let’s move along to Hype 5-0. They’ve been assigned ” Don’t Have To Call” as their video, and since Usher and his boys use heelies in the video, that’s their challenge. Casey is having a really hard time navigating the heelies let alone dancing in them, so this should be interesting.

I love the peel off in the beginning and how they made it look like each person was knocking the next in the head, that was very cool. Other than that, it was okay. There wasn’t anything in this that was mind blowing to me, but nothing really terrible either. I liked it, but I wish there were more to it, if that makes sense.

Omoron tells us that’s like one of his favorite Usher songs.

Shut up. No one cares. 

He thinks they did a good job. He says a lot of people don’t know it, but those shoes are really hard to dance in, and they made him wish he had some heelies.

Me too, then he could heelie it the fuck out of here. 

Lil Mama thinks they swagged it out tonight. She thinks they stuck to their challenge and also stepped up their choreography. She calls them swaggerific.

You are tardtastic, Lil Mama. 

Why does she keep calling Usher “Ursher”? It’s annoying. JC tells Lil Mama she is crazy. I think he means stupid, but he’s trying to be nice.

Okay, okay, she’s crazy stupid. How’s that? 

He thinks the opening was fun because it showed us right away that they owned the prop. BUT he thinks they may have gotten a little too caught up in the prop, and in his opinion, it took away from their choreography.

He says something about Breaksk8 wearing it out on the skates, but I’m not sure if he’s saying that in a good way about them or bad. Personally, I didn’t like them, but you all know how I love the non dancing crews. He thinks the floor work was hot at the end; he just doesn’t know if the entire routine was crispy.

Backstage, Layla Kayleigh is hanging out with the bottom two crews and she’s got some tough questions for them. For Blueprint Crew, Layla reminds them about their immunity last week, but now they are in the bottom again. How do they think they can win over the voters?

Move to the U.S.???? 

She asks the Saltines given the fact that there is no room for error in jump roping, how do they handle the fact that one mistake can cost them the competition?

We count on the fact that America will continue to vote for a novelty act! 

A coin toss has determined that Blueprint Cru will be the first to throw down in this do or die battle. But before we get to their assignment, it’s time for a little story. This tale is about a young French Canadian lad named Nick, aka B-boy Hero. 

He is SO dedicated that he travels three hours each way to rehearse with the crew. In the snow. Uphill both ways. Walking. Barefoot. Don’t you wish you had voted for them now??

This guy deserves the Medal of Honor. 

I actually think he’s freaking adorable, and I like this crew a lot, but I hate when they do these little stories. Not that it will work, because I think people still probably won’t vote for them. 

For their assigned video they have been given “Hey Daddy” and Usher tells them that they must do a freaky hand section highlighting one of the members of the crew. That’s a pretty lame challenge. 

They think it’s going to be hard to turn their hard hitting, fast moving style into a smooth, sexy vibe. TL says they want to show everyone that all the dedication and hard work that they’ve put in really paid off.

Mario? “Can they add a sexy touch to the hand moves and hold on for survival?” 

I liked this routine. They haven’t blown me away as much as their GagMe routine did, but I thought they did a good job here. I still don’t think it probably matters. They will probably hit the bottom next week again, and if they make it through that, probably the week after as well. This is what happens when you put a Canadian crew on a show that starts with America’s. 

I’m torn about them. From a dance perspective, I’d love to see them go far. But this isn’t an international competition. I’d love it if it was; I think we could possibly see some really cool crews if they opened it up, but if that ever happens, they need to change the name. And they haven’t. So it’s not.

Let’s jump on over to the Saltines now. Their story is all about how they are so grateful to be able to bring jump roping into the living rooms of America. I’m sorry. Are there people in America who didn’t realize jump roping existed? Lisa tells us that it’s fun for them to hear people say they didn’t know what jump roping was, but now they think it’s so cool.

Cool. Yup. That’s the word I was searching for. 

The longer they stay, the longer their sport is exposed and people can see what they can do. You know, in the comments from last week rubberduck1810 mentioned that they should be on America’s Got Talent, and I totally agree. I think it’s great that they want to show what they can do, but this is a DANCE competition, and which ever way you try to spin it, jumping rope is NOT dancing.

Their video assignment is “Caught Up” and they have to incorporate dope fighting choreography into their routine. Tyler tells us that Usher’s style is really smooth and sexy, while their style is bouncy so they’re going to have to try and mesh that together.

They’re also concerned about making the fight choreography look real while jump roping. Yeah, I think that’s gonna be a tough one. This is where you really see how much harder some of the challenges are that others. I almost wish that all the crews had the same challenge for the week so we’d get to see how they interpret it in their own unique way. It would also cut down on the inequity of the assignments.

Mario wants to know if they can jump into the fight and put a hurt on their competition. I wanna know when they’re going to fire the lame writers they currently employ on this show. 

Alright, let’s be honest here. Everyone who reads these recaps knows that I can’t stand this group, right? So I think it goes without saying that you all know I didn’t like this. The tricks they do with their ropes are cool, yes. But their dancing? I can’t even. My ten year old niece dances better than they do. Substantially better.

Their fight choreography was a joke. I will give them the fact that it has got to be really difficult to fight in the ropes and make it look good, but the fact is that it didn’t look good. It looked stupid. It reminded me of the type of fighting you see in a really bad high school play. I wish them the best, but I am praying that they get sent on their way tonight.

Blueprint Cru comes back out on the stage so we can hear what the judges think about each crew. Omoron, what did you think about Blueprint Cru? 

He’s really taken back to watching them perform time after time. He has to commend them on their dedication, especially B-boy Hero. He thinks they did well on their challenge and he likes that they took their shoes off at the end of the routine since Usher did that in the video. 

He tells them they should feel no regwets. They did a great job.

I regwet to inform you that you awe an imbeciwe. 

Lil Mama gets to talk about the Saltines. She thinks they turned it up tonight. They confused her for a minute when they started without their ropes.

And it’s so rare to see her confused. 

She thinks it was sexy. A little stiff, but sexy. She says she was surprised to see someone handling ropes get assigned fighting and she was sure someone was gonna get choked up or something. Ah, if only. 

She does go into a slo mo of one of the guys doing a front flip off the backs of a couple of the other guys into the jump ropes, and even I can admit that was really cool. She thinks they’re off the chain.

JC starts with Blueprint Cru, saying they’re the away team fighting against everyone else. He says it takes courage and a lot of heart to do that. He tells them they have shown through consistency and hard work that they absolutely belong in this competition. 

He talks a little about tonight’s performance and then he tells Nat that she was sexy tonight. She caught his eye.

Shane? Is that you hiding in there? 

Saltines turn. He thinks what they do is so unique. And people don’t quite understand what they do. He says everyone says they want to see them dance, but the last time he checked what they do is to music,  it’s timed, it’s about creating body lines and positioning each other on the stage….that’s essentially choreography. 

Uh, a gymnastics floor routine is also choreographed and that’s not dancing either! Please don’t make me punch you in the mouth, JC! 

About tonight’s performance, he says their floor work without the ropes needed a bit more conviction. But when the got the ropes they did what they did best. He reminds them that they just showed millions of people what they love to do. 

He says this was a great dance off tonight by two outcast, very unique, and very hardworking crews. Huh. I didn’t think of it that way, but he’s right.

Okay, I won’t punch you in the mouth. 

Time for the judges to deliberate.

We are back and ready to find out which crew is moving on and which is moving out. Which crew will be back to show some love in this club, and which will be ushered out the door? Oh. My. Lord. Just when you think the writing couldn’t possibly get any worse……it does!!!!

The crew. That still has a chance. To be America’s Best Dance Crew is…………. sloooooooow pan over each and every person’s face ………………….

YEE HAW!!!!!!!! Yipee Kai Yay! Wooo Hoooooo! 

Thank you judges! You have made me the happiest recapper in the whole wide world! 

Mario tells the Saltines that they are very talented and should be very proud of them selves. Any final thoughts?

 

Thanks for watching us. We know some of y’all don’t like what we do (you know who you are), but we appreciate y’all watching what we’ve dedicated our lives to. We hope you keep watching jump rope. 

Yeah, I’ll be sure to look for it on ESPN.

And now. The Saltines’ banner must fall. FINALLY.

 

Bye!!! Miss you! Mean it! 

I am so happy to see them gone. Did anyone else catch the girl running after the banner and smacking into the wall? 

Is it mean that I have watched this over and over? 

So we’re now down to the final four. What do you think, Gasmi? Are you as happy as I am to see the Saltines leave? Or would have rather seen Blueprint Cru get sent back to Canada? Do you think Blueprint has any chance of NOT being in the bottom?

Next week, magic. Been there, done that. Any bets on who will get the coolest magic trick? I wonder if we’ll see the return of the magic ball. I’ll re-materialize next week and we can discuss!

SWAK, PottyMouth

 

P.S. I apologize for the lateness of this recap. I started a new job last week that’s awesome, but kicking my ass a little. Also, my son had his fifth birthday this weekend, so let’s just say that life got in the way of recapping this week!