Dancing with the Stars: Now it’s Personal

Another Tuesday, another star booted from the dance floor. After Monday’s emotional competition, the stars were left shaken and naked (metaphorically, for the most part), awaiting their fate at the hands of America. Last night’s episode dragged another brave soul from the glow of the disco ball and plunged them once more into darkness. This particular DWTS was probably one of the cruelest and most upsetting (to them) elimination episode we’re likely to witness within the series, because it marks not only the departure of the second worst competitor, but the revelation of whose personal story failed to touch the viewers in that most personal of personal places: the heart.

Located beneath the mighty chesticles.

This week’s results show kicks off with a montage of what went down Monday night, namely and literally Kirstie Alley, as she leans seductively into Maks and he folds like a bad hand of cards. This contrasts nicely with Sugar Ray’s triumphant comeback, not as a boxer, but as a boxer-turned-ballroom dancer-acting-like-a-boxer, and Carrie Ann crying real tears as she tries to balance her sexual attraction to Chris Jericho with appropriate respect for his deceased mother.

Live, once again, it’s Dancing With The Stars! Tom and Brooke introduce things, promising plenty of unrelated performances from teen superstars. Petra and Dmitry are tied with Hines and Kym for top score, while My Schnookums stands rated shamefully low, tying (TYING!!!) with freaking Kirstie, whose partner was inexplicably not penalized in the least for falling victim to a muscle spasm that left them in a heap on the ground. That wrinkled old asshole Len thought nothing of reaching into his adult diaper for some more shit to fling at Ralph, yet only came up with praise for the graceful way in which Kirstie and Maks peeled themselves off the fucking dance floor to continue. I’m sure the collapse had nothing to do with the fact that he was balancing her full weight on his leg, right? Wendy and Tony are super low balling it this week, in last place with a 15. That’s five whole, humiliating points beneath Sugar Ray and Anna. Wendy may have improved since the season premiere, but Sugar stepped up his GAME, is what, and she can’t compete.

What NOW, bitches??

Because it wouldn’t be DWTS without some hot air, Len blows smoke up everyone’s ass, and Wendy looks less than sincere when she claps it out for his praise of Petra’s tsunami tribute dance. And before we can even get our fingers all buttery in popcorn bowl, Tom dives right into announcing the safety of Hines and Kim. He doesn’t even try to create suspense, just brings it up matter-of-factly a mere three minutes into the broadcast. It’s no surprise, really, because the judges and the audience have spent a lot of time praising them, considering Hines’ lack of stage presence (in my overwhelmingly amateur opinion, of course). It doesn’t look like any of the contestants were expecting to hear results so soon, probably based on last week’s decade-long lead-up into the announcements—everyone is giving them the “huh, that’s nice” applause, and looking rather unenthused.

Can you feel the excitement?

Hines’s tribute dance to his mom went over like gangbusters, so good for him, but he’s still not wowing me. I’m not even sure why, because I don’tdislike him–he’s not ridiculous, hasn’t annoyed me, and hasn’t fucked up his steps to a noticeable degree, but he doesn’t get me all worked up in any sense. Anyway, we can now all look forward to another week of not being impressed by Hines and wondering if the judges are praising a totally different pair and ABC is just fucking with our heads. They do their dance, and OK, he’s….okay. He and Kym do look good together, despite the fact that she’s wearing a dress made from Big Bird’s mutilated corpse. But as they twirl, I notice a bright yellow scarf trailing from his belt, and I’m just wondering to myself what possible purpose it could serve, when I have this bizarre Chuck Palahniuk flashback, and I realize yellow is “hanky code” for watersports. Well damn, Hines. I certainly did not know that about you. I wonder if he realizes how forward he’s being, and I’m guessing probably not, so the question remains: who exactly tied that thing to him, and why? I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time believing that, on the set of a ballroom dancing reality television show, there wasn’t a single solitary gay dude available to notice and point out something like that. You’d think they’d keep a quality control crew nearby to make sure the cast members aren’t sending out these sorts of unintentional signals to the viewers.

Just gained a whole new fan base.

Next up is my man Sugar Ray, looking about as tough as a heterosexual boxer can when swathed in fluttery, red silk. He’s yelling into the camera about having another comeback, and he’s so old and excited that it’s sort of adorable, even if he does appear to have emerged from a freshly rubbed lamp. He and Anna will soon learn their fate, but not yet, and we are left unsatisfied to check in with the Romeo situation.

And a mighty fine looking situation it is.

Now before I continue, we need to clear the air. I know I said my heart is with My Schnookums, and that hasn’t changed, but there’s no reason to let the rest of the lads go unappreciated, and for the sake of clarity I’ll just go ahead and admit that I wouldn’t weed Chris Jericho or Romeo out of my flower bed, if you know what I mean (and I think you do). Romeo can rest assured that the silly shoes don’t detract from the effect of that white outfit at all, and I hope that thought comforts in him light of what a TOTAL ASSHOLE Len was to him. I know that they’re up for critique, but considering how personal the routines were this evening would it be such a chore to choose your words a little more carefully, Len? Well, would it, you bitter old fucking gargoyle? I mean, come on: these folks are paying tribute to their most precious late relatives and living loved ones. The audience is eating it up, Carrie Ann is drowning in her own tears, and even I feel the icy cage around my heart starting to melt, yet wrinkled old bitchy old Len just shits all over Romeo and his dead cousins. And he wasn’t even that bad! You can clearly see the turning point in this episode as the judges start to favor certain stars and pick on others. They better just lay off My Schnookums when the time comes, because I’m not in the mood.

I'm not kidding, old man. Zip it.

It’s time for the face-off between Sugar and Romeo. The couple who will join Hines and Kym in the safe zone…Sugar Ray!!! He must have really impressed the judges with his level of improvement since the opening show. Either that or he’s getting the vote from all the old, sequin-loving viewers. Instead of making Romeo and Chelsie sweat it out, they declare them safe, as well. So eight minutes in, and three of the couples are safe. They seem to be getting these results out of the way awfully fast, which makes me wonder how production plans on filling the remaining 52 minutes of air time. I love how they talk about how one couple won’t “survive,” as if they plan on ending the episode with a human sacrifice (Ooooo, new reality series idea! Dibs on the copyright!).

Ok, so after a four minute commercial break, I now have a pretty good idea of how they plan to fill the 52 minutes: with trendy chart-toppers. One Republic performs their single, and I wonder why I’ve never heard of them, before reminding myself that I generally avoid listening to music written, produced, and performed by a pack of douchebags young enough to be my fetus. Lacey, who managed to detach Mike Catherwood’s palms from her ass since last we saw her, flits onstage and performs with Dmitry. She’s wearing yet another dress that seems to have been nibbled away in the front by brave rodents, and we’re treated to a camel toe extravaganza. Everyone gets on Kendra’s case for turning her hatchet wound into a one-woman show, but she’s got nothing on Miss Lacey.

And it’s not like this is the first offense.

Back to the contestants! One Republic is hustled offstage, and I have to hand it to Wendy Williams: she’s abandoned the delicate, earnest, tear-streaked face in favor of a straight-up fuck-you-Len-Goodman face, and I like it. Even though her dancing is pretty subpar compared to most of the other stars, it no longer seems like she’s even trying to suck up to the judges. The same cannot be said for their pet angel, Petra, whose inspirational dance to the worst goddamn song on earth had all three of them howling at the moon and kissing her ass like it’s the Pope’s ring. All the hyperbole would have meant more to me, frankly, if they hadn’t fawned over her in a similar manner last week after her frankly crappy and half-assed jive. I suspect that whole enthusiastic, sweet, lovely, foreign supermodel thing is working in her favor.

Couldn't you just eat her up?

Someone needs to have wardrobe look over Maks before he’s allowed on camera, because it looks like he ran out of time in the dressing room and had to book it to his mark with his pirate shirt half undone. Sloppy bitch. Oh, and speaking of sloppy bitches, he and Kirstie act all ashamed of their headline grabcolossal fuck up of a fall, so of course Brooke shows it again, from different angles, and I watch it in backward slow-mo a couple times, because that shit is funny. You can actually see the moment his leg spasms and everything just goes to shit as they collapse into a heap, graceful as a hippopotamus sliding into the watering hole.

STELLAR.

But back to them later, for the fate of others awaits us! Petra and Wendy go head to head, and they draaaaaag out the results, as if there’s even the slightest possibility of Petra going home. She might as well just go hang out in the green room and have a soda, because she’s safe. There’s some footage of her being spun like an angel’s dream, then some of Wendy grabbing a couple handfuls of Tony, because we needed to see that again. The judges crapped all over her, and I realize that this show has sort of a mean streak: don’t you think it’s pretty rude, in retrospect, to put the top and bottom scoring pairs against each other and then act like we’re supposed to be in suspense to see WHO? Just WHO? Will come out on top, you guys?? It’s not even scripted drama; it’s just boring and anti-climactic. Anyway, Petra and Dmitry are safe, and I was able to type those results into my notes before the announcement was made. Way to shock us all, ABC. Wendy and Tony will have to wait to hear if they have to deal with this bullshit again. They are in jeopardy, but we will not find out that they are going home until later (which I think they are, again taking notes before knowing the results).

She doesn’t exactly look surprised, either.

In a thrilling twist, they gave the stars some video cameras to record behind the scenes footage of their lives. Oh goody, we get to see Lil Romeo take a dump! Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how much of a sicko you are), that doesn’t happen, and instead we watch as Hines takes his absolutely adorable son to Disneyland, and they ride rides and generally have a very cute and fun day together. And speaking of cute: is Kendra’s kid is a cherub, or what? I love the curls. Sugar Ray has a cute kid, too, and Wendy…has a plane? No, she’s on a plane, showing us footage of her extensive travel time. Which is just a hair more exciting than Chris Jericho filming…the CLOCK ON HIS FUCKING STOVE and bitching about not getting enough sleep. Way to let us all in, dude (though it might just be a ploy to fulfill his taping obligations while avoiding an invasion of his privacy. I’m on to you, Chris Jericho).

On to you, I said, not on you. Unfortunately.

Chelsea steps up the wow factor by presenting some riveting footage of her ridiculous leopard print acrylic fingernails. Mark is hanging out with her outside of rehearsal, playing guitar in the background, as dictated by his game plan to get in her pants role as super good platonic friend. A halfhearted Google query reveals that she may or may not be dating some Laguna Beach douchebag, but I’d bet cash money Mark is looking for an in like you wouldn’t believe.

I’m sure it’s all totally innocent.

Romeo lives up to his name by filming alternate shots of the ladies and his own face, and My Schnookums gives Chris Jericho a run for his boring money with footage of ice bags on his own knees. Then he turns the world on its end, leading us into his bathroom and DISROBING for the camera! It’s not quite as thrilling as if we’d actually seen Romeo on the toilet, but he took it way past Chris’s stove clock, that’s for damn sure. Granted, there is a huge disco ball covering up the backyard view, but the censors placed it juuuust low enough to accentuate some Schnookums love handles. I love it when production is lousy with not-so-subtle assholes. Cue Macchio’s body issues. In any case, I’m not sure what that little foray into their lives accomplished, aside from killing about ten minutes of air time, but at least I am now intimately familiar with that one corner of Chris Jericho’s kitchen. I can die happy now.

Speaking of wishing for an early death, Selena Gomez appears, clad in a dress fashioned entirely of murdered origami cranes, and proceeds to tear my eardrums asunder. I could have skipped all that and been fine, and we’re only halfway in. I thought this show was about dancing? Why all the live product placement performances?

Audience pan! This show wouldn’t be this show without a sweeping view of the goddamn audience before and after every commercial break. Chelsea and Mark are now facing off with Kendra and Louis. Chelsea tore up the floor in her gold bikini, and I understand that the song she picked was written just for her by an abomination of a boy band. It’s probably one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard, but I can totally get why it would have made her life to hear it sung in concert, so we can forgive her that. I’m sure she made it worth the dude’s time, as well. We flash back to the critique of her dance and we get to watch Bruno gyrate and act inappropriate. What a shocker. Kendra even goes so far as to compliment Chelsea’s butt, and they have a little “no, your ass is better. No yours is,” moment. Speaking of Kendra, she’s dancing a tribute to her husband, and wearing a dress that appears to be unsure of its identity, seeing as the skirt has migrated north and is trying to strangle her.

It also appears to be succeeding.

Before we go any further, I would just like to veer off on a little tangent and make a couple of points here: one, the smoke machine action in that routine was completely ridiculous. It added nothing but confusion, she almost fell down the damn stairs, and we missed the entire opening of her routine. My second bit of commentary relates back to her personal story, which we heard in Monday’s episode, and I would like to take a moment to invite Clovis, New Mexico, the hometown of Kendra’s husband Hank, to go fuck itself sideways. Apparently, theentire town of Clovis was so upset when Hank married a woman of such shameful roots (Playboy! Stripper poles! Christ Almighty, think of thechildren!), they took down the billboard that proclaimed him a hometown hero. What a pack ofassholes. Hopefully it was just one or two pearl-clutchers abusing their influence, and not a representation of everyone who lives there. Anyway, enough of my righteous indignation, and damn you, ABC, for making me care. Moving on.

Not cool, Clovis.

Anyway, the smoke led to nothing but disaster and she takes a load of crap off Len (what else is new). Bruno does call the routine hot and arousing, and I wonder if he will ever leave off being lecherous for maybe five minutes per show. You know Len could never get away with that kind of talk without being called out as a dirty old man. The previously unseen footage from backstage reveals that Kendra was much more upset about the smoke snafu than she expressed to the judges. You have to admire her restraint, because if I were her I’d be ranting and raving, spewing bile all over the assholes in charge of the special effects. You’d think a show with such a massive viewership (and matching budget) could condescend to hire a better stagehand, because I’ve seen community theater productions handle things better on the smoke machine front.

Next time, get the guy on the left.

At this point we’ve veered so far off the topic of elimination that I almost forgot it was going to happen, but suddenly Chelsea and Mark are safe (which is no big surprise, considering Bruno practically dry humped the judges’ table after their routine), but Kendra and Louis are in jeopardy. Huh? The audience is not buying this, because they in no way sucked badly enough to be at the level of Wendy and Tony. They’ll probably make it through, but the bullshit is starting to wear thin, and what little faith I have in the judges’ integrity (admittedly, not a whole lot to begin with) will disappear completely if Kirstie and Maks score big after that ridiculous fall.

The face of success.

A bunch of voiced-over footage follows, wherein the dancers blow smoke about the stars, and we see a montage of glitter and failure, triumph and tears. They say no one can predict at this point who’s going home (Wendy), which means…everyone sucks equally? One Republic is performing more smash hits that I’ve never heard of, accompanied by the DWTS troupe, who flitted from behind the iron curtain to wow us with their footwork and well-timed crotch shots. Between these girls and Lacey, this show should be called Dancing With The Beef Curtains. I’m starting to see how they rack up such hefty ratings.

Another guilty party.

Aw, Chris Jericho really rocked it out for his mom, and looks about 100 times sexier and more masculine this week, despite being swathed in a vaguely lavender shirt. His poignant footwork made Carrie Ann weep. I’m thinking it was less a matter of her being touched by the dance than a realization that she’ll never be touched by Chris Jericho’s powerful Viking hands. Ralph, looking far more dignified in a tux shirt and black pants than whatever the fuck they dressed him in last week, did a very sweet dance in honor of his wife…which Bruno and Len proceed to shit upon relentlessly, to the point that they’re getting booed by the audience while having a screaming match with Carrie Ann, and I’m wondering where all the Schnook hostility comes from. He may not be technically perfect, but he’s far from the worst on the dance floor, and a hell of a lot more enjoyable to watch than most of the other stars (I’m looking at you, Hines). And I’m not just saying that because he’s My Schnookums.

Maybe if he straight up drop kicks her onto her ass he’ll earn some approval?

We’re treated to yet another reel of Kirstie and Maks collapsing to the floor, and it’s just painful at this point. What’s even more painful is how the judges have nothing at all negative to say. They must have used up all their negativity tearing that new asshole into My Schnookums. Maks takes full responsibility for the fall, and no one says what everyone is thinking, namely the elephant in the room, no pun intended (pun intended). NAMELY, that he goddamn sure wouldn’t have collapsed in a puddle of pain had he been dragging Petra’s scrawny ass all over creation. Anyway, YAY AMERICA, because you gave a big fuck you to Len and saved My Schnookums for another week. I told you the U.S. of A loved some Macchio. Kirstie and Maks are safe too, because the judges love humiliating fuck-ups, which puts Chris and Cheryl  in jeopardy?? I just do not get it. Chris is one of the best dancers on this show, so what gives?  Were they secretly factoring the home video footage into the competition, and he blew it by filming his kitchen appliances?

The final three reject couples are lined up, and we all know it’s going to be Wendy and the others had to be thrown in for suspense, so let’s get this over with. Kendra and Louis are safe, and if Wendy Williams beats Chris Jericho, I just don’t know how I’ll come to terms with that as a viewer. But of course that doesn’t happen, and we will now evermore be deprived of Wendy’s magnificent rack. She takes the bone Brooke throws her and blames her grueling travel schedule, family demands, and enormously busy life for her loss, instead of blaming paralyzing fear and a general lack of dance talent. She doesn’t cry, though, and gives her show a plug, and it’s a pretty graceful exit. More graceful than Mike Catherwood’s exit, fortunately; if there’s one thing I don’t need to see, it’s Wendy pretending to throw one into the stage.

Small favors.

So that’s that, and we’ve made it through week three! What did you guys think? Do you agree that the judges are playing favorites with Kirstie and getting all up the in the grills of Romeo and My Schnookums for no good reason? Who do you think should take home the grand prize? Why do I keep forgetting Petra is even in this competition, even though she seems to be the favorite? Thanks so much for your support and comments. Keep reading, and TheNooch and I will keep recapping. Later!