SYTYCD: Sweet Sixteen?

Before we get into the recap, I have a couple of things I need to talk to you about, Gasmi.  First, thanks to all of you who commented on the last couple of recaps.  I love getting my little e-mail notifications whenever one of you leaves a comment for me, I really love reading your comments, and I love it even more knowing there are people out there who really get me.

So, you may be thinking to yourself, that’s a lotta love in just one paragraph.  Well, I had a pretty crappy week this past week.  Some parts of it were good.  My son’s team did really well at Nationals and his dances in particular did fantastically.  But there was other crap going on there that had me thinking homicidal thoughts all week.

Watching my sister and my niece be betrayed and treated crappily by people who were supposed to be their friends was infuriating.  Made all the more so by the fact that I couldn’t really tell those people how shitty I think they are.  My sister asked me to behave myself, and so I did.  But I think my blood pressure may have suffered for it.

Anyway, that brings me to the final thing I wanted to say to you all before we start recapping.  My apologies for the extreme lateness of this recap.  Foolish recapper that I am, I thought it would be no problemo to handle writing while being away at Nationals.  Silly, silly recapper am I.  Although, it probably wouldn’t have been an issue if not for the assholes and their handy dandy sidekick.  Now that my rage has subsided, I’m here to jump in and talk about the show we love (most of the time anyway) and I’m really hoping that this week doesn’t send me into a blind rage again.  FINGERS CROSSED.  Ready?  Let’s go!

Yikes!  Is Cat auditioning for Somewhere in Time: The Prohibition Years?

Of course Cat feels the need to start out by reminding us of the quadruple elimination of our previous week which is making me feel all ragey all over again.  Welcome to So You Think You Can Suck Nigel’s Ass (ass…..ass).

After the dancers’ intros, Cat tells us there will be four judges tonight.  Ugh.  That never works out well.  Invariably there’s always one person who doesn’t get to say much and it’s usually the person you’d actually like to listen to.  Let’s see who’s joining Nigel and Mary this week, shall we?

Eh.

I was there until Cat said country album.

Cat wants to know how she finds time for a country album.  I want to know why she’d waste time on a country album.  Kristin says that’s what’s been in her heart and I wonder if her heart’s been achy breaky lately.

She asks Lil C what he’s been up to.  Maintaining his bucness.  And apparently he has been rapping. That’s almost as bad as Kristin’s country singing.  I think we’ve now identified the next two albums I won’t be buying.

Anyway, enough about terrible album ideas, let’s move on to the competition!

Don’t forget…….we have filler!

Erg, yes, we know Cat.  What’s the stupid filler topic this week?  Oh.  We’re not finding out about filler topics yet.  Instead Cat tells us that the top sixteen has been split in half to perform two group numbers as well as their partner dances.  Okay, could be a good idea.  So now we’re going to find out what happened when the first group got together with Sir BitchyPants to rehearse.  There’s talk of how the girls have been dominating the boys and I am appalled because I thought this was a family show.  There are also chairs being thrown, and hats.  With Sir BitchyPants choreographing I’m not holding out much hope.

You know, there’s a fine art to choreographing a great number with chairs.  Sir BitchyPants does not possess the artist’s touch.  The dance wasn’t terrible, but I have to say I was completely distracted by the touch lights stuck to the bottoms of the chairs.  Was there a reason for that?  Perhaps the dance was meant to be about alien abduction and the tough lights were little UFOs?  Ah, if only I could figure out Sir BitchyPants and his artistic vision.

Now it’s time to start with the partnered dances.  So, of course, it’s filler time!  This week’s filler is the dancers telling us about their first performances.  Well, at least we might get some cute pictures out of this one.  I can’t wait to hear all about Stripperella’s first pole dance!

But first, Sasha and Alexander!  Sasha tells us she was a tomboy and her first performance was as a frog in Thumbelina.  Complete with pukey green unitard.  It traumatized her and she has avoided frogs since then.

Alexander’s mom dressed him in those little boy suits with the bowties and his first dance performance was a tribute to The Lion King.  At his own birthday party.  Well, I guess that’s one way to get a captive audience.  I can’t say too much crap about Alexander here though because my sister and I always put on shows whenever our family got together.  We were particularly fond of Grease.  Since I was the oldest I had first pick of roles.  Guess who was always the boy?  She’s still a Bitter Betty about that.

Anyway……they will be dancing a Dee Caspary contemporary routine.  Dee tells us this is a love story revisited.  It’s centered around a piano and the keys of the piano are the keys to Alexander’s heart.

So this piece was a little strange for me.  By the end I was thinking the guy has a boner for his piano.  Anyone else get that?  No?  Just me?  Weirdness aside, they danced it well.  I really like Sasha’s performances, and I felt like this time Alexander was keeping up with her.  Did anyone else catch the cameraman in the shot?

See what happens when you try to be all fancy schmancy with the camera work?  Just stop it already and give us one steady shot straight through the dance.  Kthxluvumeanit.  One other thing that must be mentioned before I turn it over to the judges:  Alexander looks like a lost member of the VonTrapp Family in that hideous costume.  Now let’s see what the judges have to say.

Nigel thinks it was a good start to the evening and says he loves Dee’s idea here.

I also have fantasies about inanimate objects, but for me they are mostly made of vinyl and are things you inflate.

Nigel tells Sasha he’s never heard the story of the tomboy frog that turns into a beautiful princess, but that’s just what she’s done; turn into a beautiful princess of dance.  Oh, barf.  He does not tell Alexander that he’s a king and a lion.

Mary loved this love story and she thinks they pulled it off.  She thinks Alexander still needs to dig deeper, but he’s doing better every week.  She loves Sasha and tells her she is a gorgeous artist and is beautiful to watch.

What is this feeling so sudden and new?  I felt the moment I laid eyes on you.

Kristin tells Sasha that her dance teacher was always telling her she made too much sound for such a little girl, but she never once heard Sasha.  Considering the leaps they’re doing in these, I’d say that’s no small feat.  She thinks Sasha is amazing.  She also loves Alexander in this piece and I come to the realization at this point that Kristin is going to probably be all love, lollipops and puppies as a judge.

Lil C says they are a perfect representation of how melofuious the piano keys are and Sasha is eight notches above perfection.

As Cat is trying to give their numbers Alexander is screwing around pretending to pick Sasha’s nose and then licking her face.  So Cat threatens to send them off early.  And she does.  Some of you may think that this caused instant hatred from me for Alexander.  It actually didn’t.  I know, I’m shocked too.

Next up, Caitlynn and Mitchell.  Caitlynn was also a tomboy who liked to shoot guns and looks miserable in the clips of her first dance performance and miserable remembering her first dance performance.

Or maybe the yellow pleather was dehydrating her.

Mitchell was a ham as a kid and didn’t start dancing until he was sixteen.  His first performance was playing Leroy in Fame.  I wonder if the stage adaptation was as bad as the movie remake.  Yes, I am still pissed off about that.

They will be dancing a Jean-Marc Samba that he tells us needs to be hot and spicy.  He also tells us that the samba is about the butt and the hips.  We get a lot of close-ups of Caitlynn from the waist down during this rehearsal.  Looks like Nigel has relatives on the camera crew.

This dance was okay for me.  Mitchell’s sexy face involves him biting his lower lip frequently throughout the dance.  It’s a step up from Ryan’s constipated face the last time sexiness was required.  They were both working it in their hips which is a win if we’re listening to Jean-Marc.  I wasn’t blown away by this number, but I liked it well enough, I guess.

Mary does some prepared nonsense she made up which is as lame as it usually is.  Then she forgets Caitlynn’s name.

I’m sorry; the botox is eroding my brain.

She loved how loose Caitlynn was and says that a lot of people are really uptight when they first learn it.  She think Mitchell nailed it and that sometimes this dance can be cheesy, but it wasn’t.

Kristin tells them to shut the front door.  Then she says to shut the back door.

For real.  It hurts.

Then she tells them to shut the garage door.  I don’t even want to know what THAT is.  Then she moves on to legs and the opening and shutting of them.  Is it a requirement that all guest judges must be drunk before the show?  I think Mary may be slipping them all something.

Lil C says there was so much bass generating from the hips up there; he needs them to turn the decibels down on their ballroom bucness.  He says they murdered; they already know it, and everyone has seen it.

Nigel thinks that Mitchell’s samba form was absolutely incredible.  He says Mitchell is for him the Chris Rock of So You Think You Can Dance.  What does that even mean?  He’s so stupid.  Anyway, anyone with functioning ears knows that Mitchell is more Chris Tucker than Chris Rock.

Time to move on to Miranda and Woobert.  Miranda tells us she was really opinionated as a child.  Translation: she was a brat.  Her first performance was a tap dance in a pepto bismal pink sequined costume.  Woobert was always trying to make people laugh and being different characters.  Translation: he was annoying.  His first performance channeled Michael Jackson.  And being silly of course.  Translation:  It was annoying.

They will be dancing a Sir BitchyPants Broadway routine.  Shoot me now.  Sir BitchyPants is full of himself as usual as he tells us Miranda will be playing an upper class working girl in this piece.

Can’t you just feeeeeel my brilliance?

Blurg.  I really REALLY hate him so.  Anyway, she’s a classy working girl.  Woobert is a cool cat.  Ha!

Why was there tapping dubbed into that music?  That was extremely annoying, especially the fact that they pretended to be tap dancing during part of it and not for the rest.  Another fail by Sir BitchyPants.  They didn’t dance it terribly, but I really can’t stand Woobert so even when he does a decent job all I can think about is how much I want him to be gone.

Kristin is up first and she says she knows that part of her job is to look at everybody and to say something that they can think about.  I’m not sure what shutting the back door has to do with that, but oooookay.

Hey!  Them’s words of wisdom!

She says she’s got nothing; they killed it.  She says it felt like Miranda was seducing Woobert and that she (Kristin) is not as good as them.  YEAH RIGHT.  She has nothing bad to say.

Lil C says Miranda leaves him in awe every time she dances.  He thinks with legs like hers she doesn’t need arms.  I think Lil C has some issues he needs to work out.  He feels like she’s metamorphasizing the most.  He then talks nonsense at Woobert and makes my brain hurt.

Nigel totally agrees with Lil C.

And is hoping that Miranda will metamorphasize on him later.

He thinks Miranda is the most changed in the competition since it started three weeks ago.  She has grown the most in style, in confidence, and in technique.  He then reminds Woobert that he’s a hip hop dancer (you know, in case he forgot) and says to do that style requires a great deal from him.

He talks about how close Woobert was to leaving the competition early on (way to rub it in Nigel) and says it just proves when given the opportunity better dancers can be screwed over he’s gonna take it and run with it.

Mary thinks the two of them are just great together.  She tells Miranda she didn’t even recognize her earlier in the group number.  Is that a compliment?  Like forgetting Caitlynn’s name?  She also thinks Woobert is a star that gets shinier every week.  Powder will help with that.

Next up are Melanie and Marko.  Yay!  Awww……Cat calls them our sweet little M&Ms!  I love Cat.  Melanie says that as a kid she was always performing.

Thankfully she left her country singing career behind and decided to start dancing.  Her first performance was in a Little Bo Peep costume.  She tells us she was so bad.  But aren’t all kids at that age?

Marko tells us he was a crazy kid and a little bit of a spoiled brat.  Admitting that makes me like him more.  Dancing calmed him down and taught him discipline.  He danced for the first time at ten or eleven and it was jazz/hip hop.

This week’s dance for them is a lyrical hip hop by Tabitha and Napoleon.  The term lyrical hip hop aggravates me.  Tabitha tells us the story is that they are two best friends and he’s just been left at the altar.  But halfway through the dance he realizes the woman he should love has been right in front of him all this time.  Ah……it’s a chick flick dance.

I LOVE THESE GUYS!!!!!! I know, you hear that from me pretty much every time.  I can’t help it.  I also really love this dance which is strange for me because I’m not usually the biggest fan of Tabitha and Napoleon.  I love the concept, I thought the choreography was well done (though not really hip hop) and they killed it for me on the performance, especially Marko.

Lil C thinks people need to realize as choreographers they are pulling a style out of a hat, but for the choreographers it’s a raffle too.  They’re asked to construct masterpieces, but they’re given a toolbox and he thinks Tabitha and Napoleon were excited to have them as their tools this week.

I guess that’s confirmation from them on that one.

I love that he pretty much confirmed what I have always suspected: there are some contestants the choreographers dread getting.  He thinks they are a power couple and the section in the beginning was extra buc.

Nigel thinks it was a brilliant concept and thinks people will be wondering tonight if they should kiss their viewing partners.  He can’t judge them individually because they danced so together and in his opinion right now they are the couple to beat in this competition.

Mary says the two of them keep knocking out a special performance every single week.  She tells Marko that his raw emotions in the beginning of the piece were so believable, and I actually agree with her on that one.  She loves that Melanie had all these layered nuances and thinks she was right in the pocket on all those things.

And then she asks them how hard it was to do that kiss and starts talking about when she was asked to kiss someone on Broadway which prompts Nigel to do this….

I’m surprised she didn’t puke all over herself.

Cat knows it’s gonna take a lot to burn that image out of her brain.

Kristin says we sing because we can’t speak any more.  Dance is an extension of that.  We can’t speak any more so we move.  She says that as an actor who sings and dances, she wants to be in their play.  And then…..

Shit.  Now I’m thinking the judges may have been dosed this evening.  She knocks Lil C’s glasses off.  And then Nigel runs over and kisses C.  Isn’t that sexual harassment?  I think Lil C should sue.

Next are Ashley and Chris.  Yaaaawn.  Oh, sorry.  Ashley tells us she was a shy kid but once you got to know her she was really goofy, loud and obnoxious.  This is evidenced by pictures of her with her mouth wide open.  Her first dance performance was when she was three in a red tutu and with a shopping cart; it was called the Clepto Shuffle.

Chris was always full of energy and has seven, wait six, siblings.  His first time on stage wasn’t for dancing, it was for poetry.  Aaaaaah, Chris was a beatnik.

They have jazz with Sonya this week and Chris is scared shitless.  He says every piece that Sonya does is amazing but exhausting.  Sonya tells us she is very inspired by Beetlejuice so the dance is creepy and they are half human half zombie like.  I love zombies so now I’m a little excited about this number.

I was so bored by this piece.  I mean, these dances are so short I shouldn’t be watching the time waiting for the piece to end.  And that’s exactly what happened here.

Nigel says he’s going to do something now that he tells the judges on American Idol that they shouldn’t do and that’s comment on singing the wrong song, or in this case, using the wrong song.  He just didn’t connect with the music, and honestly I think that may have been part of it for me too.  He wanted them to be more overt with the characters and really go over the top; he thinks they were concentrating too much on the dance steps and not enough on the characters.

Mary can certainly see where Nigel is coming from but she still thinks they did well.  There was a lot of hard synchronization in this and they pulled that off.

Good job on staying together you guys.

Cat says to Kristin that it must be hard for them to find the balance between their normal side and the character side and Kristin says something about it being like with her boyfriends.  I didn’t get it.  She is sitting up there in amazement and she doesn’t want to be the Paula Abdul here, but then she totally is.

Without the seal clap.

She tells Ashley that she’s one of her favorites on the show and now I wonder if Kristin might perhaps be overdue for her annual eye exam.  She thinks the show should be called So You Think You Can Partner.

Lil C says that Sonya always gives you a character but her technique also has a character as well.  He thinks Ashley is like the sleeper of the competition: you forget she’s here but then she’s so amazing you wonder how you could have forgotten her.  Because she’s BORING.

Time for Clarice and Jess.  Clarice as a kid took every single opportunity to make a performance no matter where she was, even in her living room.  Already said I’m not gonna judge that one.  Her first non home performance was at two and a half that her mom loved.  As moms will do.

Jess tells us that he was a crazy kid and his nickname was Jess the Mess.  I guess he didn’t bathe either?  In his first performance all he did was wave to his mom.  That brings me back a couple of years to my son’s first year of dance.  His sleeves were too long for him which was fascinating to him until he turned around and discovered his shadow.  He spent the rest of the dance flapping his sleeves and dancing with his shadow.  Yes, I loved every single second of it.

They’ve got the fox trot with Jean-Marc.  Jess is a singer who catches Clarice up in an amazing dance.  Is it just me or does Clarice seem like Jess irritates her?

Having Broadway as his style is definitely a help for Jess in this genre; that style lends itself well to the fox trot.  I’m still not a fan of his, but I thought they did well here.  He even did better with the lifts.

Mary says the fox trot is supposed to be gliding, sophisticated, jazzy and that’s exactly what they did right now.  She tells Clarice she was beautiful up there and Jess, she doesn’t believe there’s a single other dancer that could have done what he did just now.

Kristin has a lot to say.  This was her favorite performance of the night.  She thinks the two of them together is just magic.  She calls Jess Gene Kelly and says a few more times how this is her favorite.

Lil C says they put a face on the smile of Jean-Marc’s heart with the way they just danced.  He tells Jess that he is the physical rendition of sophistication, hands down.  He wants to tell him that now because if the next time he sees Jess is in buc alley he might feel differently.  I’d say that’s probably a safe bet.

Frankly the thought of that is scaring me a little.

Nigel has to start by complimenting two other people before he gets to the dancing.  He loves Clarice’s costume and gives a shout out to the costume designer and then also to Jean-Marc.  He loved their dancing and particularly Jess.

Time for Ryan and Ricky.  Ryan was very shy as a kid and dancing helped her personality come out.  Her first performance was in a bunny costume and everything went swimmingly until Glenn Close showed up and tried to boil her alive.

Ricky doesn’t get a filler spot at all.  Now you know I am no fan of the filler, but that is bullcrap.  I’d much rather have heard about him than stupid Ryan.  Boo.

They will be performing a contemporary piece by Sonya.  How interesting.  Sonya tells us this piece is about a couple in love but they know their relationship is ending.  It’s about the fight to let go.

I just really don’t enjoy her dancing.  It’s a shame because Ricky is a great dancer and I’d love to see him with someone else.  It should be noted that Ryan’s goofy ass smile kept making appearances during this number.  Gah.  I like Sonya’s choreography here but I still hope they’re in the bottom.

Kristin doesn’t think there’s anyone alive who doesn’t understand being involved in a relationship, even if it’s not a romantic one, that’s with someone they shouldn’t be with.  She moves from that statement to telling Ricky he has amazing turn out.  She also tells Ryan she is a beautiful dancer.

Lil C says Sonya is the artistic director of everything that is abstract and concrete about emotion and movement.  It shows and shines through in everything she does.  He also thinks that they are also a power couple in this competition.  I disagree.

Yes Lil C.  Zero.  Zero is the amount of times I want to watch Ryan dance again.

Of course Nigel loves them and talks about how proud he is that they kept Ryan last week.  Suck it, Nigel.

Mary says some might say that they were lucky in their contemporary draw, but she thinks they came prepared and really brought something to the piece.  She thinks it was gorgeous and she loved every second of it.

The last couple of the night is Stripperella and Tadd.  Stripperella was a crazy kid that used to growl at people.  Her first dance performance was in the first grade to a Spice Girls song.  Tadd was a nerdy kid that learned martial arts to protect him from bullies.  His first dance performances were part of traditional Philippine dancing.

They’ve got Tabitha and Napoleon for hip hop and this one’s about a one night stand.  A drunken black out one night stand.  Stripperella grabs whatever clothes she can find and ends up putting on the wrong clothes, so they need to come off.  Yes, Stripperella is going to be stripping in her dance.

Stripperella is uncomfortable with this dance.  Not because it involves stripping but because she doesn’t have sexual encounters with strangers.  She only sleeps with pillow pets.  I’ve heard that you can fit a lot of singles into those things.

That was a cute number.  Tadd is adorable and can dance without his shirt on every week as far as I’m concerned.  This may be the only time that Stripperella didn’t completely annoy me during a dance.  I’d still like her to leave.

Cat says she’s starting with Lil C because he’s sensible.  It’s C for sensible, or should I say censible?  He says now he knows why Stripperella wasn’t calling him back last night.  Inappropriate.  He says he loved the concept and the execution but does tell them that they need to feel the groove in their entire bodies.  He wants them to dance to the bone.

Don’t worry Stripperella, I’ll show you the bone later.

Nigel says this routine brought back so many memories of movies he’s seen.  He says the actual story of the dance overwhelmed the dance but it doesn’t matter because it was so much fun.  He doesn’t think they will be going anywhere anytime soon.

Mary thinks they are wonderful and they put the whammy on everyone.  Kristin repeats her whole door shutting shit.  She says that was a dessert and she enjoyed every bite.

I bet she did.

Now that all the couples have danced, we’re going to close it out with the other group performance danced by the people that didn’t dance the first time!  This time around Dee Caspary is the choreographer and I say a silent prayer of thanks that we’re not getting Sir BitchyPants again.

The story is that the girls are poisoning the guys and it’s set in medieval times.  Not the dinner show, the time period.

I like this one sooooooooo much better than the first group number.  Could be that’s because Sir BitchyPants didn’t choreograph it.  Maybe it’s because Melanie is in it or Ryan isn’t.  Don’t care!  I really like this one a lot.

And that’s the show, Gasmi.  What did you think?  Were you as in love with Melanie and Marko’s piece as I was?  What about getting two good numbers from Tabitha and Napoleon?  Who are you ready to say good bye to?

My apologies again for being so late this time around.  I am jumping right into the results show and will have that up as soon as I possibly can.  Thanks so much for your patience with me; I really appreciate it.

SWAK, PottyMouth