(MAKING IT UP AS WE GO ALONG. The judges don't like the rules they set up so they ignore them and no one goes home. Also Cat wears her craziest outfits ever. And it's our first episode without Anya or Pasha. Nothing this week makes sense!)6 Finalists Remain: 4 contempos, 1 jazz hands and1 breaker... who's kinda outstayed his welcome. Everyone will dance three times this week, as we try to fill two hours with fewer and fewer dancers. Welcome... to So You THINK You Can Dance!
Here come the intros, let's count to make sure everyone is here. One, two, three, four, five and... NO! Not again! Three weeks in a row someone is injured? And it's Billy (Elliot/Jamie) Bell that's gone down. Holy hell.
Okay, listen. I can't do a normal recap this week, because the whole two episodes turned out to be a total wash. Here's what happened. Billy hurt his knee while rehearsing. the doctors cleared him, but he still thought it was better not to push it as he was set to dance some knee-intense numbers. This was a little weird though because no one has ever elected not to dance before when the doctors said they could. So Billy got sent to the bottom three and the others danced two routines plus solos. Kenny Ortrga was also there as the 4th judge to mark the special anniversary of the show's 150th episode. Here's how the dances went in my order of preference.
Lauren and Twitch did a Tabitha and Napoleon Wild West routine. Lauren did this insane reverse somersault roll designed to look like a tumbleweed. That was intense! Everything was hit hard and looked really really good.
Robert and Fellow-Contestant Lauren did a beach party-flavored samba by Dmitry Chaplin. It was cute. They had the right feel for it. Robert looked solid and strong. Lauren looked great. They had a few wonky moments where they didn't quite connect right on the lift spins, but overall a fun number.
Kent and Kathryn danced Jazz From Sonya, but I didn't really dig the choreo even though they had strong energy. The thing i remember most from this was their colorful shirts. Nigel says Kent outdanced his all-star partner 2 weeks in a row and i think that's not true in both instances.
AdéChiké paired with Comfort for Tabitha and Napoleon lyrical hip hop. It's emotional and danced strong, but there's a very real slap that seems kind of out of place. It's not like there haven't been a million fake punches and kicks and smacks on this show before. We could've lived without it.
Robert and All-Star Lauren's had jazz with Tyce. It was sexy and well done, but there was one moment where Tyce had Robert lick Lauren's leg that felt totally gratuitous. Still it gets points for being straight jazz and not dependent on a literal story.
Kent should've danced with "injured" Billy to a step routine by Chuck Maldonado. Instead he gets partnered with Twitch. I didn't think this routine worked at all. Twitch and Kent are so physically different. The style was much more natural for Twitch than Kent, who i personally thought flailed around for a lot of it. The judges can't find enough praise to heap on him, but really? It was no Alex and Twitch Hip Hop from before all the injuries came to town.
Jose and Allison did Sonya Tayeh contempo, which was all danced on the lip of the stage and would've been really cool if someone with more technique than Jose was dancing it. Instead, Sonya gave Jose movements which Mia later characterized as "pedestrian," meaning they came out of normal everyday movement instead of movement learned through technique. Jose is just in over his head right now, people.
AdéChiké and Jose dance a guy on guy Paso Doble choreo'ed by Dmitry Chaplin and All-Star in his own right Legacy. It doesn't work at all, mainly again because Jose has no technique. Just being shirtless and waving a cape does not a paso doble make.
Results Show: The opening dance is a cool cover of "All That Jazz" with choreo by a lady named Kelley Abbey. Jose does not dance the opening number for the second week in a row which seems insane to me. How does he keep getting excused from doing these routines?
Bottom 3: Robert, Jose and a by-default Billy. They all do solos. Wait, no they don't. Robert and Jose do, Billy's still chillin' in the audience.
The All-Star encore dance is Wade Robson's routine for Lauren and Neil from season 3, which is cool and all, but I am still waiting for Lauren and Pasha's Transformers routine. They must be saving it as the finale of all the encore numbers because it rocks so hard.
Members of the American Ballet Theater performed the Grand Pas de Deux from Act III of Don Quixote, and they looked more like claymation figures than people for all their superhuman nimbleness.
The boys do solos. The judges go off to deliberate. Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull show up to sing a song and Allison, Lauren and Dominic supply the back up dancing.
Then the judges return. They are in a predicament, you see. They have Robert, who they suddenly think has stopped growing. Jose, who maybe has not grown at all ever on the show, and Billy who elected not to compete this week even with doctor's clearance. Getting rid of Robert before Jose would be insane. So it comes down to Billy and Jose. I think they would like to get rid of Jose, but don't like the idea of rewarding a contestant who just wants to take a week off from competing. And here I must paraphrase Into The Woods: Then from out of the blue, and without any guide. They know what they're decision is, which is not to decide. No one gets cut. Next week they'll cut two. So nothing this week really mattered, except maybe every flaw in Jose's dancing was exposed and maybe Billy's attitude has cost him a trip to the top 4, since I find it likely both those boys will be cut next week. At this point I really think nothing can stop Kent's ascent to the title, except maybe an injury. The way this season is going it's not out of the realm of possibility.
Let's hope next week we get 6 healthy and willing contestants and lots of solid routines!
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