SYTYCD S5 Finals Ep15 The Stage Is Your Bowl

Kittens, did you think I would abandon you in this, your hour of need? Heaven forefend. Life intervenes, noodles, and makes me miss things that would just cause me to hurt all of you, such as bouncing the fabulous Janette who clearly should have taken it all this season. WTF, America? First Janette is bounced and now Judge #4 is re-signed for next season’s AI while Paula twists in the wind? Oh, I don’t even think so. And Evan is still here. Still? Really? I need a minute.

OK, where was I? Oh, yes. Back just in time to dish on the fabulous Cat Deeley and her purple dress and black leather cuff that I covet almost more than I care to admit. And obviously, Cat is inspiring the crack hos in wardrobe to pick up their game because most of the kids looked super cute last night and they let Brandon be practically naked for his solo which is finally! So Cat was there, the kids intro-ed. The girls all did a tired variation on what they’ve been doing every week since the finals started and Brandon was entirely fierce and then Cat came out looking super cute and we were off. Off to Lil C.

Darlings, can we just deal with Lil C? Yes, his shtick has become shtick at this point and there were moments last night where I was praying that the production monkeys would cut his mike off, but he did drop some gems along the way last night, no? I mean, I had to give him the title of this here blog entry. And yet, I would humbly submit to you that it’s time to put Lil C out to pasture as a judge. Why not bring BFree back to the panel? He was a fantastically bitchy judge in seasons 1 and 2. Or let one of the new choreographers judge. I’d bet Joey Dowling could bring the snark, no? How can we miss the inane ramblings of Lil C if he won’t go away?

Let’s go bottom up for last night, kiddies, since the two dancers that I think should be going home were paired. So close now. The producers can smell season 6 just around the corner.

I Think the Decisions Have Been Appropriated

Melissa and Evan

So it was obvious that the show wants these two to go home, right? They’ve been trying to get rid of Evan since he crashed their top 5 boys ruining the Chbeeb redemption arc. And they were totally giving Melissa the “Thank you for playing” treatment last night. And I can’t say I disagree, noodles. Evan is long past his sell by date on this show, and that with the fact that he had his best night in weeks last night. And Melissa. Well, Melissa is lovely. She truly is. And she, too, had a fairly good night last night, but in comparison to Jeanine and Kayla, she doesn’t sparkle like they do. Jeanine has turned into a monster of dance and Kayla is exquisite in every way on the dance floor (Shame about the stank personality). So anyway, they’re doomed. They danced. Here’s how it happened.

Broadway/Get Me to the Church on Time/Tasty – Frikkin’ Tasty, y’all. Can we just put this fool out to pasture? When even Nigel gives up on pimping the choreographers and points out how ridiculously easy the routine was, then you know that the choreographer is just not serving. At least the character was a better fit for Evan. And he and Melissa danced it well. Crisp, clean, cute. It was unfair of the judges to ask for more when they were given such poor material to work with. Any one of the solos Evan’s done this season has had more life and difficulty than every Broadway piece Tasty has ever done on this show. Can we just get Ryan Kasprzak as the designated Broadway choreographer now? On the real. The routine was cute and entirely competent, but not the kind of thing that warrants an appearance in the top 4.

Quickstep/As Long as I’m Singing/Louis Van Amstel – I’ve loved the addition of Louis to this show’s stable of choreographers, kittens. In fact, I’d say top to bottom, the ballroom choreographers are just as good as the stellar round up of contemporary folks that they’ve got and that’s saying something. However, I must, must take offense at this routine. The answer to the problem of Quickstep on this show is not just to decide not to choreograph a Quickstep and that’s what every single one of the choreographers, from Louis to Tony and Melanie, has done this season. The show either needs to acknowledge that Quickstep technique is too much to ask two non-trained ballroom dancers to pick up and eliminate it from the rotation once all the ballroom peeps are gone or direct the choreographers to stay true to the style and let the dance chips fall where they may. Evan and Melissa were cute as buttons, and they looked like they were having a lot of fun doing the Charleston, the Lindy Hop and even a little Jitterbug/Jive thrown in for good measure. But what they weren’t doing was Quickstep, which is the style they’d been assigned. They looked good, though. There’s that. And Evan once again proved what a solid partner he is. He handled his big woman.

Melissa Solo/I Put a Spell On You – Same as it ever was, no? She was saucy and a little bit naughty, beautiful technique, and I’m so bored now.

Evan Solo/The Lady Is a Tramp – Without question, the best choreographed solos ever on this show. Mini-Gene is still a favorite with me, but it really is time for him to go.

You Gotta Eat Because the Stage Is Your Bowl

Jeanine and Ade

These two did not have a great night, but they both did enough to merit a spot at the top in my humble opinion. Ade was terrible in samba, great in hip hop, and his solo was either good or terrible depending on how much it matters to you that dancers can keep time to the music. Jeanine was so-so in samba, just OK in hip hop, and great in her solo which was both technically demanding and wildly entertaining. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ade is going to get Pasha’d and not make top 4 even though he’s got it all over Evan, but we’ll have to wait until tonight to see how that plays out.

Samba/Love Game/Louis Van Amstel – So Louis was not on his game last night, kiddies. Lady Gaga for samba? Really? And I have to also give the stink eye to some of the choreography. That open leg, squat on the forearms and then roll through to a lift with legs wrapped around the waist move was not of the Lord. This is dance not soft core porn. I don’t want to see that much of anyone’s crotch. So, the musical choice was horrible, some of the choreography was questionable, and then there was the execution, which was sloppy, darlings. Let’s be honest. Sloppy feet, sloppy arms, not down enough into the floor, not enough hip action. As Mary pointed out, the samba rolls were pathetic. Ugh. Feh for both of them. Jeanine was slightly better than Ade, and I’ll agree that the costuming worked in her favor, though not in the lecherous way that Lil C and Nigel were suggesting. It just played more into the feel of the samba and detracted from her lack of technique. She looked the part even if she didn’t dance it.

Hip Hop/Move (If You Wanna)/NappyTab – Ade was a beast in this routine. Kittens, trust that he murdered that choreography. I was amazed by how far he turned it out. He could be in videos every day of the week and twice on Sundays. And that was great for him, but not so much for Jeanine. She really gave it her all and she was not bad, but next to Ade she looked like a rank amateur. Picture that kinda good white, dance team girl who decides that she can hang in the advanced level hip hop class and then when she gets there she can pick the steps up but that’s where it ends. That was Jeanine in this routine. And reluctantly, kiddies, I must give props to NappyTab. They proved yet again that when they can let go of the overly literal, every word must have a corresponding move style of “lyrical” hip hop that they are so fond of, they are quite good choreographers. Loved this routine, loved the clever use of props. (Dancing with the boxes on their feet? Genius!) Yep, I was all good with this routine. And Ade is magnificent. Just in case you missed it. Watch again. He is hitting beats even the choreographers didn’t know were in there.

Ade Solo/18th Floor Balcony – Kittens, I think maybe Ade can’t hear. Seriously. Maybe it’s a situation like in that movie, Ice Castles, about that small town skater who gets taken under the wing of the big time coach and then she goes off into the bright lights and big city and turns her back on her corn fed father, salt of the earth childhood coach, and scrappy everyman boyfriend and then she starts dating this older man and blowing off training for partying and really feeling herself and then she is skating outside on this rink and there are chains and shit all over it and then she falls and hits her head and then she goes like 90% blind so the fancy pants coach drops her and she starts to wallow in her tragedy but then she learns how to skate again just through the love of her scrappy boyfriend/coach and then she competes at the Olympic trials and she totally nails her routine and it's all happy until she starts skating around the rink to take her bows and everyone is throwing roses on the ice only she can’t see them so she falls and then everyone realizes that she’s blind and then her scrappy boyfriend walks out onto the ice and helps her up and they share a rueful laugh because they had thought of every eventuality in their carefully crafted master plan to get a blind woman into the regular people Olympics except for they forgot to plan for how she was going to be so brilliant that people would throw flowers on the ice and she wouldn’t see them so she’d trip and then they hold hands and shrug because regardless she is awesome and she kicked all the other skaters’ asses and everyone cries including the fancy pants coach who dropped her. So I think the sitch on SYTYCD is just like that except that Ade can’t really hear and so he learns all his routines just through counts except when he has to dance for his life, he can’t practice with counts, and so he just goes out and does something but since he can’t hear the music, it doesn’t match up and his solos just wind up looking crazy. That’s the only explanation I can think of for the lack of musicality on display last night.

Jeanine Solo/Feedback – Immediate points for using this underappreciated Janet Jackson groove. And did y’all see that quadruple turn she busted out and the control she demonstrated at the end there when she reined it in and pouted cheekily at the audience in perfect time to the music? Sick. It’s such a pleasure to see ladies with nice, solid centers on the show this season rather than the typical weebles wobbling that we tend to get, no? Loved the solo, noodles.

When You See with Your Ears, There Is No Darkness

Kayla and Brandon

Contemporary/All I Want/Stacey Tookie – Kittens, Ms. Tookie is a great addition to the stable of contemporary choreographers. She did not disappoint. This was a gorgeous routine. From the very first moments when they were silent and separate on the stage, the whole thing was on. And of course, these two both have lovely lines and flawless technique. Brandon is an absolute superstar. So much power and strength, so much intentionality behind his movement. And Kayla. I can’t rave enough about how exquisite her legs and feet are. Toe point of the gods, noodles. That one lift where he was holding her kind of shoulder height on her side with her legs bent and then they kind of popped the lift out into an almost straight, horizontal position and back to the original hold? So much core strength required of both of them to be able to do that. Ridiculous. I’d agree that the connection wasn’t all the way there for me. I don’t know that I bought them as lovers, but I definitely appreciated the beauty of the execution.

Disco/Dance (Disco Heat)/Doriana – Well, you knew this was going to be a trick factory going in. Luckily, the two of them are technically skilled enough to mostly pull it off. I was impressed here by Kayla’s ability to let go and really get into the cheesy character of the dance. She looked like she was having a ton of fun, and that’s half the battle in disco. This reminded me of the Neil/Sara disco. There were some cute, funky moves, challenging lifts, an opportunity for Brandon to show off his tumbling skills. All the elements were in place. And the double death drop was fun. I love how excited Unca Nigel gets when the kids lay down a good disco. I’m sure it takes him back to his days at Studio 57.

Kayla Solo/You Found Me – Flail. Flail. Turn. Extension. Flail. Yawn.

Brandon Solo/O, Fortuna – Naked Brandon. Naked Brandon being all beautiful and powerful and Ailey-esque. I’m sorry, kittens. I need a moment.

You Are Modifying Your Manipulation of Movement

Boys Group Number/Contemporary (She Wants Revenge)/Sonya – Every piece of that routine was awesome. I expected Brandon and Ade to serve, and they did. But Evan? Kiddies, Evan came to play in this piece. Double tours and a standing back tuck? I didn’t even know that he had it like that. The routine was all over hot and everybody popped. What’s more, had they been doing top 3 group dances in seasons past, I’m not sure that any other trio could’ve done it any better, if at all. Last season, Twitch could not have handled something this technically demanding. Joshua could’ve hung with it and Mark would’ve been divine as the Mark/Bow Wow Wow combo was always magic. In S3, Danny and the Hunchback could’ve brought it, but Pasha would’ve really struggled. Travis is the only S2 boy that I could see being up to the technical demands of the piece at the time that he was on the show. Both Benji and Ivan seem to have grown enormously as dancers since their time on SYTYCD, but during their season, nope. Neither one. Well, in S1, Blake and Nick would’ve been divine but Jamile, yeah, I can’t see it.

There Was a Dominant Submission

Girls Group Number/Contemporary (Kick It [Stereohouse Remix])/Sonya – Three ladies with impeccable technique + Bow Wow Wow. What’s not to love? I thought the routine was excellent fun. Loved the costumes and loved Cat and her cuff forming the perfect fourth. They dance and fight crime! I was again struck by Kayla. She’s so beautiful when she dances. I wish she weren’t so stank. Maybe she’ll grow out of it?

Random Musings and Losings

I love how much Mary misses Janette. I do too, kittens. It’s just wrong.

Nigel needs to give the whole “no star quality” thing a rest because after all, he cast the show with nobodies like random ballroom boy whose name I don’t even remember anymore and his equally scintillating partner who got voted off week one, Ms. No Name. Or such sparklers as Tony “No Growth Arc” Bellisimo or even folks like Fat Face and Karla who were cute and all that but never stars. All the while Natalie weeps in a corner somewhere wailing and gnashing her teeth.

To refute Nigel’s inane point, Brandon Bryant is a superstar and he was the best dancer of them all last year when he didn’t even make the show and with the criminal booting of Janette last week, he will take it all if there is any justice in this world.

In a sane world, we’d say goodbye to Melissa and Evan tonight, but Evan has become the cockroach of the season, and I say this as someone who really likes him, so he could totally eke through. If he manages to bump Ade, I’ll be sad but not inconsolable. But Kittens, if he somehow causes me to lose Brandon, there will be blood.