DWTS Week 10: The Final Dance

PERFORMANCE NIGHT:

We're down to three finalists, each of whom will perform two dances tonight and one dance tomorrow. Their three-dance total, combined with tonight's audience vote, will determine the champion.



The first dance for all three finalists was a side-by-side Samba, with all three couples taking their turn in the spotlight during a single combined routine.

The routine was pretty cool, with a nice ending in which all six dancers got together like a football huddle and spun around, with the women's feet up in the air.

Bruno managed to bring the class down a notch when he told Brooke that she was a "sexy sizzler," and that "anyone would like to drive that model!" How would you like it if we said that about your mom, Bruno? She's married and has four kids, for crying out loud. Although, I guess to be fair, I haven't seen Bruno's mom strutting her stuff in a tiny little two piece. Nor do I want to.

Anyhow, Brooke got a 28, Lance got a 26, and Warren got a 25. Not fantastic scores, but I think this was fair, because the dancers all obviously were a little more focused on their freestyle dances.

The freestyles are always the highlight of the season. The rules are, there are no rules. That means that the dancers can use any dance style, including none at all, and they can incorporate as many lifts, tricks, and crazy props as they would like. This no-holds-barred terrain has allowed some dancers to knock our socks off, and some to seriously underwhelm us.

Brooke and Derek had the first freestyle routine, and they have chosen very wisely. "You're the One That I Want," from Grease, is the song, and their dance is full of very difficult maneuvers and lots of showmanship. They work in a costume change at one point, with Brooke stripping off a relatively frumpy dress to reveal lots of red spangles and a halter top. She then jumped from the top of the judge's scoring table all the way down into Derek's waiting arms.

Overall, I thought that it was one of the better freestyles that I've seen over the course of the series. There are at least a few that I can think of that I liked better, but it was way better than average. The judges loved it. Bruno and Len both said it was the best freestyle that they had ever seen, which I think we can chalk up to their trying to create a little excitement in the moment.

Bruno said that Brooke and Derek were in positions that he had only seen in the Kama Sutra (Brooke's kid: "Mommy, what's a Kama Sutra?").

They judges predictably gave it a triple 10, which I think was probably deserved.

Next up was Lance and Lacey, who decided that their freestyle should be all about the 80s era of hiphop. They kicked it old school style to Run DMC's "Tricky."

It was filled with lots of entertaining tricks, many of which tried to make it look like Lacey's torso was on Lance's legs, or vice versa. To be honest, I don't think that it played to Lance's strengths very well. Lacey's strengths, yes, but not Lance's. It looked like a number that belongs on "So You Think You Can Dance," which is the reality dancing show that Lacey cut her teeth on, so go figure.

That's not to say that it wasn't entertaining, which it was. But for Brooke's performance, you got the idea that the choreography really stretched her dancing capabilities to the limits, while this routine was less awe-inspiring and more fun. Maybe that's because Lance just doesn't have the technical chops that Brooke does.

One thing that I liked was that Lance pulled off one of his own shoes at the end, which was a callback to the incident when he lost his shoe. It was a nice note to end on.

The judges praised Lance's routine mightily, with Carrie Ann nitpicking that she didn't like one bit where Lance and Lacey threw in a few beats of traditional ballroom dancing. Len took the opportunity to show that he is indeed, hip, and likes hip hop in it's proper place, which a freestyle is. The judges gave it 3 nines for a total score of 27.

Warren and Kym closed out the night with their freestyle, and I thought it was a very good effort to cover up Warren's obvious relative weakness. They chose Tina Turner's "Proud Mary."

He may be flat-footed, but he's strong, and so Warren spent most of the dance throwing Kym all over the dance floor, and into the air. The strong lifts were interspersed with some traditional dance moves that evoked Tina Turner.

Overall, it was fun, and the lifts were very impressive, but it just didn't approach the skill level that Lance, and especially Brooke, had on display.

The judges talked about what a great entertainer Warren is, and how well he connects with his audience. I agree that he does do both of those things well, but not as well as some other performers we've seen over the years. Maybe not even as well as Lance.

The judges gave him a 28, fueled by Len's perfect 10 score (which Len announced was "for entertainment!"). I'm not sure Warren earned that score over Lance.

Here's what the leaderboard looked like after performance night:

Brooke: 28 + 30 = 58
Lance: 26 +27 = 53
Warren: 25 +28 = 53

Elimination Night

Well, my power went out Tuesday morning, and didn't come back on until almost 4 am, so I didn't actually get to see the finale. So!

Here's what I gather happened:

Lots of filler featuring all of the eliminated dancers. A recap noting that 106 dances have been performed by the contestants for our viewing pleasure. A funny roast organized by Jeffrey Ross, in which he compared Lance to Clay Aiken, and Cloris's performances to "Weekend at Bernie's: The Musical."

Warren and Kym performed a final Hustle, earning a score of 27 from the judges.
Lance and Lacey performed a final Jitterbug (with a fouled lift in it), earning a score of 28 from the judges.
Brooke and Derek performed a final Viennese Waltz, which gets another perfect 30 from the judges.

Out of 90 total possible points for the three dances, this left the scoring as follows:

Brooke: 88
Lance: 81
Warren: 80

The next dancer eliminated, in third place?

Shocker! Lance Bass!

I think Lance was between a rock and a hard place in this competition. Anyone who was purely rewarding dance skill was going to probably lean Brooke's way, while anyone who was looking for entertainment value was probably going to be split between Lance and Warren. And sports figures have notoriously big voting blocs on this show, for some reason.

So, that kind of took all of the suspense out of who was going to win.

Warren beating Brooke was almost unthinkable, and he didn't.

Warren came in second, leaving Brooke as the champion! Well-derserved, I would say. Brooke is the second woman to win, and the second woman in a row to win. This is also a nice boon for Derek Hough who, while detestable, does seem to work very hard and ably at going far in the competition.

DWTS is starting to rack up enough champions stateside to pull off some sort of all-star competition. So much of the story line is predicated on people coming in cold that I doubt they could sustain a full season, but it would be fun to see some sort of special spaced out over a few weeks.

The Standings

This finale kind of turned things on their head. I invited everyone to send me their predicted order for the final three finishers last week, and those who didn't respond were given a final 3 prediction based on their initial predictions.

So, there were points galore to be had. Three eliminations, TS points, BS points, and 75 bonus points for each final correct pick.

Going into the final week, our scores looked like this:

1st: Carl 913
2nd: Experts 895
3rd: Matt 887
4th: Mike 880
5th: Dawn 872
6th: Kim 823
7th: Rick 797
8th: Lisa 740
9th: Paul 712

I'll tell you right now that the Experts outperformed everyone, so I guess that title really did mean something. Damn you, experts! We'll beat you next season!

And how did the rest of us finish up? The titles below are permanent, until you earn a different title in a new DWTS season.



Eighth Place: THE WORST OF ALL
Paul

Finale Score Total: -137
Final Score: 575
Best Move: One one off each in 3 consecutive weeks (for Susan, Maurice, and Rocco)
Worst move: Picking Ted to finish in fourth place
Last Season's Title: Jester of Gesture (7th), with 738 points
Oh, Paul. He was in the cellar from Week 2 on, when Ted's early ouster cost him a big 80 points. He was never competitive, and the only question was how low he could go. His 575 finishing total sets a record for the worst performance ever. I guess his title as Amazing Race Genius will have to be enough to nurture his ego for now.



Seventh Place: THE JESTER OF GESTURE
Lisa

Finale Score Total: -117
Final Score: 623
Best Move: Getting TS/BS and 1st elimination right in week one, thereby gaining 74 pts
Worst move: Picking Ted to last until 5th place
Last Season's Title: Baroness of Ballroom (4th), with 1012 points
Lisa started off with a bang in week one, racking up a huge number of bonus points and battling with Mike for first. It was all downhill from there. She was at least competitive for a while, but then she was hamstrung by someone else's tendon-- Misty May Treanor. Misty's untimely ouster hurt her, and she also always seemed to be just a little more wrong than the next guy. At least she has Paul to kick around.



Sixth Place: THE HARLOT OF HARDWOOD
Kim

Finale Score Total: -177
Final Score: 644
Best Move: Correctly predicting Jeffrey out first
Worst move: None of her final four made the final four
Last Season's Title: Cock of the Walk (3rd), with 1030 points
Kim took a tumble compared to her performance last season. She was doing fairly well for the first few weeks of the season, battling for first place with Mike as late as week four. But ultimately, Kim put her eggs in the wrong basket-- Rocco Dispirito. The chef turned out to be as stiff as a well-whipped souffle, and that meant that Kim's presumptive pick for winner went out early. In fact, all four of her top picks failed to make the final four, and that just added up to a lousy season. She may be the love of my life, but I'm not taking any advice from her on who's likely to be a good dancer.



Fifth Place: THE BEST OF THE REST
Mike

Finale Score Total: -147
Final Score: 733
Best Move: Ruling the pool for the first month solid
Worst move: Thinking Kim Kardashian would last until 5th place
Last Season's Title: NA
Well, this is certainly a respectable DWTS pool debut. Mike looked unstoppable for the first half of the season, sucking up bonus points like a vacuum cleaner gone wild. Considering how well he did early, his middling finish means that he crashed and burned pretty hard in the later weeks, which is exactly what happened. If Lance had finished in second place, Mike would have finished higher, but as it is, this is a very strong first showing.



Fourth Place: THE BARON OF BALLROOM
Rick

Finale Score Total: -55
Final Score: 742
Best Move: Picking Lance to finish third
Worst move: A three week stretch mid-season
Last Season's Title: NA
Rick took this title from his wife Lisa, and has the distinction of being the best first-timer this season. The damaging 3 week stretch when Misty, Rocco, and Toni went out cost him a whopping 170 points, and that pretty much sunk him. But he had a strong finale -- losing only 55 points allowed him to finish in the top half of the pool, and so that makes him squarely better-than-average (if he had predicted Brooke to win the finale, he would have finished in 3rd). Good job, Rick!


Third Place: THE COCK OF THE WALK
Matt

Finale Score Total: -92
Final Score: 795
Best Move: Predicting Rocco out in 9th
Worst move: Picking Brooke out in 8th
Last Season's Title: Lord of the Dance (1st), with 1138 points
I fell from Lord of the Dance to Cock of the Walk, a title that Kim had last year. I've kicked myself repeatedly for changing my Brooke prediction from 4th to 8th at the last minute. My picks were only average, but I scooped up enough bonus points to give me an edge over the other middling pool players and finish respectably.


Second Place: THE BUCK OF THE BALL
Carl

Finale Score Total: -62
Final Score: 851
Best Move: Picking Maurice out in 5th place
Worst move: Picking Maurice out in 5th place
Last Season's Title: Best of the Rest (5th), with 869 points
Carl might not appreciate being the Belle of the Ball, so I changed it to Buck of the Ball instead. He started off poorly in the pool, but just kept hanging around and hanging around in the middle of the pack, waiting for a chance to go higher. That chance came when Maurice got eliminated, and Carl became the pool leader for the first time. His rise from fifth to second marks the most improvement of any returning player in the pool. What force of nature prevented him from winning it all?


First Place: THE LORD(LADY) OF THE DANCE
Dawn

Finale Score Total: +5
Final Score: 877
Best Move: Three of her top four made the top four; predicted Lance out in third
Worst move: Picking Misty to win
Last Season's Title: Belle of the Ball (2nd), with 1082 points
Dawn came into the pool with only one mountain unclimbed, and climb it she did. Moving into first place from second validates her method of playing close attention to detail-- she turned in a great set of picks, and was very flexible in choosing her TS/BS. That allowed her to rack up enough bonus points to overcome her few bad picks. At the end of week two, Dawn was in LAST. But here we are, a couple of months later, and she has won it all. Congratulations to Dawn on a fantastic job! Dawn's won the most important thing in life-- bragging rights, and the ability to lord it over the rest of us-- at least until next season.

Better luck next time, everyone.

Thank you all for being a part of my little pool. I think we can all agree that running three pools at once has been a little overwhelming. I'm probably going to start the next one in January, depending on what's on the schedule.

If anyone wants to do me a favor, they can visit my other blog here, and cast their votes in the various categories in the right hand column.

Thanks!