Firstly, WOW – what a great opening number. Tabitha and Napoleon teaming up with Dmitiri Chapin, and they truly outdid themselves. Pitbull, as great as he is to dance to, is not the easiest to choreograph to, because his rapid pace demands a lot of ideas from the people working with it. It was brilliantly staged, beautifully shot, and sexy in all the right ways. But this show is about results.
I was right about the bottom three this week, which is a weirdly not great feeling.
In the solos, Asuka did what every ballroom dancer does, but did it well. Vitolio came out sharp, but seemed to run out of steam. Karla seemed quirky in a Mark Kanemura sort of way. Jonathon mixed some gymnastics into his ballroom, which didn’t seem super-impressive. Caitlin did her contemporary thing, and it was good, but nothing about it struck me. Jason…I’m not sure what he was doing. After the solos, I am sticking to my Asuka and Jonathon guns.
The judges deemed Caitlin’s solo the best. (Again, I clearly cannot judge solos.) Karla came off as desperate to the judges, and Asuka gets praised as an exciting performer who is not growing, and she is this season’s Faina Savech/Anya Garnis as the ballroom girl who gets a fast axe. After a stern finger-wagging from Nigel sends Jonathon home. So Karla and Vitolio will be our new couple next week. I expect more big things from Kayla and Kupono, and I think Phillip and Jeanine are teetering on the edge of falling off.
