For the first time in the history of So You Think You Can Dance, I think we have the exact right people in the finale (though, if there had been no injuries, I think it might have gone a different way and I suspect I would have been happy with that too) and I would be pleased as punch if any one of them were to win. That’s not to say I don’t have a preference, because I do, but all three of the finalists were terrific last night and it made for maybe the best final performance show ever.
Contestant: Kent
All-Star: Lauren
Dance: Bollywood, Nakul Dev Mahajan
It’s no secret I don’t care for Bollywood and I think it’s way over-used on the show, but this one was fun. The “story” is that Kent and Lauren are getting married when Kent chickens out and ditches Lauren at the alter. Other than the very beginning of the dance, I didn’t see that “story” all that much in the dance but it was energetic and had a lot of humor and played to Kent’s strength of performing and drawing the audience in to the dance.
Grade – Contestant: A
Grade – All-Star: A
Grade – Choreography: B+
Contestant: Lauren
All-Star: Twitch
Dance: Hip Hop, Tabitha and Napoleon
Ok, I have never been as enamored with NappyTabs gimmick routines as Nigel, but there have been a couple that I’ve enjoyed and this is one. It’s a presidential debate between Twitch and Lauren and it was plenty entertaining to watch. Both danced it very well and I continue to be blown away by how Lauren fits into every genre they throw at her. This isn’t her first hip hop so it’s not new news that she is very hard hitting and kicks all kinds of ass at it but it remains astounding and wonderful to watch her take on everything with such gusto and knock it all out of the park.
Grade – Contestant: A+
Grade – All-Star: A+
Grade – Choreography: A
Contestant: Robert
All-Star: Mark
Dance: Jazz, Tyce DiOrio
This was quite a departure for Tyce and was actually pretty decent. Robert and Mark look enough alike that when you dress them identically, they make a fairly interesting big-twin, little-twin pairing on stage. But Mark’s style is so perfectly jazzy – both in the way he dances it and in the way he performs it – that it was easy to tell who was the all-star and who was the contestant the whole way through. While Mark is IN the dance, Robert just seems to be dancing on top of it. He has all the moves but he’s wearing them like clothes and the moves are inside of Mark so everything is a little smoother, a little funkier and a little more entertaining to watch. I thought Mark out danced Robert by quite a bit this time.
Grade – Contestant: B
Grade – All-Star: A+
Grade – Choreography: A-
Contestants: Lauren and Robert
Dance: Contemporary, Dee Kaspary
They’re dancing with a pillow which is supposed to symbolize home and their weariness. There were some interesting elements to the dance to be sure but there was also a lot of weird angles that kind of kept it from flowing for me. And, as so often happens when they dance with a prop, I found I was watching the prop a lot waiting to see if they’d drop it or miss it or trip on it or something. That kind of thing can be really distracting if it doesn’t feel 100% integrated into the dance and this was one of those times when it didn’t. It was a fine piece but nothing that I’ll remember for any real length of time.
Grade – Lauren: A
Grade – Robert: A
Grade – Choreography: B+
Contestants: Lauren and Kent
Dance: Jazz, Mandy Moore
Oh, Mandy. You came and you gave us some sub-par routines this season. And now I’d like to send you away for a while until you get some of the zest that inspired the table dance in season three back. Oh, Mandy. That’s right, I went to Barry Manilow! This was a perfectly cute and fun number and they danced it exactly as I think it was meant to be danced and the two of them have undeniably good chemistry with one another so it was a win on that level. But the problem was that this looked like a routine an intermediate Junior High dance class could have mastered. It just wasn’t strong enough choreography for a finale or for this show at all, really. I wouldn’t have even trusted this routine to weed out the chaff in Vegas. But that’s not something I can blame Kent or Lauren for and as I said, they danced it perfectly for what it was, unfortunately it showcased absolutely nothing about them. Oh, except that Lauren looks hella cute in nerd glasses.
Grade – Lauren: A
Grade – Kent: A
Grade – Choreography: C-
Contestant: Kent
All-Star: Allison
Dance: Contemporary, Stacey Tookey
This was an excellent dance and an excellent performance from both dancers. The premise was that the two of them spend all their time pretending to be a perfect couple but it’s caused such tension between them that when they’re home alone together, all they do is fight. And these are ugly, horrible fights. It begins with the two just coming home after some fancy function, she takes off her dress and he throws his cufflinks aside, and then they pick a fight with one another that escalates. It was filled with emotion to the point that it made me vaguely uncomfortable to watch. Like when I was little and my parents were still married and would sometimes have horrible fights after I was in bed and I’d sneak down to see what was happening and spy these confrontations that I should never have seen. But I mean all of that in the best possible way because both dancers, but especially Kent, were so raw and so powerful in their performance that while they were brilliant with the steps, the steps were completely secondary to the scene that played out on stage. It was one of the top dances of the season for me. And when Adam asked Kent what he was feeling and Kent said that it was personal but that at some point it just wasn’t about the steps because the emotion had taken over, all the judges agreed that that was exactly the breakthrough they’re always looking for in a dancer. I think that’s what turns a dancer from a contestant into an all-star.
Grade – Contestant: A+
Grade – All-Star: A+
Grade – Choreography: A+
Contestant: Robert
All-Star: Kathryn
Dance: Broadway, Spencer Liff
Spencer can choreograph GOOD Broadway! By far the best Broadway number of the season and one of the best from the whole run of the show, this told the story, it fit the music, it didn’t look like it would have been better with a whole fucking production and 20 additional dancers (like Tyce’s choreography ALWAYS does). It was pitch perfect and both dancers were right on the money. I thought this was Robert’s best performance of the season and he danced that thing like the ass of his pants wasn’t ripped completely open (it was!). More Spencer Liff, please!
Grade – Contestant: A+
Grade – All-Star: A+
Grade – Choreography: A+
Contestant: Lauren
All-Star: Pasha
Dance: Cha Cha, Melanie LaPatin and Tony Meredith
How many more ways can I tell you that Lauren is freaking awesome and that when she dances with Pasha it is hotter than the sun? There just aren’t any other ways for me to say it. This one didn’t blow me away quite as much as some of the other ones they’ve done but once again, she kills these ballroom routines as if she were a ballroom dancer! It gave me chills when Mia told her that if she were still dancing, she’d want to dance exactly like Lauren.
Grade – Contestant: A
Grade – All-Star: A
Grade – Choreography: A
Contestants: Kent and Robert
Predictions
Should Win: Lauren
Will Win: Lauren
I know that Kent has a huge following and I suppose they could have all decided to speed-dial themselves into a coma last night to ensure victory for the cutest contestant ever. And Robert’s fan base has steadily grown over the course of the show – rightfully so – but I don’t think that they are large enough or passionate enough to out-vote the folks who love Kent. Still, I think that Lauren really has been the most consistently outstanding dancer of the season and I think that she’s won over a lot of people that way who will quietly vote en masse for her because of it. I also think it’d make a great story for a girl to win the very season the girls started at such a disadvantage.
Contestant: KentAll-Star: Lauren
Dance: Bollywood, Nakul Dev Mahajan
It’s no secret I don’t care for Bollywood and I think it’s way over-used on the show, but this one was fun. The “story” is that Kent and Lauren are getting married when Kent chickens out and ditches Lauren at the alter. Other than the very beginning of the dance, I didn’t see that “story” all that much in the dance but it was energetic and had a lot of humor and played to Kent’s strength of performing and drawing the audience in to the dance.
Grade – Contestant: A
Grade – All-Star: A
Grade – Choreography: B+
Contestant: LaurenAll-Star: Twitch
Dance: Hip Hop, Tabitha and Napoleon
Ok, I have never been as enamored with NappyTabs gimmick routines as Nigel, but there have been a couple that I’ve enjoyed and this is one. It’s a presidential debate between Twitch and Lauren and it was plenty entertaining to watch. Both danced it very well and I continue to be blown away by how Lauren fits into every genre they throw at her. This isn’t her first hip hop so it’s not new news that she is very hard hitting and kicks all kinds of ass at it but it remains astounding and wonderful to watch her take on everything with such gusto and knock it all out of the park.
Grade – Contestant: A+
Grade – All-Star: A+
Grade – Choreography: A
Contestant: RobertAll-Star: Mark
Dance: Jazz, Tyce DiOrio
This was quite a departure for Tyce and was actually pretty decent. Robert and Mark look enough alike that when you dress them identically, they make a fairly interesting big-twin, little-twin pairing on stage. But Mark’s style is so perfectly jazzy – both in the way he dances it and in the way he performs it – that it was easy to tell who was the all-star and who was the contestant the whole way through. While Mark is IN the dance, Robert just seems to be dancing on top of it. He has all the moves but he’s wearing them like clothes and the moves are inside of Mark so everything is a little smoother, a little funkier and a little more entertaining to watch. I thought Mark out danced Robert by quite a bit this time.
Grade – Contestant: B
Grade – All-Star: A+
Grade – Choreography: A-
Contestants: Lauren and RobertDance: Contemporary, Dee Kaspary
They’re dancing with a pillow which is supposed to symbolize home and their weariness. There were some interesting elements to the dance to be sure but there was also a lot of weird angles that kind of kept it from flowing for me. And, as so often happens when they dance with a prop, I found I was watching the prop a lot waiting to see if they’d drop it or miss it or trip on it or something. That kind of thing can be really distracting if it doesn’t feel 100% integrated into the dance and this was one of those times when it didn’t. It was a fine piece but nothing that I’ll remember for any real length of time.
Grade – Lauren: A
Grade – Robert: A
Grade – Choreography: B+
Contestants: Lauren and KentDance: Jazz, Mandy Moore
Oh, Mandy. You came and you gave us some sub-par routines this season. And now I’d like to send you away for a while until you get some of the zest that inspired the table dance in season three back. Oh, Mandy. That’s right, I went to Barry Manilow! This was a perfectly cute and fun number and they danced it exactly as I think it was meant to be danced and the two of them have undeniably good chemistry with one another so it was a win on that level. But the problem was that this looked like a routine an intermediate Junior High dance class could have mastered. It just wasn’t strong enough choreography for a finale or for this show at all, really. I wouldn’t have even trusted this routine to weed out the chaff in Vegas. But that’s not something I can blame Kent or Lauren for and as I said, they danced it perfectly for what it was, unfortunately it showcased absolutely nothing about them. Oh, except that Lauren looks hella cute in nerd glasses.
Grade – Lauren: A
Grade – Kent: A
Grade – Choreography: C-
Contestant: KentAll-Star: Allison
Dance: Contemporary, Stacey Tookey
This was an excellent dance and an excellent performance from both dancers. The premise was that the two of them spend all their time pretending to be a perfect couple but it’s caused such tension between them that when they’re home alone together, all they do is fight. And these are ugly, horrible fights. It begins with the two just coming home after some fancy function, she takes off her dress and he throws his cufflinks aside, and then they pick a fight with one another that escalates. It was filled with emotion to the point that it made me vaguely uncomfortable to watch. Like when I was little and my parents were still married and would sometimes have horrible fights after I was in bed and I’d sneak down to see what was happening and spy these confrontations that I should never have seen. But I mean all of that in the best possible way because both dancers, but especially Kent, were so raw and so powerful in their performance that while they were brilliant with the steps, the steps were completely secondary to the scene that played out on stage. It was one of the top dances of the season for me. And when Adam asked Kent what he was feeling and Kent said that it was personal but that at some point it just wasn’t about the steps because the emotion had taken over, all the judges agreed that that was exactly the breakthrough they’re always looking for in a dancer. I think that’s what turns a dancer from a contestant into an all-star.
Grade – Contestant: A+
Grade – All-Star: A+
Grade – Choreography: A+
Contestant: RobertAll-Star: Kathryn
Dance: Broadway, Spencer Liff
Spencer can choreograph GOOD Broadway! By far the best Broadway number of the season and one of the best from the whole run of the show, this told the story, it fit the music, it didn’t look like it would have been better with a whole fucking production and 20 additional dancers (like Tyce’s choreography ALWAYS does). It was pitch perfect and both dancers were right on the money. I thought this was Robert’s best performance of the season and he danced that thing like the ass of his pants wasn’t ripped completely open (it was!). More Spencer Liff, please!
Grade – Contestant: A+
Grade – All-Star: A+
Grade – Choreography: A+
Contestant: LaurenAll-Star: Pasha
Dance: Cha Cha, Melanie LaPatin and Tony Meredith
How many more ways can I tell you that Lauren is freaking awesome and that when she dances with Pasha it is hotter than the sun? There just aren’t any other ways for me to say it. This one didn’t blow me away quite as much as some of the other ones they’ve done but once again, she kills these ballroom routines as if she were a ballroom dancer! It gave me chills when Mia told her that if she were still dancing, she’d want to dance exactly like Lauren.
Grade – Contestant: A
Grade – All-Star: A
Grade – Choreography: A
Contestants: Kent and Robert Dance: Malevos, Miriam Larici and Leonardo Barrionuevo
Apparently this is how men in Argentina practice their tangos when there are no women around to dance with. They dance with each other and turn the sexy tango into a dance fight. I didn’t realize there was such a shortage of women in Argentina but whatever. It’s an ok dance and perhaps it could have been great but with this pair it ended up feeling a bit awkward. For one thing, Robert is so much taller than Kent it was like watching a guy fight with his much younger brother. For another, Robert’s sloppy ballroom feet struck again. He lacks any sort of crispness below the waist and ends up looking like his long legs are just flailing around down there. Kent out-danced him in this one.
Grade – Kent: A-
Grade – Robert: B-
Grade – Choreography: A-
Apparently this is how men in Argentina practice their tangos when there are no women around to dance with. They dance with each other and turn the sexy tango into a dance fight. I didn’t realize there was such a shortage of women in Argentina but whatever. It’s an ok dance and perhaps it could have been great but with this pair it ended up feeling a bit awkward. For one thing, Robert is so much taller than Kent it was like watching a guy fight with his much younger brother. For another, Robert’s sloppy ballroom feet struck again. He lacks any sort of crispness below the waist and ends up looking like his long legs are just flailing around down there. Kent out-danced him in this one.
Grade – Kent: A-
Grade – Robert: B-
Grade – Choreography: A-
Predictions
Should Win: Lauren
Will Win: Lauren
I know that Kent has a huge following and I suppose they could have all decided to speed-dial themselves into a coma last night to ensure victory for the cutest contestant ever. And Robert’s fan base has steadily grown over the course of the show – rightfully so – but I don’t think that they are large enough or passionate enough to out-vote the folks who love Kent. Still, I think that Lauren really has been the most consistently outstanding dancer of the season and I think that she’s won over a lot of people that way who will quietly vote en masse for her because of it. I also think it’d make a great story for a girl to win the very season the girls started at such a disadvantage.
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