Jess/Clarice/Contemporary/Stacey Tookey/Cathedrals – He is so frikkin’ annoying. What is with the baby voice? And he’s really bad at lifts. She seems like her core is engaged, he’s just? Well, it takes a lot of technique and he can’t just muscle the lifts up like some of the hip hop kids, so that’s going to be tough to fake. Just at the beginning, she’s gorgeous and heis clearly struggling with the freer movement voabulary. And the lifts are a hot mess. He almost dropped her in the second one. You can tell he’s just really uncomfortable with the movement. He needs to let go more. He doesn’t throw himself into the moves the way a contemporary dancer would. He’s trying to be clean and neat the way you would in Gene Kelly jazz but this routine is not that. He needs to get his Twyla Tharp on. The turns were fine, everything else not so much. I feel like about halfway through the routine, she pulled back on her range of motion in order to not continue to blow him off the stage. Nigel’s right, it was uncomfortable. And I think it was more on Jess than on Clarice. I disagree with Mary here in that I don’t think Jess was emotionally connected to the piece or to her. The effort and the strain showed on his face through the whole routine. He looked terrified and it showed in his dancing. I also think they have a good chance to land in the B3 again this week.

Jordan/Tadd/Jean Marc/Viennese Waltz/Fade Into Me - Did he just call her stupid? Oh, snap! Immediate points off to Jean Marc for using a Cookie Monster song. Tadd has got some nice carriage going on. Look at him open up through that rib cage. Alright then. Work it out. Jordan is just a really good dancer which is why it’s such a shame she defaults to the sexpot thing all the time. The footwork in the closed hold portion is not the greatest. But the upper body on both of them was quite lovely. And was there really only that one section at the end there where they were in closed hold for what might generously be called an extended period of time? Because really? That is true, what Nigel said. The port de bras on Tadd was insane for a b-boy. And he did a shout out to Donyelle’s Vietnamese Waltz! Love this kid. Ok, Debbie. Jordan is not Cyd Charisse. Don’t let it get away from you.

Melanie/Marko/Mandy Moore/Jazz/Sing with a Swing – Hmmm, contemporary last week and jazz this week? Give them a challenge, show. Oh, props. I love Prop!Mandy. Melanie’s practice dance shoes? Adorable. I want them. Oh this is so cute and fun. This is like Broadway, you know if Tasty were a good Broadway choreographer. Nice split leap in second. That is hard. It kind of trailed off at the end there. They didn’t have a lot to do once the techno beat kicked in but stand around and vamp. But they vamped very prettily. And yes, nice recovery from the dropped hat. It was good. Not as good as last week, but that’s a high bar. I think they are beyond safe.

Sasha/Alexander/NappyTab/Hip Hop/Coming Home – Soldier coming back? So is this the book end to No Air then? Lyrical hip hop must die. Coming Home. Why are they so literal? Sasha is already tearing it up. And Alex is making an impression just by walking forward. He’s still a little pulled up. He needs to lose that ballet daner center and get more grounded, but he’s doing a lot better than some of the other classically trained kids they’ve had on the show. She was killing it and he was keeping up pretty well all things considered. They definitely had a better connection this week than last. Ok, it wasn’t good enough to wring tears from the judgery. Oh, kids. Heart hands make the Baby Jesus cry. Don't let Jesse and msbelle and all the rest fool you. Noooooo.

Ashley/Chris/Spencer Liff/Broadway – No swag. Just as I expected. Thank god, no Tasty. Cell Block Tango-esque. Ooooh. She looks amazing. Wow, she is dancing her ass off and he’s standing behind bars and kicking. Humm. It’s very Katee/Twitch door dance. He did get in a fairly solid pirouette. Even a double pirouette which was a little shaky but nicely done for a b-boy. These two still have very little chemistry and I kind of can’t believe this routine got the pimp slot. I do think that they have the most versatile crew of b-boys they’ve ever had on the show. First two on the train. I did miss it. I admit it. And oh, Ashley is holding up an 01 instead of a 10. Baby. No.

Once again, nobody completely bombed. But unlike last week, there was really only one standout routine.

Standout

Caitlyn and Mitchell

Very Good

Miranda and Robert (Elevated by the fact that Miranda ate that choreography’s lunch)

Jordan and Tadd (The routine could’ve been more challenging but it was danced well)

Melanie Marko (See above)

OK

Iveta and Nick (He outdanced her in a just so-so routine)

Sasha and Alex (She outdanced him in a NappyTab routine full of recycled bits from better routines)

Ashley and Chris (She outdanced him in a decent routine)

Bottom Three

Ricky and Ryan (Technique was there, no connection at all. Also, I hate her. There, I said it)

Wadi and Missy (He was terrible. She was passable. The routine was not particularly challenging)

Jess and Clarice (His partnering skills are sorely lacking. She tried but there was no saving this routine)

Bootees

Boys: Wadi and Jess. Jess is just not strong enough as a partner. I never got the Wadi-mania. He just has no spark for me and he was terrible in that Cha Cha.

Girls: Ryan and Clarice. I think Clarice will be taken down by Jess, which is a real shame because she is a lovely dancer. I am praying that the judges will see their way clear to boot Ryan should she land in the bottom three.

Sadly, I actually don’t think Ricky and Ryan will even hit B3. I think it’s much more likely that we’ll see Nick and Iveta here or maybe even Miranda and Robert again (although she was very good, I don’t feel like she has a very big fanbase and he has a lot of foes) Were that the case and holding the other two B3 denizens constant, I think the judges would boot either Nick or Robert in favor of keeping Wadi due to their inexplicable hard on for that kid. For the girls, Clarice is my only sure boot. The other girl bootee will depend largely on the composition of the girls B3. In a Clarice, Missy, Miranda B3, I think clearly Missy stays. In a Clarice, Missy, Iveta B3, I’m not so sure. I think Mary would fight hard for Iveta and Nigel does like saying 10 Dance Champion, and there are lots of other great contemporary girls in the competition. They might let Missy go early.

In other words, I still have no clue who’s going home this week. Times two since the judges wimped out last week and didn’t cut anyone.

Melanie’s practice dance shoes? Adorable.

Right?

I'm totally charmed by Tadd. And Nick and Melanie and Sasha, but I was already charmed by them.

OMG, Ryan's FACE. I don't think bob bob even saw that goony smile I was going crazy about last week, but this week he was laughing his ass off at how she was supposed to be "sexy." It's like her default, like Toddlers & Tiaras!

I was pretty distracted during most of the show, ransacking my house to see if I could find my phone, but that was one I did catch and went "Is there an opposite of stank face? Because Ryan has it--too much smile!" Maybe she and Janine's sister need to talk.

Okay y'all, I'm catching up on SYTYCD and I was irritated with the praise for Missy in the cha-cha and the under the bus throwing of Wadi. Wadi was not good, but I watched Missy - she was not very good either. She didn't really help Wadi into the lifts.

That was a bad performance and it wasn't just Wadi's fault.

I caught up on youtube vids of the dances. The one for Jess and Clarice has the audio disabled due to copyright claim.

It's interesting to watch it without the sound. I don't know what it's like with the sound, but I couldn't get caught up in the music I could just watch it and Jess really really struggled. At times it looked like they were dancing two different pieces and he wasn't -flingy - enough for contemporary.

He had to performed better than that in Vegas, I can't imagine that kind of contemporary performance in Vegas week getting him through.

Does Tadd have ballroom experience? He certainly has a lot of general training.

I think it's an interesting conundrum they have put themselves in -- expecting people to be good at various things from the start, but still making them pretend to be just one style, and then you get shows like this, where everyone is pretty good, so who goes home? No one's a trainwreck. Maybe later?

Pssst, Mary -- If you are wearing so much make up that I can see the tear track through your face powder, you might want to dial it back a little.

SERIOUSLY.

And on The Voice, I just have to say how ridiculous are the hots I am having for Blake Shelton.

And on The Voice, I just have to say how ridiculous are the hots I am having for Blake Shelton.

I know, right? So cute.

And a million feet tall, and seriously just fatherly/mentorish toward "his girls," even though he will creep on someone else's.