Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Dancing With the Stars Post-Mortem: The Finale

This year for Thanksgiving I am grateful for my wonderful family, my health, my baby-to-be, Twizzlers, the Red Sox failure to make it into the post-season, and J.R. Martinez winning Dancing With the Stars Season 13.

What I am not thankful for is the 2-hour finale starting at 9. Some of us are tired. Some of us are pregnant. Some of us need sleep, and staying up until 11 is mean. You could have started at 8, DWTS, is all I'm saying.


I've been predicting since Week 4 that J.R. would win, so I wasn't that surprised. But I did worry that the judges' collective crush on Rob Kardashian might create an unpleasant upset. Not that Rob isn't adorable and cute and a good dancer, but if J.R. lost it would be like shaking hands with Hitler: disturbing, wrong, and un-American.


J.R.: "Thank you to everyone who voted for me!"
Me: "YOU'RE WELCOME."


In one of many shockers of the night, Ricki Lake came in third place, but she seemed to be a good sport about it, which is good, because I remember when Layla Ali wasn't a good sport about coming in third and that made me lose respect for her which then made me afraid of her because I bet she could totally feel my lack of respect through the T.V. and wanted to reach out and punch me in the face, like it's somehow my fault she doesn't know how to lose gracefully. At least Ricki didn't do that, though maybe she did and they just didn't show it? No, I can't sleep at night thinking about that, so we're all going to pretend that Ricki was a graceful nerd with a hairy chest. Did anyone else do that rhyme growing up? "First is worst, second's best, third is the nerd with the hairy chest." No? Ok.


The biggest shocker of the night, in my opinion, was that J.R. did not choose his Samba from Week 5 for his third dance of the night. That was probably my favorite dance of the entire season. But later on, when he had to do an Instant Samba, it sort of made more sense. And he didn't do the Waltz from Week 3, but I kind of get that because it is super-emotional, and if it made me cry my eyes out and I don't even know J.R. personally and am not, you know, him, then I can't imagine him forcing himself to do it again. 

So, whatever, he did his Jive and it was fine, but here's the thing: forcing the dancers to do 3-4 dances in two nights was just cruel. In spite of the judges' gushing accolades, J.R., Rob, and even Ricki just fell flat last night. I know, I'm not supposed to say that, I'm supposed to be all, "It was everyone's best dances ever and the crowning jewel in the Dancing With the Stars tiara of joy!" But I can't. Because that's a lie. Everyone was tired, and I think forcing Rob and J.R. to do an instant Samba was unnecessary and made me feel bad for them because they were clearly exhausted. At that point in the show I seriously doubt the Instant Samba made the difference in who won, and it wasn't fun to watch.


Know what was fun to watch? Carson Kressley's dance to Madonna's "Vogue." Well, it was fun if you ignore the fact that poor Carson can't dance his way out of a wet paper bag, but I still enjoyed it.


And I'm glad that Chynna Philips got to redeem herself with her Tango, but more importantly, I'm glad I got to see my Tony dance one last time this season. I LOVE YOU TONY YOU ARE TOTALLY MY FAVORITE PRO!!! <3 <3 <3

But if we're going to talk about the finals, and I mean really talk about the finals here in the intimacy of my blog, we need to talk about the freestyle dances from Monday night, specifically J.R. and Karina's lifts. Did they turn off the gravity in the DWTS ballroom for those? Is Karina hollow inside? IS J.R. REALLY SUPERMAN??? I think Carrie-Ann summed up those lifts best: "sick." In a good way. 

Anyway, I'm at the point in this post-mortem where there is probably tons more to say, but I can't, because J.R. won and all is right with the world, and also I am trying to spend time with my family for the holiday week. Next season starts a few days after my due date, so we'll see if I am capable of doing these post-mortems. We'll see, but hopefully I will be back with these in March, despite a newborn. Priorities, you know.


Thanks for hanging in there with me, everyone, and especially thank you to my awesome husband for putting up with my obsession even though he hates the show. <3

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