Here are your girls.
Randi
What Randi’s got going for her is that she’s shown more personality than any of the other girls to date. Kayla is kind of an empty vessel with cutie pie grandparents, Melissa’s “naughty ballerina” bit is just an empty name, Janette comes across as kinda weird except for when she’s dancing, and Jeanine could be Randi’s competition in the cute personality category but for a lack of comparable airtime thus far. But the married dumpling bit is maybe starting to wear a little thin -- it’s time to accept the fact that a lot of dancing is actual kinda (eeeeek) sexual and that playing a vamp when you’re dancing is just fine and dandy. She’s not the biggest talent out there, but the fans of this show like and are willing to vote hard for cute. What they don’t vote for is discomfort, so get over it. -- Kim
I have never gotten over the unitards. Really, they looked more like wrestling singlets. Who in her right mind thinks that the best way to present herself in any situation whatsoever is a unitard? And really, Randi seems like a unitard kind of woman. Behind the dimples and the gold-medal makeover lies an old-fashioned freckled tomboy who wants to play dress-up in Grandpa's 1909 bathing suit. Or maybe she's just fixing to box John L. Sullivan. Incidentally, she's not as strong and powerful as she looks, and she dances without the gravity-defying conviction for which one hopes. Maybe it's just that she's afraid Evan's going to drop her. Incidentally, in my note on Evan, I forgot to mention how thoroughly dispirited I am by the certainty that his mugging, schticky older brother is going to be on next season. Ugh. -- Isaac
Janette
Can’t someone grab her backstage and let the stylists fix her hair for real, not just when she’s dancing? There’s such a wild disconnect between the leggy graceful creature who does all this dancing and the goofball Latina Dorothy Hamill who we see the rest of the time. It’s disconcerting. This girl has had a whole lot of ballroom so far – she needs to show what she can do with something more emotional and raw to prove that she’s really in this thing to win it. (And don’t think, Janette, that just because you gave us a respite from the goofy faces last week that we’ve forgotten about that little tendency of yours. We’ll be watching you.) -- Kim
Ballroom dancers on a pan-stylistic show are a little like ice dancers. Having seen enough figure skating to know that the best thing about it is that moment in the jump where you know the next sound out of the crowd is either going to be "YESSSS" or "ooooohhh," it's hard to watch a sport defined entirely by the absence of that moment. The thing I care about the least on this show, aside from how manly Nigel finds dancing, is footwork. With Janette, I say yes to soccer-ball-head and the spin-split where she Ash Wednesdays her partner with her heel, but no to the hip-swivel and the jake leg. -- Isaac
Kayla
This seems like such a small thing, but I think I agree with Nigel that Kayla’s hair is getting in the way. So much of what she does is so frenzied with the hair whipping around (especially during her solos, when she’s whipping the hair and the legs and the arms) – it’s just too much. Let us focus on the gorgeousness of what her body is doing – that’s what she can control. The hair is just a prop. I just went back and rewatched her samba, her Brian Friedman “pop-jazz” (the princess losing the throne), and her Sonya contemporary, all with an eye toward ignoring the hair, and I still don’t totally get her. So my only real advice for Kayla this week is this: connect with me. -- Kim
I still think that she consistently provides the most amazing moments of all the women, but I get the problem now. Sabra aside, this show loves its flirty just-one-of-the-guys girls. Lacey, Kherington, Courtney (who outlasted the judges' predictions by a mile), even Randi. Kayla seems a bit more aloof, more serious (or humorless, as I think a commenter said). Addiction dance is right up her alley, but she's not going to be able to sell a pillow fight while dancing on a couch. Still, she unfolds all kinds of crazy beautiful shapes and even after rewinding I still can't figure out how. She's my favorite woman, and it's not close.-- Isaac
Jeanine
The more I think about Jeanine, the more I think that she could go really far on this show. Setting aside that absurd baby fat belly button outfit from last week’s solo, which really has to go into the annals of all-time-really-bad-costuming-choices, Jeanine has been pretty darned compelling nearly every time we’ve seen her. And that’s despite being shackled to Philip for five weeks. Jeanine needs a really good partner this week and pretty much any genre except hip hop so that she can show off her considerable skills alongside someone equally trained. -- Kim
She was really hampered by the Phillip pairing, getting blah choreography and never really synching with him. I wonder if the latter is because he doesn't count like a dancer. Like Randi, she benefits immensely from professional wardrobe people who make her, if not exactly beautiful, at least context-specific beautiful in a Jersey mobster girlfriend way. But I don't know how far she's going to go, because I think she's stronger than she is flexible. When Kayla or Melissa or Caitlin bends a leg backward to her head, you think she might keep it there long enough to french-braid her hair. Jeanine just thows it back there and yanks it back. I've liked her, but I think her ceiling is lower than Kayla's or Melissa's.-- Isaac
Melissa
Oh, Melissa. Somehow she’s become the frontrunner despite the fact that she bores me. I get that ballet is hard, yo, and that most of these other people couldn’t strap on a pair of pointe shoes and do what she does. But for all the grace and the perfectly placed limbs, there’s just something about Melissa that leaves me cold. Here’s a theory – and I’m not committed to it: I don’t know whether it’s the ballet training or whether it’s just Melissa herself, but there’s a certain composure to everything she does. I like to see dancers on this show let loose every once in a while and blow us away with the emotion of their dancing. I’m not looking for a quickstep that makes me sob, but Melissa is almost too precise and perfect. Give her some Shane Sparks, or heck, let the girl crump. Ditch the pointed toes and just dance for us. -- Kim
Yeah, she's boring, and she's like 100 years old. She's six years older than Lauren Conrad, AND LC HAS CELLULITE. Melissa had to be a ballerina, because when she started dancing, they hadn't invented jazz yet. Look, I like her dancing more than I think I like her, and as long as she doesn't have to pair with Evan she's going to be fine. I really want her to have to do a harder-edged hip hop routine, like maybe a Li'l C crunk or something, and then have them intercut it with those early scenes from Save The Last Dance. -- Isaac
And here are your guys.
Evan
Evan is a clear-cut case of why early-round pimping matters. But for the extensive coverage of the sweet Gene Kelly leprechaun and his whoopee-making tappity-tapping brother, I suspect we would have lost Evan long ago. He's had a couple of memorable dances, but nothing that would make him one of the sole dancers to avoid the bottom three so far. To distinguish himself, Evan needs to find those opportunities to soar -- both metaphorically and literally -- he had some jaw-dropping leaps during his audition and in Vegas that haven't yet shown up in the SYTYCD studio. -- Kim
I liked his pairing with Randi at first, but let's face it, Evan is John Stevens from Idol. What he does is hopelessly old-fashioned, and he is no good at anything else. Everything he does is soft, from his feet to his lifts. He's had at least a couple of dances where his entire job was to focus everybody's attention on Randi, and I got the feeling that that was more because of his limitations than her assets (look, Nigel, I can play too!). -- Isaac
Ade
The fact that I had no idea how good Ade really was until he exploded out of the bottom three for the first time last week tells me something. All of a sudden I think of him as the male frontrunner after paying no attention to him for the prior four weeks. To avoid settling back into no man’s land, he has to bring that explosiveness into an actual partnered routine. If ever a dancer were yearning for a big, raw Mia Michaels routine, Ade is that dancer. -- Kim
Maybe the most important audience for Ade's solo was the people in the VIP bleachers -- the choreographers. Everything in the solo looked like it went together (I remember, for example, at least one Danny dance that seemed more like a stunt checkdown), but Ade was also able to convey the importance of giving him difficult, hard stuff to do. In a way, his partnership with Melissa may have been holding him back, since choreographers have been drawn to her grace and lines and have used Ade mostly to pick her up or swing her around. After his solo, though, everybody in the studio seemed to go "um, wow," so maybe the choreographers will ride that to a strong finish. Also, Ade has an easy smile and a calm manner that I think is a key part of getting votes. Even his solo was relatable -- understandable as a great solo in a way that I usually haven't gotten others' solos. He's definitely the top guy for me. A request for the jidges, though: no more puns, thanks (as if).-- Isaac
Brandon
Brandon has hung in there week in and week out, but I’m not getting any star quality vibe from him. I guess that’s not a prerequisite to winning this show – both Sabra and Joshua were relatively quiet personalities compared to others their seasons – but I just feel like that eager puppy thing is going to get old at some point. Brandon needs to get a little serious at some point, and show that he can be a real presence regardless of who he’s partnered with. Basically, Brandon needs to suit up. -- Kim
Unlike Ade, Brandon seems a little antic, too eager to please. He has been solid every week, and his choreographed hip hop has been the best this season (much better than Phillip's). He's small, but he's strong. Like Henry Pym, Ant Man. Actually, I think Brandon has two problems that are not entirely his fault. The first is that he suffers in comparison to Ade's long lines, and the second is Mia Michaels's early tirade against him, which seems to have stuck. On dancing, he's been right there with Ade and I'd put him at a not-too-distant second among the men. -- Isaac
Jason
Jason’s got a whole lotta rows to hoe if he’s going to make it past this week. There is no shortage of contemporary guys left in this competition, and Jason is currently bringing up the rear. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were a real dancer underneath the husk from which Caitlin sucked out the lifeblood over the last month. There was something critical missing from that partnership, and Jason’s hopes rest on being partnered with someone this week with whom he has some genuine rapport. He’s got a potential “cute guy” edge – and we all know how that can matter on a show where text voting is a big deal – but really needs some serious oomph to stay afloat. -- Kim
Manorexic Tracy Morgan is better than Evan, but I've never really cottoned to him. When I think of contestants' signature moves, all that comes up for me with Jason is the yell-and-flex he did during the gladiator paso doble, plus his Tracy Morgan grin peeking out from between Caitlin's dancing feet during Bollywood. -- Isaac
Kupono
Kupono’s advantage among the remaining guys is that he’s different. None of the others (with maybe a half-exception for Evan) have shown any real ability to portray a character, but the addiction dance and the crash test dummies showed us that Kupono has some real talent in that area. Which is good, because he doesn’t have all that much drama in his actual dancing. I think he and Jason will be fighting it out to stick around for another week, but Kupono could have an edge if he gets the right routine. -- Kim
He looks tall (even if he's not), so that's good for making pretty geometries. He seems strong enough, so that's good for the liability insurance. He's a decent enough actor, so that's good for the entertainment. Kim compared him unfavorably to Mark from S4, though, and that's about right. Floppy, spinny Hawaiians who like to throw themselves on the floor like they're mad at it. Do they teach that at the Waikiki Danceteria? -- Isaac
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