Girrrrl, Abby gives me the vapors.
Candy Apple, my lovelies?
So…have you ever gone to sit on the couch but your hands are so full of Ritz crackers and Cheeze Whiz that you aren’t really paying attention, and you accidentally sit on the remote and the channel magically changes and you can’t figure out how it happened?
And you’re not really sure what show you are still watching and before you figure out the the answer is squished underneath you the TV has probably changed to at least one more channel and it starts to freak you out a little?
Yeah. That pretty much sums up how this week’s Dance Moms went down.
Somehow the folks at Lifetime, who used to just stick Jane Seymour in a movie and call it a day, have suddenly figured out how to take every possible format that works for every other network and cram it all into one over stuffed dance leotard. You can’t make this stuff up. You might want to grab those crackers, because this is going to take awhile.
RuPaul’s Drag Race. So You Think You Can Dance. The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Your local cable Community Auditions public access show. Anything on VH1 that involves cat fights and talking smack. The 1960′s Batman Show. And Kate Plus 8, only because these Moms refuse to let that nappy asymmetrical Gosselin mess die a well over due dignified death.
They were all there this week. All stacked on top of each other like the Gosselin kids in a mini van. But unlike that marriage, this somehow all made sense.
Abby Lee Miller brought her pint sized dancers and her massive eye shadow carry-on to Hollywood, baby. It’s the last step before Nationals and the whole crew was a little tightly wound to say the least.
For some inspiration, and even more pyramidal humiliation, Abby sets up shop in the AMP rehearsal stages where Madonna and Lady Gaga rehearse. I’m assuming that Abby felt being within that environment would inspire the kids to greatness and suddenly make them better dancers, since they have been sucking some wind in the last few competitions. Much like when I pass thru the food court at the Mall on my way to Macy’s, and it does not suddenly make me a better pastry chef, putting the girls inside AMP didn’t really make the needle flicker any higher on their dance scale either. Let’s just say they didn’t have to worry about packing up too many trophies before they left for Lake Tahoe. But we’ll save that story for the end.
After her throw down with Kelly last week over preferential treatment of Maddie, Abby stuck Kelly’s daughters on the bottom of the ugly pyramid again. As you recall they had gotten all Bad Girls Club on each other and ended their fight with the decision that Kelly would go off on her own and choreograph, costume and bully her own kids without any help from Abby. So there. But it’s Hollywood, baby, and Paige needs to be seen!!
There are movies and casting agents and theaters everywhere! Just no school books again.
Chloe and Nia are in the middle, mainly because you can’t have everyone on the bottom…and then a big space…and then Maddie on the top. These two bite sizers are busting their moves on a duet this time. Queen Maddie is up for a solo as usual, but this one will be a dark, sad dance about child abuse. Not much chance to show her big marshmallow smile this time around, I guess.
The group number is when all my reality TV worlds began to collide.
Since being in AMP wasn’t really doing it, Abby figured she needed to bring in one of the country’s top specialists in Fierce to show these girls how to really work it like a Super Model. Fresh from RuPaul’s Drag Race, the national capital of cross dressing, in storms Shangela in all her/his fierceness. The little girls squeal like Taylor Swift just walked in carrying Justin Bieber on her shoulders. The moms took a few more minutes to figure out that Shangela was actually a boy with some serious legs and about two rolls of Duct tape holding his junk under wrap.
As mentioned everywhere on the show except the closing credits, Abby is determined to promote, ie…exploit, Nia’s bootylicious ethnicity (say that three times…) and non-flat ironed hair. She is grooming her because none of these other girls will get the casting calls that Nia will in the future. Der. I’m pretty sure that Nia won’t be getting the call for one of the Sound of Music kids either, so two can play that game. Not sure why Abby is so obsessed with making Nia the next Nell Carter, but for whatever reason she ain’t giving up. Mom Holly spent a week taping the show and all she really did was roll her eyes every time anyone spoke. White people are crazy, girlfriend.
The remixed version of “LaQuifa WHAAAT?!” blasts through the speakers as Shangela works her/his stuff all over the floor and even shows Nia how to do the patented Death Drop that always gets them on their feet at Big Daddy’s Bear Club Tea Dance on the Cape every summer. That should come in handy on the playground when you don’t want to get picked for dodgeball.
Sometimes it is better to just not question things, and move on.
Maddie’s mom is MIA. She decided to leave her kids in Abby’s capable pudgy hands so she could spend time with her boyfriend. There was a brief, subtle reference to how the boyfriend writes all the checks for Maddie and Mackenzie’s dance classes, and then a less than subtle inference that mom Melissa had to go home and put out or the next one will bounce. A little VH1 attitude got tossed around on that one.
Then we got back to Ohio and the Evil Dance Lair with Chaos Cathy. Still working her best striped Batman super villain hair, Cathy is set to unleash her Candy Apple’s dancers on Hollywood and crush the evil Abby Empire on stage. Daughter Vivi-Anne, her glittered eye lids and that curly ginger boy are going red head to head against Abby’s duet team. As part of her Master Plan, Cathy is also unleashing genetically superior dance soldier Taylor to compete against Chloe, just to stick it to Chloe’s mom Christi. They didn’t show it on TV, but I’ll bet you anything that down in the basement of the Candy Apple’s Complex is a War Room with a big stage mock-up and plastic action figure dancers that Cathy moves around with a stick to simulate how she will destroy anyone in her path.
Can’t you just picture her all crazy faced and crazy haired, red candy apple stains all over her lips like smeared Revlon, laughing insanely while she picks off another dancer with the flick of a jazz hand? I know you can. Try not to picture it when you watch the show next week. I dare you.
Since Kelly threw her fit and is out one choreographer, she has to find somebody asap so Paige can do her solo thing. Luckily, through the magic of TV and craig’s list, Kelly was somehow able to find one of Lady Gaga’s dancer boys just hanging out on his computer after only one day in Hollywood. Some poor schmo who has been serving tables for 10 years outside The Staples Center waiting for his big break is going to be some cranky when he finds out how easy it really is to get a good choreographer nowadays.
Kelly found Mike. He had all of Shangela’s fierceness, but without the hassle of tucking his niblies away. He was a vogueing combination of an underwear model, back up dancer, Abercrombie guy and a skinnier version of that blond Russian from the Rocky movie. This dude was permanently in head shot mode, and always seemed to look up at you as he tilted and posed so the lighting was just right. After coating himself with sweat or Crisco he worked his moves like it was closing time at the Roxy, which ended up sending Paige into the bathroom for a meltdown. I guess they don’t do fierce in Pittsburgh.
Chaos Cathy and her evil dancers arrived in Hollywood just the way you would expect Chaos Cathy to arrive. Apple red dress. Red dance uniforms on her minions. Red eyes. She bursts into the room carrying what looked like a big picnic basket full of sticks, which I assumed were attached to apples somewhere under the red gingham napkins.
Though I wouldn’t put it past her to just offer up sticks to poke your eyes out with, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that they were candy apples. With razor blades inside them.
As the piece de resistance, Cathy had googled the competition before she left Ohio and is now planning on using the same music that Abby is using for one number. Oh no she did NOT. That is messed up.
The whole thing collapsed into a crazy mix of Real Housewives, more VH1 and some Dr. Phil as everyone screamed and yelled and cried and swore all over the place. For someone who is all about her kids and setting examples and all, Kelly sure has one butt wipe of a mouth on her. Seriously. Maybe it’s because she has not slept since Vegas, which was clearly evident in stark hotel lighting, but she needs to reel it in regardless of who is right or wrong. Those kids just sit there in dead silence, blanking staring as she explodes all over the wall like a paint ball gun. They’re probably trying to remember which exit door was closest to the stage so they can bolt before the mothers get to them.
Much like any competition show, the good stuff all happens before the main event anyway, so the dancing itself was just ho hum.
Chaos Cathy didn’t steal their thunder so she went back to the Evil Dance Lair to plot her next attempt at Artistic Vengeance.
Abby’s girls weren’t so hot either, and now have to figure out how to get from 3rd place to 1st by the time they hit Lake Tahoe. Abby blew one last nutty about how she doesn’t do 3rd place and then it was over.
Trust me…sitting on the remote was not the most uncomfortable part of this week’s show.
