Then she just starts wailing in tongues all like ‘Hooty Hoo and Boo Damn Boo.’ Who talks like that? Dat shiz just cray.
Cuz I called it first, that’s why. Next time we play Baywatch someone else can be Pam Anderson.
You gonna eat that?
Mmm Mmm Mmm! Mmm Mmm Mmm! Mmm Mmm Mmm! Mmm Mmm Mmm! Mmm Mmm Mmm!
I’m pretty sure the song goes ‘Save a horse. Ride a DDP.’
Wait. What?
The hellz dat?
Hooty Hoo! Hooty Hoo!
This is your final boarding call.
Pat yo’ weave and pack yo’ bags, cuz we’re going on a road trip.
But not just any road trip. No ma’am. This one’s big.
This is The DD4L Road Trip.
And if you’re lucky, maybe Bring It! will bring it to your town someday.
It certainly took ‘em long enough, but after 21 episodes somebody at Lifetime finally listened to me and made this thing two hours. And that didn’t even include travel time as Dianna Williams and her Dancing Dolls hit the highway to spread some bucking majorette cheer to hundreds of their southern fans.
After taking both the hip hop and non-hip hop world by storm this year, Miss D and the Dolls weren’t quite ready for a break after last week’s finale. AwHellNah. Instead, they loaded up the wagon with Mamas and Daughters and got the heck outta Dodge for a few days to offer some intensive three-day bootcamps to their most hyper DDFs.
(Dancing Dolls Fans. I just made that up.)
First Stop: Atlanta.
The capital of Georgia is about a 6 hour bus ride from the Dollhouse Dance Factory in Jackson, which apparently was just enough time for someone to give Seloncé a haircut.
Because that totally happened. Really.
Somehow Seloncé got on the bus in Jackson with her long ombre WannaBeyoncé hair and got off the same bus in Atlanta with a stylishly on-trend bob. I swear. I didn’t ask, but I do feel bad for the Lifetime editor who lost his job on that little bit of post-production.
I heart Sunjai‘s Mama, tho. She’s crazy. So crazy that sometimes I want to cut my own hair when she talks…but I love her. How can you not?
And speaking of crazy. As the bus pulled into the Peach State, all I really kept hoping was that the DDP Mamas would be greeted by the Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Shut. Up. Can you even imagine? My head would probably explode.
And don’t even get me started on NeNe Leakes meeting those stinky diva Olive Branch ladies. Close yo’ puppet legs to married men.
Dead.
To earn their free round-trip tickets, the Mamas all had to work check-in at the venue, which went about as smoothly as you would imagine it would go when Seloncé and It’s Rittany Bitch ended up sharing the same folding table in Atlanta.
You need to put a sticker on that. You need to kiss my a**. You need to do your job. You need to come a little closer so I can rip out the rest of that new haircut.
Love.
Side note: There must have been at least 500 red DD4L tee shirts on the tables and in plastic Target bins and being airdropped onto the front lawn of the school like Unicef care packages. And yet not one size Medium? For me? Seriously? After 21 blog recaps?
Aside from an amazing opportunity for the fans to meet the Dolls, learn their moves and get a free tee shirt (…so do I have to put it on a tee shirt just to get a tee shirt?…) the workshops were also intended to be a competition between Sunjai, Crystianna, Camryn and Kayla. The Diva Dream Team.
Each Doll would have a team of girls to train and then on the third and final day, would go into battle against the other Dolls’ teams. This would give everyone a chance to work on their leadership skills and prove to Miss D that they were worthy of their own spot on the team…and maybe even Kayla’s captain position when she graduated. Hint.
But Atlanta is no different than Jackson. Rules are rules.
NO Mamas allowed in the Dollhouse. (Tina: “Bissshhhh Whaaaaaa??!?”) So it was back to the hotel to chillax as Dianna got the workshop rolling.
But before the Mamas could unleash all those bathing suit bodies on an unsuspecting public, someone decided to give Mimi a haircut in the elevator on the way down to the pool. I swear.
Seriously. How does this keep happening?
At the pool, Seloncé had a quick prayer and moment of silence for Rittany’s awesome bathing suit and lobster trap net/booty wrap cover-up combo and then tried to get a tan from the Ramada’s overhead fluorescent bulbs.
(Do you really think she thought she was outside? I don’t even know anymore…)
Everyone was getting rowdy. My girl Tina pushed Mimi and her fresh new ‘do into the pool and got her hair wet (…Gurrrl, which is something even I know you don’t do…you just don’t…) but did manage to rescue her with an oversized version of that scoop thing they use when you buy goldfish at Petco.
Lawd. Mim when she gets wet.
You ever drop a half dozen cats into a bathtub? All at once? No? Try it now. I’ll still be here when you come back from the emergency room.
Back at bootcamp, all of the team captains were working their girls hard and Dianna was impressed. Do it or get cut. Even quiet, shy Crystianna was getting it done, albeit in a slightly more Disney-ized voice than her peers. (Srsly. I think she talked more in this episode than the last 21 combined.)
In retrospect, the cartoon voice was probably due to the swollen tonsils which eventually ended her up in the hospital. The poor little nugget was hurting, so she was removed from the competition and sent to Atlanta’s Mercy Hospital for free ice cream.
As a temporary fix, Miss D replaced the MIA Crystianna with former co-captain Caleda.
No clue who she was, but she seemed nice. And I liked her big hoop earrings. I bet they flap in every which way direction if you try and get all up in her grill, mmmkay?
The competition show was crazy. Cra. Zee.
People everywhere. Millions of them. So many that the cops had to take over crowd control to get everyone in their seats.
And it was hot. Really hot. Inside and outside. So hot that people were getting the vapors and passing out and going down the sidewalk in ambulance stretchers and laying all over the floor like a crime scene.
One lady with a blurred out secret identity face even started talking in Tongues and putting some kind of voodoo curse on Mimi for not sending me a tee shirt.
Side note: Mimi. Freaked out by someone talking crazy. Think about the irony for a moment or two. Hilarious.
I mean, I love Mimi so much already that I can’t even imagine how much more I would love her if I had a clue what she was actually saying most of the time.
Hooty Hoobee Doobee Boo Damn Hoo Scooby Doo, girlfriend. Muah.
When it was all over, Camryn beat Kayla for the Win.
Dat’s my baby! Dat’s my baby! MimiTongue. MimiTongue.
Suck on that, APAC.
Next Stop: Nashville.
And the Booty Store. Or Boot Store. It was hard to tell.
Tina, Mimi and Seloncé wanted to immerse themselves in the local flavor by picking out some western footwear down at Boot Country and it was pretty much the best Tennessee HoeDown ThrowDown evah.
Mimi busted out the ‘Spank A Cowboy’ dance that scored Drew Lachey three perfect ’10s’ on Dancing With The Stars while Tina and Seloncé tried squeezing their wide widths into some colorful Durangos. Laughing. Screaming. Some MimiTongue and even a few flashbacks.
What? What? What? Put that thing back on yo’ head. Oh you got hair now.
Make. This. Show. Be. Three. Hours.
Let’s be honest. When Tina plopped a cowboy hat on top of all that whacky red weave it totally looked like one of those caps you buy at the State Fair that come with the hair already attached. And it gave me life, I tell you. LIFE.
And Love.
After immersing themselves in the local flavor, the Mamas decided to apply some more of it directly to their faces down at Jack’s Bar-B-Que. Except Seloncé, of course, who opted for nibbling on her ribs with a fork and knife. Something which you should never do in front of Tina.
Cuz my girl knows her ribs.
Just pick up the damn meat and do whatchoo gotta do.
Slurp. Smack. Suck.
You might wanna put that on a tee shirt, bitch.
This time around, Kayla won the bootcamp battle before the Dolls all headed off to meet the Titans cheerleaders.
Let’s just say they don’t Buck much in Tennessee and leave it at that.
Final Stop: Detroit.
Crystianna was back! And so was Rittany, much to Seloncé’s chagrin. Especially when the two Mamas started getting all territorial over the tiny hotel bathroom. Seloncé even suggested that maybe Rittany could take a load off and just sleep on the couch.
The couch. I swear that woman has a death wish. Hope it wasn’t too noisy sleeping in the hallway after Rittany dumped her out on the floor along with yesterday’s USA Today.
Slam. Lock. Do Not Disturb.
It was the final bootcamp battle, and none of the girls were playing. It was ON.
The Shy One vs. The Underdog vs. The Wannabe Captain vs. The SuperStar. Four friends that turned into competitors as soon as the music started pumping.
Camryn underestimated Sunjai’s will to live and fell in battle, as did Crystianna when she faced down Kayla.
Then it all came down to Sunjai vs. Kayla in the last Stand of the Tour.
David vs. Goliath.
Side note: Has Dianna always walked like Bette Midler or is this a new thing? Because Miss D was totally channeling the Divine Miss M every time she shuffled around the slippery gym floor in those stilettos. Maybe housekeeping had just buffed out the parquet.
Safety first.
Sunjai had the Power of the Underdog in her (…and even a life-size cardboard cut-off cheering her on from the sidelines, which wasn’t creepy at all…) but it still wasn’t enough to beat the Mighty Kayla.
In the end, the Captain proved that she was still the Captain.
But really, everybody won a little sumthin sumthin. Just like they do every week.
The DDs learned how to be leaders and build confidence in both themselves and others.
The DDFs got a sweet Certificate of Completion that made me so jealous I wanted to push Mimi back in the pool again.
The DDPs got some quality bonding time and enough memories, souvenir footwear and calories to last a lifetime.
And Dianna got another proud moment with her girls, which is what it’s all about in the end. Because that’s how they do down at the Dollhouse.
Can’t believe it’s over. For now, anyway.
There’ll be a void in our Wednesday nights until Season Two starts up.
More time for me to practice my Stand Battle moves, I guess. I need to be prepared for the next Road Tour. Just in case.
Season Two is gonna be bucking’ awesome, I can tell already.
Till then…
DD4L!
