Oh. Hell. No. That JLo knock-off did not just say she didn’t know my baby girl. Laquifa What?
The girl at the Pittsburgh Mall salon told me that this new hair color makes me look like Sue Ellen Ewing on Dallas. Holla.
I know you’re new here, JLo. But this is the international Dance Mom Sign for ‘Come At Me, Bitch.’
Beyoncé The Riveter sez ‘We Can Do It, America!’
Excuse me? You don’t know my baby girl? Do you not have basic cable in your ‘hood?
Srsly. What part of ‘If it ain’t Interesting or Intelligent Shaddup’ does this chick not understand? Lawd.
Oooh, girl. This bitch is ’bout to make me take my earrings off.
Raise the flag and lower your expectations, America.
Dance Moms salutes you. Sorta.
This week it was nothing but Red, White & Blue (…and Black & Blue, if you count Mackenzie‘s busted up foot…) as Abby Lee Miller went all CNN on us.
It was a lesson in politics and humility. How to vote, how to pick favorites, how to fight for your party views and how to not hold the flag with the blue part at the bottom.
And even more importantly, it was Kristie vs. almost all the other Moms, which was way more exciting than watching an afternoon of C-Span fiscal cliff debates if you ask me.
But even Congressional hearings have to wait until the Pyramid of Shame is completed, because ALDC rules apply to both sides of the aisle.
After losing out to the dreaded Candy Apples in last week’s competition, Abby was not feeling the passion and determination in her own team that is required to stay on top of the leader board. And she aimed to fix that fast, before Chaos Cathy Nesbitt-Stein and her Evil Dance Lair swooped back in for another attack.
As all the little dancers and Moms filed in for the latest Lemme Guess…Asia? Pyramid, it was clear that Abby meant business this week.
Tiny newbie Asia Monet Ray boinked through the door all smiley and first in line, which made Abby mighty happy. Jill on the other hand…not so much.
After months and months of showering Abby with a seemingly endless supply Kohl’s fragrance gift sets and lobby benches in an ongoing attempt at becoming Teacher’s Pet, Jill was not a big fan of Kristie’s ability to simply walk through the front door with nothing but big earrings and a booty pop and somehow zoom to the top of the food chain.
Little Mackenzie, the other half of the Tiny Titans Superhero Team, did not appear to be very happy either. One…because Asia was already moving in on her Spunky Kid turf. And two…because she was lugging around a giant plastic boot on one foot and wouldn’t be dancing again this week.
This time it was overuse that was used as the excuse. Last week it was either an extra bone in her foot or she was cosmically regenerating another toe or something. It’s never really clear wassup with MackYack. Word on the street is that Melissa is actually just stepping on her kid’s toes every night before she goes to bed so she doesn’t have to compete against Asia and the tall kids. Who knows.
But she’s a patootie, so I hope she feels better soon.
Bottom of the Pyramid was all about Mack, Brooke, Chloe and Kendall.
MackaWhackaHo was there because she had been using her mutant healing factor to create a completely new foot and hadn’t danced last week. Chloe and Kendall were down in the basement because their Trio from last week didn’t win and Abby hates Christi. And Brooke was also at the bottom because once again she was weighed down with all that dramatic teen age angst and spent all last week acting like she had just been locked out of her Instagram account.
Snap out of it, honey, or just go home and listen to some Taylor Swift. Enough already.
The middle tier of the Pyramid was for Maddie, Nia and Paige.
Maddie was also in the Trio, but she’s Maddie, so she didn’t have to be down on the bottom. Paige was finally moving up the Pyramid, thanks to Mom Kelly playing nice and not swearing like someone just cut her off in a Walmart parking lot every time she opens her mouth. And Nia was there because she continues to fly under the radar, which is good if you’re a Stealth Bomber, but not so much when you dance at the ALDC, I guess.
And, no surprise, at the top was bottle rocket Asia. Who got no applause, except for me clapping at home on my couch. You go, girl.
Right on cue as soon as the big reveal was over, MackLoJack started to cry and claimed that she felt dizzy, so Abby sent her out back to raise up her Frankenstein foot and take a chill. The whole scene immediately got all the other Moms once again wondering out loud if Melissa was behind all the drama, and that she was somehow protecting her baby girl from healthy competition.
Who knows.
Maddie, Chloe and Asia all scored solos. Stay tuned.
The group number this week was a political routine entitled ‘Free The People’ which they would perform at the PowerHouse Dance Competition in Philadelphia, PA.
Great. PowerHouse. Another chance to see those irritatingly off-tempo flashing light grid towers. I could hardly wait.
With MackAttack now scratched from the roster, Abby was not sure what to do with bite-sized Asia. We all know from years of watching congested Vivi-Anne dance for the Candy Apples, that one tiny dancer wandering around the stage while the Big Girls are trying to do their jobs is a bit of a distraction. And this routine didn’t really lend itself to simply picking her up and tossing her around Ohio-style.
So Abby decided that she would just let Asia run in circles, holding a flag over her head like she had just won the 200-meter while the rest of the girls chased after her. Asia would then drape the flag over Paige who would grab it, flip it and wave it to a screaming audience that was presumably going to be bursting at the seams with American pride by the time the number was over.
It looked good on paper, anyway.
As Asia practiced her human flag pole sprint, all the Moms gathered in the MomPerch to throw down.
Melissa got the party started by announcing that she was definitely putting Maddie and Mackenzie into Home Schooling soon, because then they could dance more and sleep an extra hour every morning. Less school. More dance. More sleep. Sign me up.
If that discussion had taken place in an airplane, right about now would be when Holly would have choked on a peanut and reached overhead for her oxygen mask. Nothing like telling a former public school principal what you really think about the public school system, right? Holly’s facial expressions pretty much give me life each week.
Then Kelly noted that maybe having Asia run around in circles wasn’t fully utilizing her dancing skills. And that was when Kristie with a K (…JLo from now on, remember?…) made it clear that everyone knows her daughter already and is well aware of what a faboo dancer she really is, so the flag thing was no big dealio.
I hope the bonus features on the Season 3 DVD include about 4 hours of Holly vs. JLo.
Holly was all like ‘I didn’t know who your kid was’ and JLo was all like ‘I didn’t know who your kid was’ and Holly was all like ‘Don’t be talking if you don’t have anything interesting or intelligent to say’ and JLo was all like ‘Girl, pleez, everything I say is interesting and intelligent’ and then my head exploded.
I love me some Holly and JLo. Love.
And maybe I just watch too much Reality TV (…as if that’s even possible…) because even though I do respect Holly’s representation of a strong, intelligent, well educated woman of color and have fully supported her attempts at preventing Abby from stereotyping her daughter with big afros and platform shoes, part of me just wants Holly to put that doctorate in a safety deposit box, pop off her acrylics and get this thing done.
Just once. Maybe twice.
Because I know that Doctor Holly could pop off like a Boss.
And we already know my obsession with JLo from her stint on Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition. Hit Me! Hit Me! I Dare You!
A boy can dream, right?
As rehearsals progressed over the next few days, the Moms tried to figure out how to create patriotic costumes without cutting up the American Flag and getting hate mail from the Daughters of the American Revolution, while 2 foot tall Asia dragged all of Betsy Ross’s hard work across the Studio A floor.
At some point in all the hilarity, Abby yelled at Kendall again. Who cried again. Which got Jill all worked up again. It’s a regular thing…so if you missed it, you can see it happen again next week. No worries.
Finally, it was Showtime!
This time around the competition appeared to have been held in a mausoleum or on The Phantom of the Opera set, because everything was very dungeon-y with secret passageways and bricks and creepy arches.
And off-tempo light grids, off course.
Someone also forgot to lower the automatic garage door/backdrop contraption, because the thing was about 20 feet in the air instead of being flush with the floor this time around. You either had to watch the kids or look up into the rafters to remind yourself which competition you were attending.
Backstage, Jill snitched on a 7 year old and announced that Asia had cried in the dressing room. Unfortunately, I was so excited to see the return of the Jill Bump-It that I didn’t stop to fully realize the inappropriateness of that comment until it was too late.
And by then Abby had started an impromptu patriotic runway fashion show to reveal all the Red, White & Blue couture, and I got all off track.
Legal Disclaimer: No American flags were harmed during the filming of this episode.
The group number hit the stage and that’s when it all started to unravel. Asia was so dizzy from doing laps around the stage that she somehow ended up putting the flag on Paige’s back all googly oogly, so when Paige did the whole grab it, flip it, wave it thing the stars ended up being at the bottom instead of the top.
And nothing says God Bless America like an upside down flag.
After the routine, Abby brought out what I originally believed was her personal construction worker lunchbox, until she explained that it was for the ballots. Because everyone was going to vote on who did the best solo….Maddie or Chloe.
The Politics of Dancing. Asia apparently had not gotten enough parking lot signatures to be added to any last minute write-in ballots. Maybe next time.
But it didn’t phase her one bit as Asia hit the stage and busted out her take on Rosie the Riveter, complete with head snaps, booty pops and a few bicep flexing moments that looked more like Italian Mob Wives hand swearing than the arms of someone making World War II ammunition. Waddamatta Goombata?
Momma JLo was diggin’ it. And so was that creepy judge in the flannel shirt who kept chewing on his pen like a guy who can’t move into your neighborhood without letting everyone on the block know his criminal background. What was that all about, anyway?
Maddie and Chloe were up next with their solos. Both were good, but that judge kept creeping me out, so I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have during their routines.
During the awards, that emcee with the doo rag under his zoot suit hat was back, and that’s really all that mattered. Who does that?
Backstage, everyone voted and Maddie won by a landslide, which made Chloe really sad. Which made me sad. She’s such a little nugget.
Then what was supposed to be a lesson in the American democratic process suddenly turned into an argument on political favoritism, and the last thing I remember was Christi filibusting for her cause.
She was still going on…and on…when the credits started to roll, so you knew it was gonna be a long night on Capitol Hill. Somebody better send out for some pizza.
Your vote counts, America.
God Bless the ALDC.
