Look! Smoke signals! And they say “When is Abby Lee coming back?”
Seriously? Again with that skimpy top, honey?
Great goggly oogly! We’re on Fire!
So are we, girlfriend …so are we.
Somebody needs to catch my kid before I knock you all down.
Is that smoke I smell, or just the heat from some fierce attitude?
I can’t even tell anymore. But something set off the smoke detectors this week, because Dance Moms: Miami was on fi-yah.
Literally.
Fresh off their embarrassing 5th place showing at Starbound, the kids at Stars Dance Studio had some ‘splaining to do as soon as the latest episode started up.
Channeling their inner Abby Lee Miller, Victor and Angel reminded the entire military line up of dancers how embarrassed they were by their performances and that…yes…even in Miami, everyone is replaceable. Victor did not spend all that time on his hair to have his team come in 5th place.
And don’t even get Angel started on how his new scarf was totally wasted on that competition. If he hadn’t cut the tag off, that thing would be going back to Chicos before lunch.
This week they were on the road to redemption. Redemption, Michigan I guess. Home of the Energy Dance Competition.
But nothing in the world of dance can ever start until The List, or The Pyramid or The Whatever Something of Shame is completed, so Victor got right down to bidnezz and started picking off fragile egos like he was shooting cans at the State Fair.
This week he started at the top on the Miami Price Is Right board, and revealed little Kimmy. (For the life of me, I can’t remember the name of the game that Bob Barker always played that looked exactly like Victor’s List. That joke would have been way funnier if I could remember the name, but you get where I was going on it. It had something to do with Bounty paper towels. That’s all I remember.)
Anyway. Kimmy was on top because she scored 2nd place last week, only missing the top by one lousy point. I would have asked to see the judging sheets, but that’s just me.
One notch down was Sammy. Even though her last performance was absolutely her best dancing so far, Victor wanted to see more artistry. He also wanted to see Hannah’s Mom Debi eye roll herself one step closer to an aneurism, because I think he secretly really gets off on that.
Third place was owned by Jessi as she slowly crawled her way back up from the penalty box. As you will recall, Jessi was stuck at the bottom for rudely snatching an award from one of her fellow dancers like it was the last pair of shoes in her size on Black Friday. I personally feel that she should have stayed on the bottom one more week just for wearing those inappropriate micro tops and too much cat eye liner, but that may just be my judgmental side coming out.
But, c’mon. She’s a young girl, not a 60′s go-go dancer. Wipe some of that off before you start attracting boys with fake IDs and peach fuzz mustaches.
Next to the bottom was my favorite little playa Lucas. As Mom Brigette got herself all wound up, Victor explained that LadyKiller Lucas had too many wobble bobbles in his solo, and even doinked it a little on his signature one leg up in the air thing. (I should probably Google the technical term for that move if I’m going to continue talking about it every week or find myself doing the move at the clubs to impress the Ladies.)
What? You don’t think I could? I heard somebody snicker.
Finally, at the bottom was Hannah…because someone has to be each week, right?
For the upcoming competition, Kimmy and Jessi scored solos. LadiesLoveMe Lucas was sidelined for that whole wobble bobble thing, and Hannah and Sammy were paired up for a duet.
Yeah. Hannah and Sammy.
Square Peg…meet Round Hole.
Debi immediately called foul and spent the majority of the episode claiming that Hannah was set up to fail, while Abby flipped her hair a lot and fretted that Sammy would get dragged down by Hannah’s inexperience and her husky Sears corduroys.
Ok. Nobody really came out and worded it like that, but they all thought it and waited for someone to say it first.
While the Moms all bickered behind the Mom Zoo glass, the kids started working on the group number. The number was choreographed around a Discipline theme, which required the dancers to pretend they were prisoners serving time based on various Sins of the Mothers. It was a little unclear how many Moms actually served hard time because they moved right along as soon as Lucas called out his Mom for tax evasion.
Awkward.
As the Moms poked each other with sticks, Jessi and Sammy bonked heads together and almost blacked out. After their dramatic collapse to the floor and a two minute lecture on not working together as a team, Victor paused long enough to check for dilating pupils and made certain that no pesky concussions would interrupt rehearsal.
Time is money, people. Focus. With your good eye. The other one will open up once the swelling goes down.
The Duet was an even bigger clunk. Sammy and Hannah were definitely not meshing during practice. Call it two different styles. Two different levels of experience. Two different pant sizes.
Call it whatever you wanna call it. Just don’t call it good yet.
Victor was getting upset, and the two girls were zig zagging around like they were at an improvisational solo performance. I’m not really certain they even knew the other one was in the room.
It looked like someone forced a cheerleader to dance with a girl from Band Camp.
To get the girls to mesh as a team, Victor insisted they do the Trust Drop. You know the Trust Drop. That fall backwards thing you do in the woods during corporate team buildings where you pray the person behind you is actually paying attention and catches you before you crack your skull open and live the rest of your life with a soft spot.
Sammy was down with it, and fell back so fast that Hannah was barely in place. When it was Hannah’s turn, she refused and had a melt down. She tried it once or twice, but didn’t make it past a 4 degree decline.
When she went running out of the room in tears, Debi explained that Hannah doesn’t like falling backwards.
Now, hold up. That didn’t even make sense. Do you know anyone at work who loves to fall backwards in the copier room? Who puts “loves falling backwards” on a resume? When is the last time you woke up and thought “What a beautiful day to fall backwards” and then fell backwards? Unless you are in a Mosh Pit or crowd surfing at a Jimmy Buffet concert…I mean, really?
Debi is a NutWad.
Finally Hannah pulled it together and fell back without ripping Sammy’s arms out of the sockets, and it was over.
(Side note: During Hannah’s crying session at the front desk, I got all excited that Jennifer Lopez was the receptionist until I realized it was just Mayra with another one of her crazy weaves.)
Then everything caught on fire.
Well, across the street anyway. Actually, it looked like it was a long way away, but you would have sworn Chernobyl had sprung a leak.
As something burned off in the distance, it was mass hysteria at the studio. Screaming kids. Crying kids. One kid that wouldn’t stop crying even if you slapped her.
If you’re a dance aficionado, the internet is already buzzing that you got a glimpse of Mia Diaz, one of the most famous tiny dancers at Stars. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. People with too much time on their hands are already arguing the issue.
I’m just spreading gossip, not reporting the news…though I was totally going to make up a story about how she was trampled in the exodus, but I already get enough hate mail from those Toddlers & Tiaras relatives.
She’s alive. We’re moving on.
One of the last rehearsals before the big event was Kimmy’s solo, which was all about being a Bad Girl. As LoveToLoveYou Lucas said…good luck with that.
Kimmy doesn’t have any front teeth, or a bad bone in her body. Except for staying up past her bedtime to work on that 3rd grade calculus thesis, she is every parents’ Dream Child. Her “homework” before the competition was to do something bad to get into character, but instead of selling crack behind the school dumpster Kimmy settled for throwing a pistachio in the airport.
A pistachio. She’s a menace to society, I tell you. How many more people have to lose an eye from a carelessly thrown pistachio before we lock these criminals up for life?
The duet rehearsal was a bigger crime, thank you.
Sammy and Hannah still couldn’t get it together, mainly because they were distracted by Victor’s dip dyed skinny jeans with all that day glo blue below the knees. (It must have been a 2fer special at H&M, because he was rocking the red version once they got to Michigan.) The hot mess did not go unnoticed by the Moms either, and finally Brigette left the Zoo to snitch on Debi.
Taking her purse along with her, since she apparently feels that the other Moms will collectively go thru it for money and mints if she leaves it anywhere, Brigette let Victor know that Debi felt he was setting Hannah up to fail. Needless to say, if Victor’s hair could stand up any higher in anger, it would have.
He stormed into the Zoo and laid it down for the Moms. While his neck veins were poking out and his jazz hands were jazzing, I was so distracted by the half naked photo of Lucas on the wall that I didn’t catch all of Victor’s speech.
Seriously, does that kid ever wear any clothes? The photo had him hanging off some kind of towel bar looking thing…I don’t even know what it was. Either put a shirt on it, or put some more meat on it. He’s a charmer, but too skinny to always be on display. And it’s getting a little skeevy.
Victor ranted and raved about how he was 23 years old and gave up his career and blah to the blah…and then squealed off in his shiny car like he was a 6 year old having a tantrum.
Make up your mind, dude. What is it? 23 or 6?
Finally they made it to the competition.
Unfortunately, the gang has not yet mastered the Dance Moms ensemble entrance. Where Abby Lee Miller and her posse all plow into the venue in one big Desperate Housewives slow motion walk, the Miami crew stumbled out of their unmarked vans like they were being transported to a half way house and wanted to avoid the paparazzi.
Angel actually left everyone behind to carry the luggage and I swear they left one kid in the back seat.
Now I’ll own the fact that I’m not an expert on the world of The Dance. But if you can’t afford to have a nifty backdrop for your stage, what kind of a big dealio is this event?
The powerpoint Energy logo was a nice touch on the white wall. It reminded me of those school slide projectors when you had to learn about the columbian coffee exporters. Any minute now I expected the clumsy kid to trip the cord and swing the logo off the screen.
Then there was a whole bunch of dancing. Solos and duets and randomness.
The group number was a Nickelodeon bondage kind of thing, with LookAtMe Lucas not wearing a shirt again. I’m sure some website out there will give you the award details. I have a feeling that’s not why you are reading this thing.
Brigette was snarky and Debi blew a nutty.
Hannah better be there to catch me the day that Lucas wears a shirt and I fall over backwards.
Yup. They were on fire this week.
Fi-yah.
