Shut. Up. These are the best Sour Patch Gummy Worms I’ve ever had. I can’t even feel my face.
My hair’s on point. My makeup’s totally on point. My outfit’s on point. And you give me three lines this week? WTF?
I miss them too. I’m just saying look at all the extra room we have now. We can finally lay down.
Siri: What was the name of that crazy kid with the gigantic hair bows on my other show? Quick!
Srsly. How the hell is a normal person supposed to reach the top of a 6Plus with one thumb?
On second thought, maybe I will give this chick a pass. Like right out the front door and into the parking lot.
Honestly, I’ve never heard of Christi. But when a volcanic ash pandemic hits, is it really gonna matter?
Finally.
Freakin’ Finally.
Freakin’ Freak Show Finally.
(See what I did there? Three months off and I still got it…)
Dance Moms is back! Not very many of them. But they’re back.
The crowd had definitely thinned out a bit since the last time we saw everyone. Maybe more than a bit, actually, because you could literally count them all on one hand as the new competition season began this week. Which…not gonna lie…is kind of a Win Win situation for me and my bag of Cheeto’s on Tuesday Snack Night.
But it was still Dance Mom(s) plural. For now anyway. And lucky for us, the ones that were left all decided to come back for the premiere of Season Five and didn’t waste any time getting right to the Mama Drama.
As soon as the new 2.5 second opening credit title card clanked down like some kind of subliminal guillotine (…Wait. What? No more Living On The Dance Floor?…) three things were glaringly apparent.
One: Abby Lee Miller was going to save a lot of money heating and cooling the ALDC studio this year now that only three Moms are opening and closing that front door all day.
Seriously. Remember last year when the Original Recipe Moms and the New and Improved Moms and all their Original Select and Junior Select and Elite Select and Junior Elite Super Uber Select kids were all propping that thing open trying to get past the front desk log jam? I’ll never understand why some of them didn’t just crawl in the window to speed up the process. The show’s only an hour, people.
Two: I’m never going to be as smart as that girl in the Child Genius promo who spelled that thing you get if you stand too close to a volcano when it erupts.
And Three: This was going to be the Darker Side of Dance Moms. At least for a few episodes. Which means we should probably address the Elephant in the Room now and then get to the good stuff.
Gone are the days when the most emotionally traumatizing scene in an episode involved Brooke Hyland taking a pie in the face. The shizz just got real up in here, yo.
Now Brooke is gone. Paige is gone. Kelly is gone. Christi is gone. Chloe is gone.
There was a lot of (…edited or nah?…) Christi & Chloe bashing as the games began this week, but you know by now I’m only here for the giggles. I loved Chloe and her little Cabbage Patch Doll eyes, which I thought were just fine. And her Mom is so crazy that she needs to be my new BFF asap now that she has all this extra time on her hands.
Everyone else can fight this one out online and get it out of their system, because…honestly…I have so many passwords on my cell phone already that I can’t even imagine having to remember another one just to get into some Gymboree Chatroom and talk smack about Mothers from Pittsburgh.
Which also reminds me that this week’s episode was brought to us by our friends at the Apple Store, because everyone had a new iPhone.
As the Few and the Proud filed in for the first Season Five Pyramid of Shame, the studio had either gotten bigger over the break or there really was nobody left in the building.
My MomCrush Jill went on and on about how skinny Abby was (…and there did seem to be less of her than I remember from Season Four…) but I’m not really sure if she actually got smaller or her hair is just getting bigger, because Ms. Miller is starting to look like Priscilla Presley on her Wedding Day.
Step away from the hot rollers and nobody will get hurt, ma’am.
Side note: Not nearly enough Jill Time this week. Needed to be said. Love her.
Apparently, nobody had heard anything from Christi or Chloe since that big chaotic hallway blow-up at Nationals, which I thought was odd since the girls had been such Instagrammably (…did I just make up a word?…) tight buddies for the last four years.
But again…take it outside or take it to another chat room, thank you.
Bottom of the Pyramid was reserved for Kendall and Chloe. It made me sad to see Chloebird’s picture knowing that she wasn’t even there.
Fresh off the outrageously successful International Year Of The Nia that I predicted, BTW (…Yaaaaaaaas, Gurl! First Place tiara!…) Nia was keeping Mackenzie or Mackdoodle or MackZ or whatever her name is this week company on the middle row, which meant Maddie was on top already.
So to recap: Maddie didn’t dance a solo and Chloe doesn’t even get a Dance Moms paycheck anymore, but they were both on the Pyramid. I fully expect to see my headshot scotchtaped to the mirror next week if this is how Abby’s gonna play it this year.
For their first race out of the gate this season, the ALDC gang was headed to Sheer Talent Competition in Niagara Falls, which my Macbook spellcheck somehow just auto-corrected to ‘Viagra’ and now I’m horrified that someone will think I Googled it on purpose.
Kendall, Nia and Chloe all scored solos this week, which was a little awkward since one of them wasn’t actually in the building at the time of the announcement. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to call Chloe at home and let her know or how that was going to work out on stage. Not my problem, I guess.
The group routine was a circus freak kind of thang, based on the American Horror Story: Freak Show phenomenon. I’ve never actually watched the show, probably because it conflicts with something on Bravo or Lifetime. But everyone at work loves it.
And they’re all freaks. So, yeah.
As four tiny girls ran around in a gigantic empty studio, the Moms hit the MomPerch and didn’t quite know what to do with themselves.
You know how when you stay in a hotel and they have a super king-sized bed that is like five times the size of yours at home and you don’t know what else to do but roll all around it because you can…? It was like that up on the MomPerch couch.
Jill, Holly and Melissa kind of looked like they just missed the 39 Bus and were the only three people left on the bench.
Srsly. How much do we love Holly? She got new eyeliner.
Since no one had heard anything from Christi in three months, Jill decided to try and call Chloe’s Mom on her redoinkulously BeDazzled iPhone (…seriously, Gurl…how you get dat thing through a TSA checkpoint?…) which allowed the cameraman ample opportunity to awkwardly linger somewhere between Jill’s cellphone and her cleavage way longer than he should have for a show about little children who can dance.
Not that I’m complaining, of course. Cuz you know I love me some Jill Vertes. Maybe I just need to cut back on my Niagara when she’s on screen.
Snap. Went there.
Naturally, the call went unanswered, which made me wonder how it’s possible that Christi never bothered to set up her voice mail the whole time she was on the show. You had four years, honey. Either take it to the Genius Bar or tell the post-production editing department to stop making you look like a raging bitch.
Snap. That’s twice now. And it’s only the premiere.
Somewhere around this point was when Abby realized that four little girls barely even qualify for the Group Routine category, so she picked up her new iPhone (…no wonder nobody else could get the Gold one…Lifetime snarffed ‘em all up…) and placed a mystery call to somebody, asking if they could fly out to Pittsburgh and join the party.
Conveniently enough, Kalani Hilliker and her Mom Kira have their own private jet because I swear they were both walking through the studio door before Abby even hung up on them. Dr. Beyoncé was all like AwHellNah and Jill was all like SayWhat? and then Melissa had her first Eye Twitch of Season Five.
And my Twitter feed got all ‘Molegate.’ Again.
Really? I’m not doing this for another 32 episodes, people. I can’t. I don’t know what happened to it. It was there. And then it was gone. And now it was kinda sorta back again, but not really. I just can’t. One season was enough.
Beyond all that hysteria, there was a lot of stress juice leaking from every one of the Moms this week. I think they were probably just reacting to all the changes and the fact that the Original Recipe Mom Team was no more. It’s sad to lose your friends, so I don’t think all the negativity up in the Perch was coming from an intentionally mean place.
Holly chewed on Kira a little bit. Jill snarked on Christi’s Social Media skills. (Since Christi won’t follow me on Twitter, bonus points were given to Jill on this one just because…)
And then I’m pretty sure Melissa accused Kelly of still using dial-up. Apparently the Hyland household isn’t wired for high speed internet because Melissa totally trash talked Kelly’s computer skills like she still had tin foil wrapped around her bunny ear TV antennas or something.
Somehow the girls even managed to get a little rehearsing in before leaving for Niagara Falls, which gave skinny Abby time to yell at them just like not-as-skinny Abby used to do.
And then finally, it was Showtime!
And time for this woman. Who just gave me Life.
No clue who she is. But she was into it. Into. It.
And it was also time for Paige Hyland to slap a lawsuit on Abby, citing mental abuse and unlawful working conditions during her tenure at the ALDC. You already know the scoop on that one. TMZ milked that cow dry when it first happened. They just didn’t tell us it happened on the day the remaining Moms and kids were piling onto a bus.
Side note: They showed that flashback clip where Paige is standing all by herself in the studio looking like a kid whose Mom just abandoned her in the mall on Christmas Eve. I hate that clip.
I’m going to assume that everyone went to a hotel first, because when the bus pulled up to the venue Abby had even bigger hair than when she left Pittsburgh and nobody was wearing the same clothes they had on when they put their luggage in the trunk. There’s no way they could have done that kind of transformation in one tiny bus bathroom.
As usual, the waiting crowd went bonkers. There were a few ‘I Heart Chloe’ signs that looked like they were glitter glued and painted by the same intern who does all the America Idol audience posters, but whatever.
I missed where the actual event took place, but it looked like an old Costco because everyone was in folding chairs on one flat cement floor, trying to see around the person in front of them. If I had driven ten hours to Niagara Falls just to look at the back of Abby Lee Miller’s hair I would be soooo not happy.
Kendall’s solo was awesome. She was like Sheena of the Jungle with a spear and everything. First Place!
Nia came in Second Place, but scored the top spot as far as I was concerned because she rocked a Roy Lichtenstein costume that made her look like she had just jumped off the cover of the latest issue of Marvel Comic’s SuperNia.
Power of: Death Drop. Let’s go fight crime. And be sassy while we do it, mmmkay?
Holly’s HollyFaces when Nia dances, tho.
Kalani channeled Austin Powers Girlfriend during her/Chloe’s routine.
She came in Second in her division. Probably because she didn’t wear The Beard.
Because she totally wore The Beard for the Freak Show group routine later in the event and the ALDC came in First Place. I’m not saying Kalani’s not a good dancer. I’m just saying that when I was in third grade a kid sang a made-up song in a construction paper hat dressed as Abraham Lincoln and won First Prize, too, so facial hair seems to be the common denominator if you want to snatch some trophies for your case.
And then it got a little odd, because the emcee/director/Ryan Seacrest guy took the mic and let the entire audience know how much Sheer Talent loves and supports Abby.
Not for nothing. That was nice of him, I guess. But honestly, if I was the owner of Miss Clementine’s School of Tap and Jazz Handing and was going home with a couple of 9th place trophies and a bunch of kids with sore feet and bad attitudes, I’m not so sure I’d want to sit there and hear about how amazing my competition was when I had a 5 hour drive ahead of me.
And then Ryan Seacrest even called Abby up on stage where she started this impromptu motivational BeTheBestYouCanBe speech that I swear would have ben accompanied by Nia’s Maya Angelou Dance if she could have gotten all the polka dots off her face in time.
So, yeah.
Moral of the Story: The kids still love to dance. And the Moms still love their kids.
Dance Moms is back.
Freakin’ Finally.
