Wow. I’m so relieved. I was prepared for trainwreckery of massive proportions and instead we got a night full of dance, dance and more dance. I’ll be honest – I would be really sad if DWTS devolved into constant crap, fluff and filler to the point that it’s no longer about dancing. And that could still happen, but last night showed that there is still hope. I did look at the clock when there was 50 minutes left in the show and said, “What the hell are they running short or is there going to be some crap stuck in here somewhere?” But sometimes they do seem to know what they’re doing.

What there seems to be NO hope for is Carrie Ann Inaba. In what universe do you give the same paddling to Jennifer, Brandy, Rick and Kyle?? What the hell. I got that the judges, overall, were being exceedingly kind last night – hopefully not to the detriment of one of our remaining good dancers. Everyone seemed to take a shot of the happy juice – even Len admittedly overlooking an error on Brandy’s part that would have gotten anyone else slammed a week ago gave her a 10. And Jennifer got a 9 from him for no obvious mistakes. But really, Carrie Ann? What has happened to the universe when I’m loving Maks and slamming her??

For that matter, in what universe does a girl who’s arms are static and stiff, and who messes up steps, get 8’s? But like I said, the judges were being exceedingly kind. And maybe that was a bit of reverse psychology.

At the end of the night we have the right two people at the top, and the right two people at the bottom. Unfortunately, the judges kindness resulted in a spread that just ain’t big enough for anyone to be truly safe. Here’s how it stacks up:

The Judges Scores and Percentages

Less than 2 percentage points between Bristol and Jennifer and Brandy. That’s not very much. Last week, there was a 5 point spread between Kurt and Audrina and we know what happened there. It’s at this point that I should comment on what some have been saying: that Kurt and Bristol have massive voting fanbases because they beat out Audrina. That’s not necessarily true, although it could be. If no one is voting for Audrina, it doesn’t take a huge fanbase to beat her. When, at the end of the night, you can’t remember what she did, then odds are good that she’s not getting many votes because everyone is talking about someone else. Like I mentioned in the comments, if Audrina only got 50k votes out of a million, then Kurt only needed 100k votes out of that million to beat her – that’s only 10 percent of the vote. As the weeks go by, what looks like a massive voting fanbase doesn’t look so any more because all of the remaining couples are getting a good chunk of votes. And that’s where I’m afraid we are right now.

I’m afraid that Kyle may be the Audrina of this week. Can anyone remember his dance clearly right this minute?? I can’t. Bristol’s was much worse, but I remember her helicopter imitation quite clearly – and thinking that perhaps she was supposed to be going for that swinging arm motion that Derek often puts in his Viennese Waltzes. I think people will sympathize with Jen and vote for her (especially since the majority of the viewing audience is Jennifer’s peers), I think people will vote for Brandy because she was hot last night, Kurt’s still a football player, Rick is still hot (although his dance was crap) and Bristol is…still Bristol. Although maybe her voting fanbase was working on GOTV for today’s elections. We can hope.

The person who SHOULD go home is Bristol, IMO, without a doubt. But I’m not convinced that will be the case. What does Bristol need in order to stay? One of the following things has to happen:

-Bristol gets 5,500 more votes per 1 million votes cast than Kyle, or;
-She gets 11,000 more votes per 1 million votes cast than Kurt OR Rick, or;
-She gets 19,200 more votes per 1 million votes cast than Jennifer or Brandy.

I think she can likely beat Kyle pretty handily. I could be wrong. But of course, her getting more votes than Kyle doesn’t mean Kyle automatically goes home. Kyle could do one of the following to stay:

-Kyle gets 5,500 more votes than EITHER Kurt or Rick per 1 million votes cast, or;
-He gets 13,700 more votes than either Jennifer or Brandy per 1 million votes cast.

So, what do you think? Can Bristol get the votes to beat Kyle? And if she does, can Kyle take that beating and still get the votes to beat Kurt or Rick? Essentially, for either Kurt or Rick to leave, it means that:

-Bristol got 11,000 more votes per 1 million votes cast than BOTH of them, AND;
-Kyle got 5,500 more votes per 1 million votes cast than BOTH of them.

Call me crazy, but I don’t see that happening. I could be VERY wrong, of course. I think it comes down to Kyle and Bristol, but just for the sake of argument, let’s look and see what it would take for either Jennifer OR Brandy to be eliminated. For either Jennifer OR Brandy to be eliminated, all of the following has to happen:

-One of the ladies has to get 1 more vote than the other, and;
-Rick and Kurt have to EACH get 8,200 more votes per 1 million votes cast, and;
-Kyle would have to get 13,700 more votes per 1 million votes cast, AND;
-Bristol would have to get 19,200 more votes per 1 million votes cast.

I think that it is relatively safe to call Brandy and Jennifer safe this week. Relatively. Yeah, Audrina was farther ahead, but Brandy and Jennifer aren’t Audrina. I think they have good voting contingents, and I don’t think any group made any assumptions this week.

What about the remaining four? Well, the numbers required to stay aren’t very big, but you also have fewer contestants taking the votes and who knows where the votes that went to ousted contestants are going to go. I don’t think they are likely to go to Kyle or Bristol. I think there is likely some resentment toward these less talented dancers still being in the game. But more than that I have to go back to what I said in the very beginning of this post – what did Kyle do last night?? I have the same feeling with him that I did with Audrina – granted I felt that for a couple weeks before she left, but we don’t have the same time now that we did then.

For that reason, I’m going to say that Kyle is going home. So…tell me why I’m wrong. I almost always am, but tell me why.