Dancing with the Stars Season 18, The Finale – Dancing by the Numbers!

Sorry…I just thought the above picture was gorgeous.

Note: As of 1 pm Eastern time, James was KILLING it in the encore votes with nearly double the tweets of Meryl. Amy was in third with Candace in last place. I suspect that, in the interest of keeping this the “Meryl and Maks show” that James won’t be the one redoing his freestyle. @DWTSGossip also says that it’s open to the “remaining couples” – when the “remaining” is counted, I don’t know. I do know that I would rather see James over Meryl, but I won’t hold my breath. 🙂

Well, I called it after Candace’s freestyle – massive underscore because she was going through to Tuesday and they have to make sure she doesn’t actually win. And when you see the math you will see they gave it the ole college try.

Of course there is another dance tomorrow night. It can go one of two ways between Meryl and Amy. They will give them both either 27’s or 30’s and let the audience decide. They might even put Amy a point ahead to tie the score.  I expect they might even put Candace up there too, because they’ve created such a margin already it may not matter. If they are really afraid Meryl might not win, I would expect them to underscore Amy relative to Meryl UNLESS Amy just kills it and they can’t underscore without being obvious. Kinda like Len did tonight. :::rolls eyes:::

Anyway, here’s where we stand after two dances.

Totally not surprised that they pretty much ranked them, and really Meryl and Maks fans shouldn’t get too comfortable – Zendaya was ahead by a point too.  😉

As you can see from the table above, going into voting Candace needs a TON of votes just to get past Amy. This bums me out because if Amy isn’t going to win, I don’t want her standing there when Maks and his family create some outrageous display leaving Meryl in the dust. Of course, now that I think about it, I really don’t want Candace and Mark standing there either, with her kids watching. Prove me wrong, Fam – show some class.

Right now, for Candace to WIN, she needs both of the following:

• Candace needs 47,100 more votes per million votes cast than Amy, AND;
• Candace needs 53,000 more votes per million votes cast than Meryl.

This is not unheard of, although that’s close to the record.  Bigger margins have been beaten…just never in the finale. It’s unlikely to happen now.

As for Amy, what does she need to do to win?  Both of the following:

• Amy needs for Candace to NOT get the 47,100 more votes per million votes cast than her, AND;
• Amy needs 5,900 more votes per million votes cast than Meryl.

As I said earlier, this is totally doable. Will it happen? I’m thinking probably not, mainly due to the tongue baths Meryl has gotten all season, in addition to a pretty massive fanbase, especially compared to Amy. Meryl is a gold medal winning ICE DANCER fresh off the most recent Olympics. Amy is a snowboarder and they barely show her version of the Olympics on TV. Then there is the whole showmance angle – believe it or not some people actually fall for that crap. Later this summer when Maks is photographed with JLo all over the place there are going to be a whole lot of disillusioned fangirls crying in their Diet Pepsi and cursing Maks.

Now, what happens when they add another set of points tomorrow? Well, odds are, nothing changes too much. I’m going to take a stab at it – but I swear the judges read this blog (just like Conrad does) and do the opposite of what I guess.   I would bet, since they took great pains to underscore Candace that that trend will continue. Here’s my first scenario:

And scores like those above lead to the following:

As you can see, the margins decreased only slightly. Candace still has a lot of ground to make up. Amy has a bit less. But if they REALLY want Meryl to win and are afraid of Amy, they could rank them more significantly tomorrow. If Amy has even the tiniest mistake and Meryl doesn’t, we could see something like this:

Which would lead to the following:

This scenario puts Meryl way out in front and, considering that when I was voting I kept getting a Meryl and Maks video, I don’t find it to be too unlikely. It’s kinda ridiculous. I don’t think the producers care who wins, as much as they have preferences as to who will make the finale for a variety of reasons. The judges on the other hand, may have an interest in the “best dancer” winning. BUT at the same time, they don’t want to be seen as assholes or as people who are tilting it one way or the other at this stage of the game. IF Amy and Meryl perform comparable dances like they did last night, I expect scenario one to be pretty likely. Like I said, they may even give Candace a 27. Most seasons, as I recall (and I really have to research it) they hesitate to take the decision out of the voter’s hands completely. I think that trend will continue.

At the end of the day, I expect that Maks will finally get his desperately desired and coveted MBT, but casual viewers years from now will remember when Derek Hough took that Amy Purdy gurl to the finale and she danced beautifully despite some disability which they can’t quite remember – because she was just that good.  And Candace’s kids will remember when their mom made the finale of Dancing with the Stars and how she was tough as nails and danced under extreme pressure. Derek gets nominated for another Emmy and Mark has great success at his music. Everybody wins.