PureDWTS Season 22, The Finale – Power Rankings

Man, I miss the good ol’ days, when the Monday nights on finale week were just jam-packed full of great dancing and everyone truly brought their A-game.  I think the last finale that really fit that bill for me was season 17 – when (pun intended) even Bill Engvall really shone.  Tonight was cumulatively one of the weakest we’ve ever had – I feel like 2/3 couples kinda hit a flat note.  And also, even more disappointingly, the judges’ & PTB’s agenda was in high gear tonight – some got the kid glove treatment, others were scrutinized a bit more.  And while I think that there is an obvious winner in this bunch, based on tonight’s performances – I think it could go either way amongst two finalists, given some of the propaganda we saw tonight.

Part of me thinks that we may lose Mark after this season, which is a crying shame, because he & Lindsay are the only pros left that even come close to Derek in terms of choreographic skill and are capable of possibly grabbing an Emmy nod for the show. But the vibe I got from Mark after he & Paige’s freestyle makes me wonder if we just witnessed his swan song – he’s never struck me as a terribly sentimental pro, but he got seriously weepy tonight. Is he maybe finally bidding farewell to DWTS to focus on his marriage & his music after this season? Ack…I don’t want to think about it.  He’s been one of the few bright spots of this season.

Not much else to add – thought Erin looked pretty matronly in that dress they threw her in, and I raised an eyebrow at how much time was spent emphasizing that ABC Golden Girl Ginger was suffering from back spasms.  *yawn* Gonna do things in reverse tonight, starting with 3rd place and ending with the winner…

3rd place: Ginger & Val

I mentioned last week that Ginger fell short of both Nyle & Paige during last week’s performances – and really, she fell pretty woefully short this week, too.  I’m not sure whose bright idea it was to basically do two freestyles, but I doubt it really helped them a whole lot – that “contemporary” was just a disjointed, uninspired retooling of a bunch of their other dances this season, a sort of watered-down freestyle.  It was as if Val just grabbed every time-wasting prop he could and shoved it in the same dance (the mirrors, the bench & flower gag, the fountain, the troupe) and had Ginger do a bunch of low-energy moves from their other routines, and called it a contemporary. None of it felt very connected, and none of it made me connect to them – which was the goal of redoing their contemporary, right? To create a dance that resonated with the audience? The only thing that resonated with me was the fact that Val is a painfully weak choreographer, and if he’s supposed to be the “top male pro”, lord is this show in trouble 😯 And I’m sorry, but that Fred & Ginger-inspired freestyle was just a joke – really, Val? You’ve never done tap before, but you decide that now is the time to attempt a very tap-heavy routine dedicated to a MASTER of tap dancing, possibly the greatest tap dancer this world has ever seen? Gooooooood luck, brah – you’re gonna need it. The tap sections just made me cringe – it was like an awkward pantomime of tap, with neither Ginger nor Val really capturing the feel of it, and instead looking like they were doing some awkward flailing or clogging. Beyond that, it too felt pretty low-energy, and featured a lot of time-wasters as well – it doesn’t hold a candle to Derek’s Singin’ in the Rain-inspired jazz from season 19, which is what I’m sure Val had in mind when he decided to tackle Fred & Ginger – it felt like he was trying to say “Well I can do that, too!” Thing is, Derek has actually been studying tap for awhile now – it’s not like he just woke up and starting messing around imitating tap moves. And that is one issue I have with a lot of the current pros – a lot of them don’t seem to be doing anything to up their game. We still have a lot of one-trick ponies, which is extraordinarily problematic when all the really good choreographers (Derek, Julianne, Kym, now possibly Mark) are jumping ship, and the show seems to be pushing harder than ever for new dances/more cross-training.  But I digress – after tonight, I don’t think Ginger can hope for any better than third, even with all of the emphasis they placed on her injury and some very sympathetic scoring.  She just didn’t have the gravitas that both Nyle & Paige had, or the skill that Paige showed.

2nd place: Nyle & Peta

Yikes –  I have to say that Nyle’s redemption quickstep was probably the weakest dance of the night for me.  I get why Peta (if it was truly Peta, and not TPTB pulling the puppet strings) picked it, but man, it was risky – and I don’t think it really paid off.  Nyle seemed to start the dance a bit off-time, and I don’t feel like he was ever able to get back on – I felt like he was always bobbing just one step out of sync with Peta, which left them feeling uneven; and his feet were just making me cringe.  I think that dance kinda just illustrated for me that Nyle hasn’t grown quite as much as some of the other couples this season – I really wish Peta had maybe focused a bit more on improving his technique (frame, feet, posture, etc) and spent less time trying to find new gimmicks ways to remind everyone that Nyle is deaf and can dance despite being deaf. Which brings me to my next sorta-kinda gripe: I wish they had gone a different route with their freestyle.  There wasn’t anything technically wrong with it – I just felt like it was too similar to other routines we’ve seen from Nyle this season: angsty, emotional, and dark, and meant to remind us of Nyle’s struggle to fit in with a hearing world.  I felt like it was actually a bit contrary to the message Nyle seems like he’s been trying to convey: that he still leads a fulfilling life DESPITE his deafness.  This, like other dances we’ve seen from him, just seemed to harp on his struggles – I feel like I personally would have connected better to the routine if Nyle had done  something a bit more upbeat & celebratory, as if to say “Yep, I’m deaf, but man – my life still ROCKS.” So while that routine seemed to resonate with a lot of folks – I just found myself thinking it was a bit one-note.  And it probably would have won him the MBT, if Paige hadn’t come out and slayed her freestyle…

Winner: Paige & Mark

It’s probably going to be a very close finish between Nyle & Paige, but I really feel like she tipped the scales in her favor tonight.  I thought she was the only one that slayed both of her dances, and had the right combination of emotional gravity and dance props to get the scores and the votes.  She EASILY dominated the redemption round – that salsa was chock full of content, and she handled it masterfully.  Didn’t seem nervous, didn’t let anything trip her up – she danced it well, had fun, and sold it.  Bravo – and Len is apparently following a narrative, because I don’t see how Ginger’s snooze of a freestyle contemporary (which Len really doesn’t seem to enjoy as a style, anyway) was somehow better than Paige’s content-filled salsa…and I disagree on the hip-action.  But he’s apparently got to level the playing field for company gal Ginger, I guess.  As for the freestyle – I felt like she succeeded where Nyle may have gotten the message a bit twisted; the overall tone of Paige’s freestyle seemed more congruent with her journey on the show: she had some rough times before, but she’s overcome it and has had a lovely, whimsical journey on the show. And we really got to see Paige shine in that dance – her legs, her arms, those leaps and turns? All magical. No complaints here, and I feel like we’ve seen some of Mark’s best work this season – Paige seems to have really inspired him.  I really want to see these to win it tomorrow night, and judging by the busy signals Mama Spence & I were getting when voting – I think they have a really good shot.

So concludes my final power rankings of the season – how do you guys think things will shake out? 🙂