DWTS Season 16, Week 7 – The Details of Latin Week (Weigh In With Your Opinions)!

We’ve been having this discussion in an older post, and as a result some of you may have missed the new details that seem to be emerging about Latin Week. You can read some of the details in Vogue’s earlier post regarding DWTS Week 7, and you can also see the video of Henry discussing what he knows of Latin week here —> Henry talks Latin Week. It’s a short video – you can watch it for yourself and see what you make of it.

I’m posting this up here at the top to try to involve more people in the discussion (no trolling, though, kiddies). As I understand it, the high scoring couple is immune from elimination, right off the bat. Then, the second highest scoring couple gets first choice of who they want to dance against in a “challenge”. According to Derek’s blog, it seems this happens on Tuesday – but I’m not really sure how they’re going to work this. They have 7 couples doing one dance each in two hours?? That’s a whole bunch of free time for filler – as long as that filler is more dancing I guess I’m okay with that – but the results show could be a nightmare.

Anyway, the couples will be dancing either Cha Cha, Jive or Rumba. Not sure how it’s determined who does what, plus certain couples have already done some or all of these dances.

All Three
Kellie/Derek
Jacoby/Karina

Cha Cha and Jive
Zen/Val
Sean/Peta

Cha Cha Only
Aly/Mark
Andy/Sharna
Ingo/Kym

As I see it there are two ways this can go – the couples do what they did last year and try not to overtly screw anyone over. This will be extremely difficult because no matter who you pick, there could be hard feelings. Not to mention – how nice can you be when there are points at stake?? I hate this – if they are going to make them do this, then I’d almost rather have TPTB do the picking as it’s much more obvious manipulation, as opposed to the couples picking and ruining the camaraderie this cast has…and still being manipulated on the front end by the judges. I have to think that either Zen, Kellie or Aly will win the immunity – possibly Kellie since she’s already danced all three of the dances. More likely, Zendaya because she HASN’T danced all three of the dances. She’s the one that’s lined up to be the “next big thing” and is part of the family, so best keep her safe. It doesn’t matter, really which woman wins…as you will see below. 😉

I’ve seen some say they think Kellie will win it in order to get Zendaya’s fans all riled up and make them vote. It could happen, I suppose. It requires me to believe that TPTB are not only very Machiavellian but SMART. I have some trouble with that, at this point. 😀 Not only that, it could be risky. Say that Aly wins immunity and Kellie is second highest – and Kellie/Derek pick Zendaya to challenge. If they get to choose dance style, they could challenge her to a rumba. AWKWARD. 🙂 It would be risky on Derek and Kellie’s part, but not only is Kellie not very competitive, it would be a big ole “screw you” to the producers who clearly set this up to guarantee the elimination of one of the lower tier dancers – probably Andy. This is an idea I like – which means it won’t happen. 🙂

Okay, so the couples could try to beat TPTB at their own game, but I think the second option is more likely, for most or all of them, and that is – pick the easiest person to beat in a challenge. Some might find that “mean” – although since Zen’s likely to win, I doubt many will. Her COTC fans seem to think everyone is mean except them, and they are the biggest offenders. But, like I said, there are points involved and the pros have a responsibility to their partners to try to make sure they are safe. The only one I can see NOT worrying about this is Derek and Kellie – and frankly, that concerns me. If ever there were a couple unlikely to try to hose someone, it’s those two. And that also makes me wonder if they will win immunity – if TPTB are going for drama and the guaranteed elimination of a bad dancer, then best take the person most likely to not play along out of the game. Put Zen in second place, Val totally goes after Andy, Zen wins and still ends up at the top of the leader board. Ta DA!! 🙂

So how will it play out? I’m almost starting to look forward to see which level of manipulation they will chose. Okay, so the show is not as fun in terms of a dance competition as it used to be, but I could get into this as a sport of seeing how much they actually CAN manipulate the outcome. 🙂 We’ll see. The other thing is the dance selection – are they going to pull it out of the hat BEFORE they choose who to challenge? Because that will make a big difference – if, say, Kellie and Derek pull rumba, that could influence who they do or don’t pick. Or are they going to be paired and THEN pull the dance? Which also allows TPTB to manipulate it again. Think balls breaking open accidentally. 🙂

Also, for those of you who were not following the conversation in the other post, just to see how this affects the leader board and the voting – and to see why I think it guarantees the elimination of probably Andy here’s the hypothetical numbers. Let’s say the leader board ends up looking like this on Monday night:

Zen – 30
Kellie – 29
Aly – 28
Sean – 25
Jacoby – 24
Ingo – 24
Andy – 20

So, in this scenario, Zen would be safe. Nothing more to worry about, no more dancing to do. Kellie has to pick someone to challenge – I can’t decide if she and Derek go with Andy or if they go with Sean or Ingo, but for the sake of the numbers, let’s say they pick Andy. Regardless of the dance style, Kellie is likely to win. That means she gets three points. Next, Aly has to pick someone to challenge, she likely picks Sean or Ingo…or possibly Jacoby, depending on the dance style. This is where strategy comes into play. If it’s a straight up school yard pick with no regard to the dance style – or even if it’s not – I think it’s wise to avoid Jacoby and go with either Sean or Ingo. Jacoby can pull off a fun Cha Cha or Jive and that would be risky – although probably not very much. So, Aly likely wins her challenge and gets 3 points added to her score.

Keep in mind also, that this really screws up the total points, for those keeping track. Right now Kellie and Zen are very close (1 point difference) – this could screw this up in a big way, unless only points given based on dances scored on a 30 point scale are counted, and what are the odds that the show does that? Anyway, the third highest scorer after the immunity person then has to dance with whoever is left – probably Jacoby versus Sean. I tend to think Jacoby would win that one. The new leader board would look like this:

Kellie – 32
Aly – 31
Zen – 30
Jacoby – 27
Sean – 25
Ingo – 24
Andy – 20

That would drop Zenddaya to third place but so what? She would be SAFE no matter what. Kellie has 12 points on Andy, and Aly has 11 points on Andy. I seriously doubt either of them would be in trouble either. Unless fans get complacent and don’t vote, of course. Everyone else has AT LEAST four points on Andy, and possibly more – I was being generous giving him a 20. I doubt the judges will be so kind. Here’s what Andy would have to get to be safe, in this scenario:

– 21,200 more votes per million votes cast than Ingo, OR;
– 26,500 more votes per million votes cast than Sean, OR;
– 37,000 more votes per million votes cast than Jacoby, OR;
– 58,200 more votes per million votes cast than Aly, OR;
– 63,500 more votes per million votes cast than Kellie.

I don’t see any way for him to be safe in this scenario, unless he’s doing much better than I think he is and he takes out either Sean or Ingo. Sean was in the bottom two last week, but Andy only needed 8k to get past him. It’s more than three times that this week. The only time he was in the bottom two was week 3; DL was beating him and everyone else had a three point lead on him. A lot has changed since then, the question is, has it changed enough?

So, what do you all think?? Is this a bid to get rid of Andy?? Just more stupid Tom Foolery because TPTB are bored children? Just designed to keep their future money maker Zendaya safe?? Or some combination of all of the above??