PureDWTS Season 27, Week 5 – Power Rankings

Weird things happen when Disney comes to town. Wonky scoring, a fake-out jeopardy and almost-elimination…I guess we should unpack what all went down and see what can be inferred from it. Generally, I think the judges were out to give out as many points as they could reasonably get away with last night, to everyone except Joe; this accomplishes two things: it makes the voting margins very small (due to the larger number of total points), and also makes it harder for Joe to try and make up ground and potentially oust a better dancer. Given that we’re now on the hook for (2) double elims (and one of them is on night 1 of finale week), and we didn’t eliminate anyone this week, I’m thinking next week we cut (2) couples, when we’ve got the best odds of Joe at the very least falling into the bottom two.  He doesn’t have to be the lowest on the totem pole; if they can just get him second-lowest, they can flush him out.  As for the psych-out almost-elim – my little bird told me the couples were told by producers (after the fact, of course) that the two couples in jeopardy “were only picked for shock value, it wasn’t a ‘real’ jeopardy”. Be that as it may, I think that faux jeopardy will only have the effect of boosting votes for DeMarcus and Alexis – I think the former is doing fine, vote-wise, but I think the latter probably could use whatever boost they can give her.  I think it’s interesting that they went more for “shock value”, when they could have actually utilized this jeopardy to boost someone that maybe needed help – Mary Lou comes to mind, as I have yet to find any super-passionate Mary Lou voters (except maybe Bill – I know you’re reading this, bruh) and there seems to be a lot of viewers that tend to forget about her by the end of the night. Then again, with 5 weeks down and 4 to go, they’ve gotta start lining things up for their ideal finale…

…which brings  me to my next point: given that last night was the midpoint of the season, it’s time to take inventory of who I think is headed to the finale and who is probably not.  I’ve been told by several people that Carrie Ann apparently said in her Instagram live that (5) couples go to night 1 of the finale (meaning we get five freestyles) and then there’s a double elim at the end of the night, and only the final (3) dance on night 2 of the finale. So somewhere in weeks 6, 7, and 8, we’ve gotta shed (4) more couples…meaning there’s a double elim at some point BEFORE the finale, and my guess is that it’s next week.  My gut says they don’t let Joe anywhere near the finale, if they can help it – and Bobby’s probably not far behind him. Mary Lou just seems to be fading into the background, so I doubt she’s long for this show, either; I think the last cut is probably a toss-up between John and Juan Pablo – I think John’s actually connecting better with the audience, but I get the feeling TPTB are going to do whatever they can to ensure that the better dancer (Juan Pablo) makes it over the decent-dancing everyman. So that leaves us with Milo, DeMarcus, Alexis, Evanna, and either Juan Pablo or John headed to night 1 of the finale; of those, I think the final three SHOULD be DeMarcus, Milo, and Evanna. But given the sudden showmance angle with Alexis & Alan, and the fact that they seem to think Juan Pablo is the greatest thing since sliced bread, who knows what will happen.

Things I enjoyed from last night? Loved that they found ways to work in the junior pros and contestants, and that opener was the most unique one we’ve had in awhile – loved how may Disney Easter eggs they managed to throw in the background (loved Hayley trying to jam Cinderella’s slipper on Britt’s foot in the hallway 😛 ).  As far as I’m concerned, Jason Maybaum can cohost with Berge anytime – that kid is a riot 🙂 Read more..