Dancing with the Stars Season 26, Week 2 – LIVE BLOG (SPOILERS)

Please don’t make me do numbers at the same time as the live blog. Thank you. 🙂 That was hard, ya’ll.

T-minus 15 minutes….

I like the opening showing the athletes in their comfort zone. That’s a nice bit.

Not a fan of everyone running down the stairs, but I love seeing Rashad again. There was some teasing that he might be dancing with Emma tonight…not that I pay that close of attention. 🙂

I can’t believe we’re at the halfway point either.

Josh and Sharna up first with their Paso Doble.

Okay, that was excellent! Sharna musta heard my comment about choreo and Jenna bringing it last week. 🙂

Dancing by the Numbers commenters told me that the scores from tonight and the votes from last week will determine who’s eliminated, so, if anyone gets a seriously different score from last week I’ll deal with it at the time. Or try. I should say, if the standings are vastly different….

Yeah, four judges is too many.

SEVENS?? What the actual f$#k?? He must be doing well in the votes.

Jennie and Keo up next. Sad to say that number two in the running order combined with her invisibility last week is not  good for her. Unless she pulls ahead in the scores, she’s likely to go home.

Changing the song ON PURPOSE is likely going to kill her. I get where she’s coming from…wait, no I really don’t. Sorry. It’s a song.

I’m not sure how this is better? Did we know what she had before? I really don’t think surrounding her with professionals is a good idea either. She’s too stiff a mover. It didn’t suck, but you could tell she cut down the rehearsal time significantly.

Len being kind with “competent”.  Calling out the lost timing. Bruno being a bit more real. As per usual, I get the feeling that Len knows what’s going to go down and the other two might not.

Tom just confirmed that the elimination is based on tonight’s scores and last weeks votes. :::sigh:::

So, Jennie gets two 7s, same as Josh?? Yeah, she’s going home.

It’s going to be impossible to actually do the numbers with the team dances coming at the end, so I’m going to have to just look at the totals after the dances and see if my original thoughts hold up.

Kareeeeeeem!! Still shocking how freakin’ tall he is.  Holy crap, that is some dancing at the Savoy…

Kareem looks great! Outfit that is. Oh, Lindsay… clever. Hayley’s pretty bad ass as well.

Ya know, they struggle more from his age and his height than they do from actual dancing. I love him. I hope he’s safe tonight. It might be between him and Arike…or him and Jennie.

And he get’s the same score as Jennie – that’s NOT a good thing for Jennie, for sure.

But ya know…the team dances are extremely lopsided – Jennie and Arike are on a team with Adam and Mirai, while Kareem is on a team with Tonya and Josh. That could really screw everything up if they end up scoring as lopsided as they appear.

Recycled troupe costume alert. At least they’re good costumes.

Chris is so cute. Love him. Hmmm….viennese waltz. Hope he kills it.

This is pretty good….eek lift. Probably gonna get called.  Lovely dance though and he handled it well. Plenty in hold, just a bit out of hold.  CAI ignoring the lift – and that’s a good thing because those accidental ones just shouldn’t be called. I agreed with her commentary, honestly. Len says “better than last week” – well, you best give him an 8 then, eh?

LOL!!  Len’s “NO!” to Erin’s silly question about sway/swag.  He looked so disgusted. 🙂

33 out of 40 for Chris!! High score of the night so far. You’ll remember last week he was tied with Jennie – he’s currently 7 points ahead of her. But he’s also on the team that is likely not to do as well. We’ll see.

Tonya and Sasha up next doing a Quickstep to Redneck Woman. Own it girl.

Had a misstep in the beginning but man, she did damn good on that dance!! She got some serious air on those…whatever that move is called. 🙂 The bear was freaking me out though. 🙂

Rashad was glowing. Len seems to like it, says it made him feel good. Worked on me too.  Bruno thinks it’s fun as well. There was an obvious mis step right at the very beginning – did CAI see it? Answer: Nope.

Tonya gets a 33 and is tied at the top of the leaderboard once again. I’m happy for her. I don’t think she’ll win, but I think she’ll come out of it with a good experience.

Mirai up next with a foxtrot…and not doing a lot to endear herself to the audience. Girl was in second place – hush.

I’m liking Alan and his upbeat attitude. Mirai looks VERY beautiful. And she is an excellent dancer, as per usual.  That spin was incredible. Beautiful dance. Beautiful.

Judges seem to love it. And Mirai leaps to the top of the leaderboard. Much deserved.

Okay, putting in some place holder scores, assuming that the Mirai/Adam team does significantly better than the Kareem team – if this happens, it will make it much more likely that Kareem goes home along with Jennie. Let’s see if it works out that way.

Loved Rashad’s dance!! Excellent!!

Arike is a great girl, I wish the NCAA wasn’t hamstringing her so much. Women ARE stronger, Gleb. Props to you for supporting that.

Arike started off a bit awkward but she really came alive as the foxtrot went along. Her frame seemed good and she seemed vulnerable.  Very pretty. I loved it. Seemed a bit short though.

CAI calls her magic.  Arike is very unexpected – very graceful. I don’t expect that from a b-ball woman.

She gets 33! That’s really good…I would have said a 30. I think they may be writing Jennie and Kareem off. Because they are significantly lower than everyone else at this point. Closest competitor is Josh and I don’t see him going anywhere. Team dances could change everything substantially.

Oh Jenna, so disappointed. You learn that time wasting audience crap from the BF and his brother? Sheesh.  You are so much better than that.

When they got around to the quickstep, it was quite good.  Really freakin’ short though. Arguably the biggest ringer of the season and all that time wasting?? Love Adam’s come back to Rashad though – really quick. 🙂

Judges all love it…and Bruno just had the nerve to say “no messing around”??  Um, commercial cocktails must have been strong. He gets a 37 out of 40.

I guess it doesn’t matter…he’s not going anywhere. And I’m fine with that. He was my pick to win last week, I just get disappointed when such a talented pair screw around.

And I check twitter and realize that I didn’t even notice they broke hold more than once – big no-no. So is it pimpage or just easy on the short season.

Team Dance time!! Team 50’s Tennis is up first. And this is the underdog team. But they have great choreographers. Jive/Swing style.  Tonya is a bad ass and I love Kareem’s smile.

This is def. making the best of an unfortunate situation. They found some clever ways to work it out, but it’s got a few issues. Mainly they didn’t give Kareem enough to do. Tonya is doing very well, as is Chris. Casting Kareem as the coach is fairly inspired.

They get a 33 which is one point more than what I predicted an hour ago. If the other team does what I predict, then it almost has to be Kareem and Jennie going home.

Team 70’s Football up next. They picked the right person to lead the choreo. Despite my critique of their individual dance, Jenna is heads above the rest on that team for choreo.

Okay, Jenna went to the Derek Hough school of team dances with the way it was structured, excepting the break where they split into men and women. Pretty well executed for week two – some timing issues, but it is week two. Shut up bruno, we’re out of time!!

Score….37…again, one point more than I guessed.  Which means that I think Jennie and Kareem are going to go home. Kareem could cause a shocker….

Jeopardy: Kareem and Lindsay

Jeopardy: Chris and Witney (nooooo)

Jeopardy: Arike and Gleb (SHOCK)

SAFE: Chris and Witney

Really surprised by Arike and I think it is likely due to the NCAA moratorium on press for Arike. She was ahead of at least four people in terms of points. Just goes to show that a complete lack of press can be a bad, bad thing.

Next week: THREE couples eliminated. I hate this.