DanThat'sCool!

 

 

Look at this mess. We are one bad dye job short of turning into the Hefner Playboy Mansion.

 

 

 

 

All I know is that I’m finally not the one with the craziest hairdo. Halleloo!

 

 

 

 

 

One: You people all suck big ones. And Two: NO this is not a mullet, thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

Seriously. Somebody gnawed on some baaaad jerky while she was out in Ohio.

 

 

 

Oh. Hell. No. You did NOT diss my girl Nia’s decision to weave in them sassy braids. And while we’re on the subject, you need to fix your face, bitch.

 

 

 

Why can’t someone invent Smell-O-Vision Television?

It can’t be that difficult.

I mean, if they can put a man on the moon, make gum that changes flavor and shut off my cable with one switch, how hard could it really be to make a TV that emits odors?

Then we would all finally know what Crazy really smells like.

Trust me.  Dance Moms has had no problem over two seasons showing us what Crazy looks like…and sounds like…but now I want to smell it.

Someday, maybe.

But until that day, if the latest episode is any indication, I’m betting that Crazy smells like beef jerky breath, one of those Walgreens cologne holiday gift sets and any randomly chosen strip mall salon after a full day of root touchups.

That’s right.  Jill is back.

Everyone’s favorite studio hopper returned to the Abby Lee Dance Company this week all loud and blonde and uninvited, and it pretty much registered at a 9.5 on the Rockette Richter Scale.

But before we get all excited, let’s start at the beginning.  Before the Storm.

Fresh off their Redemption Tour 2012, Abby and her little posse of posers were back in Pittsburgh basking in the glow of their Top Spot Group Routine at Starbound.  After recovering from a previous stumble and loss to the dreaded Candy Apples, the ALDC had managed to jazz hand their way back to the top and brought home more shiny hardware to display on those rickety old Container Store shelves.

Seriously.  Have you ever noticed the wire shelving that Abby has wrapped the entire rehearsal space with to display all their trophies?  It’s the same wobbly closet organizer stuff that you put up in your first apartment, or that always comes preinstalled in every freshman dormitory.  The stuff that is always missing one screw and eventually pulls out of the sheetrock and dumps all your winter sweaters on to your hidden kegger.

How all those heavy plaques and statues don’t come crashing down on some poor kid in the middle of Tap Class is a mystery.

So without putting anyone at risk by making them stand directly under those trophy death traps, Abby gathered her little dancers and bigger Moms together in the center of the room to unveil the latest Pyramid of Shame.

You know how in the movies right before a natural disaster all the birds always go ape s*** berserk and fly into skyscraper windows, and the deer and bison and escaped zoo animals all stampede in every direction across the highway causing mass transit chaos?

Well, I’m pretty certain that if we could have found a window and gotten a glimpse outside the studio right before the Big Reveal, it would have looked like the freakin’ opening scene from The Lion King.

Hurricane Jill was blowing back into town and most likely toppling any tree, small automobile or mobile home in her newly bleached path of destruction.

Before Abby could even pull off the first piece of logo paper and crush a young and impressionable ego, the studio door flew open and in stormed Jill, accompanied by her incredibly easy to upset daughter Kendall and a souvenir headshot which they had apparently spray glued to foam core prior to their arrival.

(Always come prepared, because you never know when you might encounter a rogue Pyramid of Shame.  I think that’s in the Boy Scout Handbook, actually.)

The last we had seen of Jill, aside from her brief stint at the Candy Apples Evil Dance Emporium, was the now infamous Texas meltdown where she had thrown a shoe and run out the door while wearing an odd little iParty cowboy hat.

In her defense, she had claimed that the mall western wear was to make her look like a local and embrace the culture, much the same way any tourist with no social skills would apply black face or a dot in the middle of their forehead to try and fit in with the city they are visiting.  Because they saw it in a magazine.

Seriously.  Why do people do that? Stick with the bermuda shorts and fanny pack.  You’ll still look less ridiculous.

 Now Jill was blonde.  Really blonde.  And had lost the Bump-It hair accessory.

(Spoiler Alert:  Next episode’s preview shows that it already makes a return appearance.  You can cut off a worm’s head or yank out your Bump-It, but they always grow back.)

She wanted Kendall to be put back into The Group immediately and proceeded to present her case like Alexis Carrington did when she pulled off that big hat and laid into the judge on Dynasty.

Oh, the drama.  Eventually Jill took the hint and scooted her blonde hair, big mouth and new caftan top fashion sense into the corner and let Abby get the Pyramid started.

Mackenzie and Nia were on the bottom.  MackAttack’s low standing was due to all that sugar causing her to dance faster than the other two girls in last week’s trio.  We’ve never actually seen it happen, but you know Mack is one of those cute kids who always chomps on those gigantic Jawbreaker candies until her tongue is blue and she has trouble swallowing all the juice.  Tell me you can’t totally picture that scenario.

Nia fell on her badonkadonk last time, and that can’t be good.

Third spot was for Paige, who didn’t really do anything wrong other than get picked as the third person in that sloppy trio.  Guilty by association.  Punishment?  Bottom row.

I won’t even go off on another rant about her age inappropriate hairdo this week, even though it did seem to have gotten wavier and even more age inappropriater, if that’s even a word.

All I’ll say on the matter is that I’m amazed that between eating, sleeping, dancing and going to school Paige still had time to get her hair done for next month’s Vogue cover shoot.  Now I’m done.

To make room for Maddie at the top, Abby stuck Chloe and Brooke on the second row.  She barely even tried to cover that one up, and couldn’t really fabricate any reason for them to be there other than Maddie’s photo is adhered to the mirror with Super Glue.

This week the gang was headed to Starpower, which I guess is somehow different than Starbound or Starpalooza or Star Search or Star Trek.  They all sound the same to me, which probably explains why I don’t run a dance company.

Abby was quite excited that lots of people from Jersey would be there.  I tried to picture pregnant Snooki doing that one leg straight up in the air thing but then immediately stopped trying to picture it before I did any permanent damage.

Maddie, Paige and Nia were all picked for solos, but the big news this time was the group number.

Twilight.  Like the vampires.  And there was going to be a boy vampire.

I would appreciate it from now on if Lifetime would run a warning disclaimer at the bottom of the screen before they unleash anymore tween-age boys on these girls, because my ears are still bleeding from the arrival of senior ALDC dancer Nick.

As the Moms retired to the Mom Perch, Kendall snuck her way into the group number until Abby did a head count and booted her upstairs.  It was clear from the start of rehearsals that the Twilight theme was not going to work with so many girls on the field.

It was like a marching band all going in different directions at half time, with poor Nick in the middle racing around trying to lift up all the girls before biting their necks.

Between all that disorganization, Abby tried to squeeze in some solo work with the girls.

Paige made it through about four measures of music before Jill busted in and sang that song about Kendall getting to dance in The Group.  After a few rounds with Abby, except for the missing cowboy hat, it was pretty much the same result again as Jill stormed out the door for the evening.

Nia’s solo was titled Return to Laquifa.

Ok.  Maybe not.  Maybe it was Werqin’ Girl.  But either way, it was Sasha Nia getting her Shangela Death Drop on again, and it was a little slice of drag heaven.

Side note:  Abby Lee Miller is no drag queen.  Make her stop doing that head snap thing and just sashay away.  Immediately.

Then we paused for a little station identification alert and a bit of network cross promotion.

The results from the Lifetime Drop Dead Diva auditions were revealed, and it was Maddie who scored the coveted guest starring role.

And not one single Vegas odds maker even blinked in surprise.

The whole thing then turned into exactly the kind of Mom vs. Mom favoritism song & dance number that we have come to expect every time Maddie snatches something from the other girls.  Between Melissa getting angry at the other Moms and Maddie not sure how she was supposed to react in front of her friends, the casting call didn’t feel as big and important as they made it sound last week.

What was big and important this week however, was Nia’s hair.  It was outta control fierce, girlz.  And Abby wasn’t liking it.

When Abby told Holly that Nia’s new big a** braids were a hot mess, Mom went on the defense and channeled some serious NeNe Leakes.  Kinda.

Given the fact that Holly is still more school principal than bitch slapping hater, it wasn’t quite an ATL Reunion throw down, but it was fun to watch.

Fix her hair, Mom.  Fix her hair?  How ’bout you fix yo’ hair?  And then how ’bout you fix yo’ face?  And yo’ fat body?  And PS…I got approval for these braids, bitch.

Whoa.  Wait.  Did she say approval?  Someone is in charge of hair braid approval?  You mean that’s someone’s job?  How much does it pay?  I’m always looking for ways to make some easy cash, and approving hair weaves seems like something I could excel at.  Hmmmm.  Girl, pleez…I think I’m on to sumthin.

The next day, Abby was still a little miffed at everyone’s reaction to Maddie’s new Drop Dead Diva role, so she figured she needed to rub some faces into it to prove a point.

Long story short, Abby had Maddie bring in all her crowns from every competition and lay them out like a flea market table display so all the other girls could ogle them and wish they were Maddie.

I guess it was an attempt at showing how it’s ok to be proud of your successes, but it turned into a very uncomfortable Toddlers & Tiaras moment as Maddie unzipped what looked like one of those vinyl hot/cold lunch bags and pulled out a clown car’s worth of mini tiaras.  It was like the bag was a bottomless sparkle pit as Maddie revealed crown after crown after crown.

After crown.

The Moms did their song & dance again.  Melissa tried to stop the show.  The other girls wished they were Maddie.  Melissa cried and Maddie just wanted to crawl in a hole.

Well played, Abby.

Finally it was Showtime.

Kendall must have hidden in the luggage compartment of the bus because somehow she was there in the green room, even though she wasn’t scheduled to do anything.  Jill used every minute of down time to ramble on and on about earning a spot on the team while Abby used every minute of down time to poke Jill with a stick.  It’s funny, but suddenly crazy Kelly was like an old chew toy that Abby didn’t want to play with anymore now that Jill was in the room.  Go figure.

The solos went well.  Nia dropped it like it was hot again.  Paige nailed her dance.  Maddie was Maddie and will probably need a bigger Igloo cooler pretty soon for all that new headgear.

Abby trimmed the Twilight number down to Brooke, Chloe and Maddie at the last minute, thereby giving Nick fewer girls to pick up and allowing her to give Jill another poke in the eye at the same time.

Seriously.  I can’t.

There was so much Jill vs. Abby screaming that I can’t even get into right now.

Abby accused Jill of stealing a $2 bow from her secret stash and slapping it on Kendall’s head before any decisions on the Twilight number had even been made.  Apparently hair bows and the Hope Diamond are both high risk security items that nobody should touch without government clearance.

Jill went all cowboy hat on Abby…again…while Kendall cried…again…and Maddie tried on crowns.

Again.

Nick actually got to speak one sentence, and he sounded like Peter Brady when his voice was changing.

Pork Chops and Apple Sauce.  Google it.

Jill said that everyone sucked.

Looks like someone needs to fix their attitude.

And their face.

It was Drop Dead Divalicious.

 

 

That crazy a** bitch with the whacky hair is having a birthday. I vote for chocolate. Anyone else?

 

 

 

 

Because your house is the only house with a liquor license, that’s why. Time for another Mom Party at Brooke’s!

 

 

 

 

Don’t worry, honey. No matter how much she yells, she can’t send you to Dance Moms: Miami.

 

 

 

 

 

School? Instead of rehearsal? For real? Am I being punk’d? Name a famous dancer with a PhD.

 

 

 

 

No, seriously. The piece of cake Leslie shoved in her mouth was like this big.

 

 

 

Well that birthday totally sucked.

Do the math.  Picture any traumatic childhood party that you may or may not have suppressed deep into your subconscious mind over the years.

The one where you didn’t get a pony.  Or the one with the scary clown.  Or even the one when your Dad forgot to mail the invitations on his way to the office and then nobody showed up.

Pick any of those parties.  Multiply the potential longterm mental scarring by about a bazillion, add enough liquor to get any Frat house through Rush Week and then top it off with a kitchen island full of women all poking at each other so loudly that no one can do their book reports upstairs.  What does it all add up to…?

You got it.  Happy Birthday Kelly.

Dance Moms even baked quite a cake for the event…and lucky for all of us, Leslie came back to eat most of it.

But no food or party favors until the Pyramid of Shame is revealed.  I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you every time.  First the demoralizing battering of young girls’ self esteems, and then we can get to the good stuff.

Last week’s Nexstar Competition brought in some pretty nifty trophies, so Abby Lee Miller actually started out the Pyramid in a pretty good mood…as far as Abby good moods go.  Since there is no such thing as good enough in the Abby World, there were still plenty of opportunities for her to burst a few childhood bubbles.

Hanging at the low baller portion of the Pyramid, were Paige, Mackenzie and Brooke.  I certainly hope that by now Abby is cutting Paige and Brooke a deal on cheap rent for those bottom parking spaces, because they certainly spend enough time down there.

This time Paige wasn’t there due to that now infamous too old for her head haircut, though apparently I still seem to have some ongoing issues with the sassy ‘do.

I’ll say it again.  For someone so young and cutesie, I have no idea why they continue to insist on Paige curling that thing up like a sorority sister body double.

Every time I see her all wild and untamed, all I can think of is that underage waitress who somehow managed to get hired over summer break with the understanding that she dive head first into the maintenance closet any time a liquor inspector drops by unannounced.  The one who has to split her tips with the owner’s busboy nephew with the bad acne.  You know the one.  Every town has one.

This time Paige was down there because Mom Kelly had shoved her daughter out on stage with choreography that they had recreated on their own, downstairs in their family room surrounded by all those HomeGoods chotchkies.  In hindsight, Paige should really have received some kind of Nexstar recognition just for being able to focus with all that craziness on those basement walls.

Find it online.  It’s worth a revisit.

Brooke was finally off probation for going to her Say Goodbye To The 8th Grade Festivus cafetorium celebration.  Finally she’s no longer a moody 8th grader.

Now she’s a moody 9th grader.  The Circle of Life.

MackAttack was on the bottom for some vague nonsense, which basically meant that Abby needed room on the top shelves for the other girls.  Plus Mack is so tiny that Abby figured she wouldn’t even notice what was going on above her anyway.

The Pyramid mezzanine was populated with Sasha Nia and Maddie.

I swear Miss Thang Nia gets more BET head snap-ish every time I see her.  Love that kid.  She is definitely coming into her own, and those other bitches better be keeping their eyes on the rear view mirror, because Nia is about to pass them on the wrong side of the road with no blinkers.

Maddie had spent most of the week polishing all the trophies that she won the week before, so second row as good enough for now.  Girl can only win so much before she has to recharge her lithiums.

Top spot was reserved for Chloe and her ever lengthening legs and button eyes.

She always makes me smile.  Her Angry Bird dance won best costume or something last time and she was liking this week’s view from the Pyramid Penthouse.

For those of you familiar with the other Angry Birds, I will admit to initially being a little let down last time when nobody shot Chloe across the stage with a giant slingshot, but then I remembered that the other Angry Birds is a video game.  With cartoon birds.  Not actual human beings.  So that’s probably why.

But maybe next time…

This week the gang was headed to Starbound National Talent Competition in Atlanta, for a chance at redemption.  Last time the ALDC worked the Starbound stage, they lost to the dreaded Candy Apples by 1/10th of a point, and that went over exactly how you would expect it to go over.

Through a few fuzzy flashbacks we got to relive not only Cathy and her League of Evil Cheer Mom Wannabes marching off in flippant victory, but also Abby’s potentially career ending meltdown, the collapse of her Dance World street cred and what I believe was the onset of Global Warming.

Yeah.  It was a lot of drama.

So needless to say, Abby planned to storm the south like Ulysses S. Grant.  If he had actually stormed the south doing jazz hands.

Chloe got a solo.  Maddie got a solo.  (Try to look surprised.)

Paige, Nia and Mackenzie got lumped into a trio.  That one could either turn out really well, or end up looking like three kids erratically chasing marbles on a tilted playground.

The group number was a darker ditty about kids growing up, which required height, maturity and all your teeth…so MackAttack was going to have to sit this one out.  And by removing her, that left a gaping hole in the ensemble that Abby needed to fill.  But who could ever fill such a big…tall…open hole?

You know how in the scary movies when people are lost in the jungle and all they see are rustling bushes and swaying trees as something big and terrifying comes closer and closer before eating them alive?  When they hear cracking branches and ominous music and catch glimpses of staggeringly tall shadows before the scary monster bursts through the underbrush and rips their faces off?

Well imagine exactly that, except it was just Payton ducking in under the door frame.

Yeah.  That Payton.  She’s baaaaack.

And that meant her crazy Walmart Mom Leslie must be in the building as well.

Before the Moms had a complete meltdown over the Leslie train wreck pulling into the station, Abby distracted them with a little network cross promotion.

The girls had conveniently been asked to send in tapes for a bit part on Lifetime’s own Drop Dead Diva, which guaranteed not only some awkward audition moments but also about 45 commercials for the show before we even made it to Starbound.

Kelly got all excited about the potential for the girls to be on an actual television show, which made me question whether she realized that she is actually already on a television show.  She sees the camera, right?

Beer Goggles are blurry…but come on now, honey.

And then Leslie burst onto the scene, in all her bus driver glory.

You tell me she doesn’t remind you of that menthol smoking public transit lady who yells every time you swipe your bus pass upside down and block everyone else trying to get through the door.  The one who shuts those same doors right in your face after you just ran in the rain with four bags of groceries even though the bus can’t go anywhere until the light changes.

Bitch.

The Moms are not big Leslie fans and wasted no time getting all up in her grill about why Payton keeps showing up and hogging all the good stuff when she doesn’t deserve it.  As they all sat up in the Mom Perch and tossed attitude, it was the same conversation they have every time Leslie blows into town.

The only question I really had was who are they always texting on their iPhones?

I mean, they are always on those things.  Who are they trying to contact?  Everyone they know is up in the Mom Perch with them, right?  It’s been driving me crazy for two seasons.  Somebody needs to hit me up on my Sidekick and end this mystery before my head explodes.

I know they weren’t texting Cathy, because when we zipped up to Cow Country to check in on the Candy Apples, they were all busy planning out their own Drop Dead Diva auditions.  Hmmph…never saw that one coming.  There definitely wasn’t enough of those crazy Candy Apples this week, but we did get to spend some quality time on the farm.

The highlight was definitely the opportunity to sit in on their Ohio camera tapings.  I could literally spend all day watching glassy eyed Vivi-Anne‘s audition.  Why her Mom continues to lead her on with this fantasy of ever being able to dance is beyond me.  But thank goodness she does, because there’s Gold in them thar Ohio hills.  Comedy Gold.

As a result of her audition, we now know that not only is our nasally challenged girl incapable of participating in actual choreography…but she is also incapable of saying the word choreography.  It was a classic TV moment which needs to go into a time capsule immediately.  Honestly, I don’t even think Cathy put a tape in the camera.

Back in PA, Abby also ran her own dancers through the camera tapings.  Nowhere near as captivating as Vivi-Anne.  Nothing to see here, people.  Keep moving.

In a shocking example of what can happen when a Mom puts her child’s education before dance, Christi allowed Chloe to jet off on an overnight school camping trip and miss a rehearsal.  Shocking to Abby, anyway.  Pretty normal to the rest of the world, or at least to parents who want their kids to graduate and not end up explaining the difference between Regular and Unleaded to foreigners.

Somehow Leslie managed to turn a discussion on the merits of public education into yet another solo for her amazonian daughter.  She does have a gift for knocking down all the other pins with her big bowling ball kid.

Then it was time for cake.

Kelly had not only planned her own birthday party, but hosted it.  She even invited Leslie, because every birthday party needs a clown.

By the time Leslie showed up…late…the booze and the bad attitudes were flowing.  It was full on Real Housewives of Pittsburgh.  If Andy Cohen wasn’t so busy pimping out his new book right now, you know he would have been sitting right in the middle of those hens on his big Reunion chair flipping through flashcards and shvitzing.

And how about that mouthful of cake Leslie bulldozed into her pie hole?  Did you see that?  You couldn’t miss it, because it was dangling off her fork for ten minutes while she was screaming her explanation on how and why she talks so loudly.  It was like on the local news when they show a downtown sinkhole devouring a parked Volkswagon.

Girl’s definitely got an appetite.

Between mouthfuls of cake and pepperoni, Leslie managed to call Christi a drunk, scream some more and throw a glass across the kitchen before being asked to hit the road.  I’m pretty sure she also shoved some of that tasty cake in her purse on the way out the door, now that you mention it.

Haters gonna hate.

By the time everyone made it to the actual competition, they were all pretty tanked up on Betty Crocker and drama.  Leslie showed up and did some more yelling, sprinkled here and there with some crying.

The solos went well.  Maddie was Maddie.  Payton looked like a gigantic Vegas cigarette girl that fell off a billboard at the Palms.  In her defense…even if she really isn’t as tall as she seems, when you dance after a girl who is under three feet tall you’re gonna end up looking like Herman Munster.  And boys hate that, so you better figure out something before the Prom or you’re gonna end up home alone eating cake out of your Mom’s purse on a Friday night.

Chloe proved that she could eat S’Mores around a campfire and still remember how to dance the next day.  So take that, Abby.

The trio on the other hand was a complete marble chase.  I love those three crazy kids, but I’m not so sure they all rehearsed to the same music.  Unlike Chloe, Abby wasn’t a happy camper when that one hit the stage.

Then they won some stuff.  Google it if you really can’t stand not knowing all the details.

Or text Melissa and Christi, because they are always writing stuff down in those race track books at every competition.

The dude handing out trophies was wearing a pretty sweet Maroon 5 Adam Levine suit, and I like that skinny style, so I wasn’t really paying as much attention as I should have been during the awards.  My bad.

The whole thing finished off with another round of Leslie vs. The World.

Yelling.  Crying.  Screaming.

And then home to lick her wounds….

…and the frosting off her fingers.