DanThat'sCool!

 

 

You’re all just bitter, toxic a** woman that don’t even deserve to see my backside tattoo, mmmkay?

 

 

 

 

Oh. My. Gawd. I can’t even stop looking at the front ones and now there’s a back one? I love dat bitch.

 

 

 

 

Not now, girl. Bite your tongue. I swear, you mention that doctorate in front of her again and I will slap you myself on national television.

 

 

 

And for the last time…it’s not Barbie. It’s Skipper, Barbie’s prettier and much younger sister.

 

 

 

 

 

I think the biggest piece of jerky I ever brought home was about this long.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh. Hell. Yeah. I gotta get my shizzle on up to Canton.

 

 

 

Move over NeNe Leakes and let Kaya show you how it’s done.

It was Round Two for the Dance Moms Reunion Show this week, and like any good Real Housewives knock-off, everybody knows the good stuff always comes in the second half.

My new favorite Andy Cohen stand-in, Jeff Collins, was still front and center clutching his bootleg Bravo TV flashcards, completely surrounded by the full Mom Platoon.

Seated together in what was either somebody’s living room or the front of a suburban Home Goods store (…Seriously.  Pause your DVR and count all the accessories…) everyone was getting used to the format and getting ready to unleash some serious Reunion Part Two ‘tude.

You knew it was going to get good because they were already playing Survivor music before the introductions.  Survivor music always means something is about to go down.

Or that somebody is just about to eat something gross.

And since I’m pretty sure no one on Lifetime would eat bug larvae, it was a safe bet that Kaya was probably out back scratching on the inside of a locked Green Room door.

Jeff started right in on Chaos Cathy Nesbitt and the infamous Mom Dance.  Just as terrifying and definitely more ill-fitting than Mom Jeans, the Mom Dance will forever go down in Reality TV history.

For whatever reason, somebody had thought it would be a good idea to shove Melissa, Kelly and Christi out on stage as backup dancers for Cathy’s impromptu, spotlight hogging, loosely choreographed dancing seizure, but neglected to actually teach them how to dance prior to the curtain being raised.  The result was three Moms standing around like they were waiting for their carpool while Cathy showed everyone in the audience what Peter Pan might look like on Broadway if a tech guy forgot to strap on the flying harness before showtime.  It was Spaztastic.

To paraphrase the Dark Lord…This is your Destiny, young Vivi-Anne.

It was like one of those “25 Years of Dance” things on youtube, but with the kind of sparkly, oddly age inappropriate Mom outfits that you always see drunk women wearing in Ramada lounges.

Cathy supported her decision to steamroll over the other Moms due to their lack of rhythm and inner ear balance, while Abby chastised her for not making it a full blown Carol Burnett sketch.

When Abby actually went so far as to suggest that Cathy should have turned them all into floor mopping maids, Holly had the first of her many WhatchooTalkinBoutWillis faces.  Dr. Holly don’t do Maids, thank you.

Holly’s seemingly endless facial expressions were my drinking game of choice during this episode.  Love her.

After visually confirming that he was a safe distance from Cathy in case she rabidly lunged for a neck vein, Jeff actually had the kahunas to ask her if she felt that Abby and the ALDC were better than the Candy Apples dancers.  Oh oh, SpaghettiOs.

I’ve got to assume that there were either people stationed off-camera with stun guns or the dude’s got some major kahunas, because I think I would have skipped that card and moved on to the next question.

But he went there, causing Cathy to squirm around for a few seconds as though she was sitting on some of that world famous Jerky King product, before finally admitting that Abby’s girls had Star Quality.  If Abby had not been weighed down by 75 pounds of silver costume jewelry and 40+ years of bad life choices, you know she would have totally done the Pee Wee Dance right there on that Home Goods table.

Quickly wanting to shift the focus back to how great everything is in Candy Apples Land, Cathy lit into Jill for being a studio hopper and an all around crazy bitch.

After pointing out Jill’s penchant for disguising blatant bribery with Hallmark gift tags and big colorful bows, Cathy even managed to sneak in a slam at Jill’s new, and still not quite under control Barbie coiffure, which kind of offended Kelly, because she likes being the one with crazy hair.

Moving on, Jeff wanted to get to the root of the whole Abby vs. Kelly conflict.  Why do they fight so much?  Given their history (…Kelly started with Abby at 2 1/2 years old…) wassup wid all dis tension?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Ok.  Let’s just break this thing down.

You know how when you try to picture someone when they were much younger, like all the way back in junior high school or earlier, but all you have to really reference them is nowadays?  So you just picture them as they are now, but wearing Brady Bunch clothes instead?

Yeah.  I did that.  And it wasn’t pretty.

When Kelly claimed that back in ancient history Abby had liked a boy who liked Kelly instead…well…whoa.  Flashback music, please.

I pictured the cafetorium dances, the fights by the lockers and young Kelly holding hands with some football jock every time they passed a giant Baby Abby in the hallway before Study Hall.

Baby Abby.  Baby Huey.  Whatevs.  Just stick a headband on it and you know what I’m talking about.  I totally made up the last 40 years of Dance Moms history and it was brilliant.  Someday I may even share it with all of you.

Abby denied the love triangle and blamed it all on Kelly’s parents not pushing her to be anything more than mediocre, which appeared to have been passed down through the genetic DNA chain into Kelly’s bloodstream, resulting in her own children just coasting through life.

Then it was 5 minutes of seeing how many ways they could both use the words “Encouragement” and “Click” in a sentence before Jeff lost interest.

Brooke may or may not want to dance anymore.  Paige is ok with being just ok.  Or is she?  Or does she?  And what’s with Paige’s hair?  Don’t make me keep asking.  And why does Kelly feel that being just ok is ok enough?

Jeff didn’t really solve anything, but it gave Abby and Kelly plenty of time to scream and bitch and talk over each other while Holly made some delightful faces.  (Watch out Christi…The Doctor is moving in on your turf.)

Abby made sure to sneak in a few drinking in the parking lot jabs at Kelly’s expense, while Kelly compared Abby’s world to the Mob where you can’t ever seem to get out and stay out.

And then in this Ring, we have Melissa vs. Christi.

Turned out that they also have a history.  But the Melissa/Christi backstory is apparently sealed in a government file somewhere with strict stipulations that they never discuss it in public.

Gah.  That drives me boinkers.

How much did you hate that kid in school who said he had a secret, but couldn’t tell you.

Seriously.  Then why freakin’ bring it up?  Just to make me insane?

They both confirmed that their animosity stemmed from years and years ago, and that they had both “done things” to each other.  What does that even mean?

I swear Mr. Collins, if there is not a Dance Moms prequel by next fall I’m sending Kaya after your scent.  Look at how successful the Wolverine X-Men movie was in theaters.

And speaking of Kaya picking up your scent…

Black Patsy was in the hizzle.

The poor man’s NeNe stormed the set decked out in Sassy Mall animal print, complete with that black rose from Claire’s still in her hair and a coordinating F*** you up attitude.

I need to rewind to verify, but I’m pretty certain Kaya started in on everyone before her junk even hit the guest chair.

With a slowly sinking Cathy looking like a hostage trapped between Holly and Kaya, the whole Women of Color thing started up again and it was Classic Housewives.  It was like I sat on my remote and it just kept flipping from Bravo to VH1 to Animal Planet over and over and over again until I figured out what was happening.

Kaya called out everyone as Haters.  She had heard all the whispers.  The whole baby at 16 gossip.  The lesbian gossip.  You’re a bitch.  And you’re a bitch.  You’re all bitches!

Bitter, toxic a** bitches!

It was Oprah from the ‘hood.

And where exactly IS this ‘hood that everyone keeps screaming about?  Everyone is always swearing they’re from the ‘hood, or taking you to the ‘hood to mess you up, or going to the ‘hood and never being heard from again.  Where is it?  I put it in my GPS and it didn’t take me anywhere.  This might require some more research.

Roadtrip anyone?  I’ll buy the snacks.

With a little trickle of sweat running down the back of his sportcoat, Jeff explained that he would never dream of calling Kaya “Black Patsy” even though she seemed to be down wid it.

“Crazy A** Lady with the Boob Tattoo” maybe, but never ”Black Patsy”.  That ain’t right.

Kaya proudly stated she would throw down anywhere, anytime if the situation required some fist to face action, which caused Jeff to scoot his chair back a little bit and Abby to spin her Ninja Star ring around a few times.  Christi was singled out amongst all the Moms as being the most fake by Kaya, and then their whole You’re a Bitch OhHellNo You’re a Bitch confrontation was replayed about 10 times.

Or maybe they were all different scenes.  It was hard to tell.  Kaya was poppin’ off in all of them and I didn’t have a pen to keep track.  Girlfriend will cut you.  That much I figured out on my own.

She tried again to rally Holly to the Cause, which forced Holly to once again explain the difference between a Get Out Of Jail card and a Pass and…well…you knew where this one was going.  Kaya felt betrayed by her Sister Holly and the whole Women of Color thing.  Again.

Jill jumped onto the pig pile and didn’t quite know how to respond when Kaya complimented her on having a nice bedonkadonk.  For a white girl, anyway.

It got weird.

When Jill claimed that they were not even sure if lesbianism was legit (…in Kaya’s case, not as a Lifestyle.  Duh.  No hate mail, please.  Read before you React…) Kaya pointed out that her lover’s name or face or something was tattooed back there somewhere if anyone was interested in solving the mystery.

Thanks, but I’ll take one of Holly’s passes right about now.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love me some Kaya.  Crazier the better.  But seeing her get all head bobbly in a room full of Dance Moms almost felt like she had walked into the wrong studio.  Where my girls at?

Before Kaya headed off stage to to decompress and slap a few camera guys, Jeff allowed her to go around the room one by one, picking off Moms like she was skeet shooting at a street fair.

She thought Cathy was a blast, and that Kelly was White Patsy.  Yeah.  She said that.

Between Kaya telling Holly to embrace her ethnicity and getting all up in Christi’s face again, I think Jeff may have regretted giving her that one last opportunity to let loose.  It was definitely good for ratings, but not so much for anyone who had to walk alone through the parking lot after taping was over.

Don’t axe me why he did that.  Really.  Don’t axe.

(And don’t get me started on that linguistic pet peeve.  Trust me.  You do NOT want my opinion on that one.)

We finished off with some low key, warm & fuzzy family time.

All the kids joined the Moms in a tight squeeze couch moment to relive the last two seasons and let us in on what their goals were for the future.  Even googly Vivi-Anne was there, though she basically just sat around wondering why no one had picked her up and carried her off set yet.

I swear that kid must sleep in sparkly eye liner.

All the girls got giggly stage fright when Fake Andy spun the cameras and the questions in their direction.  It was cute, and a reminder that they really are just kids who like to dance.

Maddie got all red faced when boys were brought up, and MackAttack almost swallowed her gum she was so shy.

Diva Nia had some monster Lion King hair going on that almost covered up Holly’s face, and I swear Chloe grew another inch during the last scene.  Check it out in slow mo.

Brooke and Paige are still in limbo for next year (…as if…) until Kelly decides their fate.

Kendall had a really smart answer to Jeff’s question regarding who she would love to dance with…dead or alive.  Michael Jackson.  Good call.  Mom was impressed.

Vivi-Anne…well…just Vivi-Anne.  It is what it is.

And then it was over.

No more Dance Moms for now.  And Dance Moms: Miami isn’t coming back.

I’m not sure I’m going to make it until the Pageant Moms return, because it hasn’t even been 12 hours and I’m already having Crazy Mom withdrawal.

I need my cray cray.

Don’t axe me why.  I just do.

 

 

This is Abby, your Captain speaking. Please turn off your cell phones because this s*** is about to get real.

 

 

 

 

I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been to Walmart today.

 

 

 

 

I can count on one finger how many times I’m gonna do my hair like this again. WTF?

 

 

 

 

Do I remember the Class of 1985? Girl…Seriously? I don’t even remember what shoes I put on this morning.

 

 

 

 

Oh. Hell. No. The bus driver told me this was Bravo TV. I can already tell these bitches are Cray Cray.

 

 

 

Overture, Curtain, Lights.

This is it…the Night of Nights.

…On with the Show, this is It!

Before we proceed with this week’s Dance Moms hilarity, you need to Google youtube and the musical opening number for the classic Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny Show.

Then you need to find someone who knows Photoshop and have them cut & paste the faces of Abby Lee Miller, Holly, Kelly, Christi, Melissa, Jill, Cathy and bat s*** crazy Leslie over the bodies of all the cartoon characters.

And then you need to watch it again until milk shoots out your nose, because that pretty much sums out how it all went down this week during the 2012 ALDC Concert.

Which was really a recital.  But I didn’t ask why Abby kept calling it a concert.  Maybe because it had music.  I dunno.  By now, we all know I don’t make the rules.

But, whatever.  It was the annual ALDC tribute to…well…ALDC, and a chance for anyone in Pittsburgh without basic cable to buy a Xeroxed paper ticket and watch every dance number that the rest of us had already seen on Lifetime.

As Abby explained it before the Pyramid of Shame was revealed, every dance aficionado in Pittsburgh would be in attendance, which would explain the four folding chairs set up around a card table at the front of the stage.  Count ‘em.  Every one.

Not that I would recognize an aficionado if I stepped on one, but the way she went on and on about it before rehearsals began I expected at least two of the So You Think You Can Dance judges to show up.  But nada, unless the aficionados were incognito or something.

Regardless, even the Concert of all Recitals had to wait until the Pyramid was unveiled.

Rules are rules, people, whether I make them or not.

Still hanging tight at the bottom were Paige and that big, clunky boot.  Turns out that breaking your foot when you’re on a show about dancing doesn’t really open up much opportunity for advancement.  Climbing stairs and pyramids are just way too much work nowadays, so Paige was content to lean on her pirate leg and let the other girls fight it out for top honors.

Fallen Angel Maddie was also on the bottom row because last week she had refused to learn a new number in under 42 minutes and then retain it long enough to go head to head with those scruffy boys from Candy Apples.

She told Abby NO.  And people don’t tell Abby NO.  Nobody tells Abby NO.

Proof of that fact can be found not only in the crumbled dust of broken young dancer souls that Abby keeps in a mantel urn, but also in the increasing number of Pennsylvania All-U-Can-Eat Country Buffets now filing for bankruptcy.

Whaddayamean I can’t have any more ribs?

Third spot in the basement went to Chloe, because she had ruined any chance at a Starbound clean sweep when she lost by 1/10th of a point.  Which had to suck.  I would rather lose by a bazillion points and then fall off the stage head first than lose by 1/10th.

I hugged my television.  Poor peanut.

Second row went to Brooke and Mackenzie.

Brooke took some heat for last week’s Children of the Corn dance when she was supposed to tie a bonnet on Maddie’s head at a Star Trek warp speed of mach 8, and she nervously fumbled the ball a little.

Cut her some slack, lady.  I’m pretty sure that Amish people are in no hurry when it comes to putting their bonnets on.  It’s not like they’ve got anywhere to go…the cabinet shop will still be there no matter how long it takes to strap on their head gear.

But you know Abby.

MacAttack beat 2 boys and her front teeth were coming in nicely, so it was all good.

Top spot for the second week went to Miss Sasha Nia, cuz that’s how we roll, bitches.

But before Nia could even bust out a celebratory Death Drop, Real Housewife of Pittsburgh Jill got all up in Abby’s grill about Kendall once again not being scotch taped to the mirror.

Kendall deserved it.  Kendall deserved this.  Kendall deserved that.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a big supporter of parents who cowboy up for their kids.  But Jill is the kind of Stage Mom who would show up unannounced at the U.N. and shut down half of New York City under a suspected terrorist threat as she melts down over Kendall not being able to perform with those multi-national kids who are always in the Radio City Christmas Show.

Somebody needs to spend a little more time figuring out her new hairdo and a little less time making her daughter cry on national TV.  Just saying.

The new number for the recital was a hip hop bootay poppin’ thang.  Please pause here and Google a group photo of these little ALDC dancer girls.  I’ll wait.

Got it?  Yeah.  I can pretty much guarantee you that this is the only time you will ever see the words Gangsta and Chloe in the same sentence.  If you really need to go, you basically already figured out how that one was gonna work out.  Thanks for stopping by.

Paige had previously been told by her doctor to not dance for 4 weeks, but since she seemed to be able to stay upright on her own, Abby wanted her to participate in the hip hop routine.

Never having broken my toe in a backward handspring on cement flooring, I can’t really verify any assumptions, but I’m thinking that on a tiny girl like Paige, that gigantic boot probably works much like one of those sand-filled deck umbrella stands.  Girl ain’t toppling over in a wind storm if you know what I mean, but thinking that she could pop and lock and grind and stomp on stage may have been a little premature.

The next day, as Jill arrived at the studio, she was intercepted by NutWad Ninja Leslie who literally came out of nowhere and pounced on Jill with a bucket load of crazy.

Seriously.  Where did Leslie come from?  I swear she dropped out of the trees like that monkey did in James Franco‘s Planet of the Apes movie (…which was sooo not how the Apes really came to rule Earth, thank you…) because as soon as Jill hauled her junk out of the car, Leslie was right there in front of her babbling gossip.

It’s no wonder Leslie makes such a great Walmart greeter, because you can’t walk by her without getting an ear full.  She went on and on about loyalty and backstabbing and warnings and something about Melissa not having enough Milky Way bars for Halloween and having to take Leslie with her to CVS and then driving past CVS and taking Leslie to meet her Secret Lover and his enormous big package…of bank checks.

And Leslie talked just like that, but with fewer punctuation marks.  I swear.

Finally Jill bolted inside and Leslie scurried back up the tree with her Walmart bananas.

Only 65 cents a pound.  In a smiley face bag.

Quick change of scenery to Cow Country and the Evil Dance Lair, better known to the locals as Candy Apple’s Dance Center, where we found Chaos Cathy mulling over an envelope of ALDC tickets that had mysteriously been delivered to her studio.  Should she attend? Mmmuuuahahahaha.

A bigger mystery should have been why Candy Apple’s felt they needed that security camera set up that was above Cathy’s messy desk.  Did you catch that?

It was one of those split screen television monitors you see at convenience stores and nuclear plants.  Or like they hang at Burger King over the fries to track how long it takes them to get one lousy freakin’ Single Stack in the bag.

Is there a whole black market out there I’m not aware of that specializes in stolen tap shoes and jazz canes?  I’m checking ebay tomorrow.

If I don’t find anything, I’m going to assume it’s to protect all that valuable beef jerky next door.  Or maybe it’s just Cathy monitoring Canton’s Jerky King.

Because you know…nobody jerks it like the King.  I saw it on TV.  Cathy might want to keep an eye on that one.  Just a suggestion.

Since the teeny bop hip hop number was not going so well, Abby whistled for Amazonian Payton to join the group and show the little white girls how a big, tall white girl gets it done.  Taking a cue from her Mom, Payton also apparently dropped right out of a nearby tree because she was there before Abby even finished calling her name, and immediately started doing the Sprinkler, Windshield Wiper and what I assumed was her awkward version of the Dougie.

Hollah Back, Girl.   And duck when you go through the door.  Word to yo’ Crazy Mother.

Next it was time for the Tech Rehearsals.  Abby was up in the light booth like some exhausted air traffic controller, trying to keep her headset from falling off into her pudding while she screamed at everyone within her orbit.

Since Leslie and Kelly cannot breath the same oxygen without breaking out into an argument, they were chewing at each other’s face the entire time they were down in front of the stage.

Screaming.  Yelling.  Bleeping.  The usual.

When Leslie made the sweaty hike all the way up the auditorium into the booth to insist Abby change the dance lineup to give Payton more time to change costumes, the coffee really started to percolate.  After blasting Leslie for her smart a** mouth, Abby made a new Clubhouse Rule:  NO parents allowed!

She even had one of the hired help boys scribble out a treehouse sign on what I assumed was unused homework binder paper which the girls should have been using for their book reports.  But you can’t chest pump and worry about Catcher in the Rye at the same time, so the dude swiped a sheet and taped it up on the door like you would if you wanted to keep Girl Cooties away from your pillow fort.

Klassy.  With a K.

After way too much jammin’ and gettin’ down on it, Paige’s one remaining good foot finally realized it couldn’t do all the heavy lifting alone, which caused her to overdo it on the bad one.  It didn’t take a medical degree to figure out she needed to take a chill pill.

It also didn’t take a psych degree to know that Leslie would be all over that one, since her motto has always been “Suck It Up.”

Screaming.  Yelling.  Bleeping.  The usual.  Again.

This time, though, Kelly snatched up her two kids and headed out of Dodge, vowing to never come back.  With Brooke looking out the window like those kidnap victims do when they try to blink SOS in code to a gas station attendant, Mom layed a patch and was gone.

Then in a strange spliced in snippet, all the Moms suddenly hit the Club to unwind after their hard week.  And apparently, when Dance Moms need to unwind, they hit the Gay Club because I only saw two girls in the whole joint, and I think one of them works at Jiffy Lube.  All the other club kids were boys trying to kiss Christi.

Jill even did a body shot off the 12 pack of that guy on the Abercrombie shopping bag, which was wrong on so many levels.

After witnessing…and processing…all of that, my vision returned and the Show of all Shows actually kind of paled in comparison.

Kelly showed up with the kids.  No big surprise.

The Candy Apple’s Brigade showed up, looking like a bad catalog photo from some local store specializing in Mother of the Bride dresses.  What the F*** were they all wearing?  Get out of Ohio much, girls?

Jill was spread out all over her chair in a really…really…yellow dress, still apparently feeling the residual after effects of gnawing on too much Abercrombie ab.  She did manage to find the strength to present Abby with two dozen kiss up roses, to go along with the previously sucked up lobby bench and cologne gift sets.  Jill does like to get her bribe on whenever possible.

After the curtain call where Maddie and Nia were presented with dance scholarships and Brooke and Mackenzie wandered around in Toddlers & Tiaras, everyone headed outside for a few cocktails and photo ops.

Lucky for us, Andy Cohen just happened to be driving through town and shoved a potential new Dance Mom and her kid out the passenger side of his Reality TV Escalade and then squealed off into the night before they even hit the sidewalk.

Kaya and Nicaya have arrived.

Girrrl, pleez.  Not only the best new Girl Group name ever, but more than likely the best new OhNoSheDin’t Mom & Daughter act to hit Lifetime in a Longtime.

MmmHmm.  I feel some sassy coming on.

Oh, snap.

And another snap.

 

 

Dances are like donuts. Some are good. Some are bad. Some I’ve almost choked on.

 

 

 

 

 

Cougar Rule #1: Mama should never shake what her Mama gave her. Ever.

 

 

 

 

 

Drop it like it’s Hot. Because I’m Nia, and that’s how we do. Mmmkay?

 

 

 

 

 

Oh. Hell. No. Bitch stole my moves? And my wig?

 

 

 

 

 

Seriously. Shouldn’t there be a red light on the camera or something? Where is everybody?

 

 

 

Two things you can always count on.

Abby Lee Miller loves her Bare Minerals pearlized eye shadows…and Countdown Lists.

Seems like we just had an OMG Moment or two a few weeks ago, and now Ms. Miller was already back to check off her grocery list of dances ranging from stellar to sloppy.

Disguised as a rundown of Abby’s least to most favorite dance numbers over the past season or two, it was actually just a perfect opportunity to kick back in that crazy Liberace closet and talk smack about all the Moms while they were out of the room.

And she brought her notes.

Now if only she could find the camera.

Let’s just get this one out in the open right now, and then we can get to the good stuff.

I’m not trying to be any meaner than normal, but there are two things that…umm…substantially big boned people should know by the time they reach 3rd grade.

No horizontal stripes.  And no profile shots on camera.  Ever.  You should have figured it out on class picture day, honey.  It is what it is.

Those artsy side angle shots might work for MasterCard commercials or if you’re half in the bag on The Jersey Shore, but otherwise, please look at me when you’re talking.

Girlfriend might as well have been texting a take out order on her Sidekick it was so distracting.  I kept snapping my fingers to get her attention.

Ok.  Got that off my chest.  Here we go…

10.  Pin Up Girls Gone Blind.

I don’t really think this one was the worst dance ever in the history of the ALDC, but Abby hated it…and she’s in charge.

Chloe, Maddie and Paige were happily jumping all over the stage wearing headbands large enough to soak up flood waters when Chloe started to go blind.

Now before you panic and start Googling…it wasn’t the medical seizure kind of blindness.  It would definitely make for a more exciting paragraph, but I wouldn’t wish that on any little dancer.

According to Abby, Mom Christi had been so busy sucking down brewskis at the bar across the street that she had neglected to sew the headband into Chloe’s skull.

Therefore, through the Laws of Physics, it started to slip down over her line of vision until she looked like that statue they always show on Law & Order.

We all know what a cutie patootie Chloe is, but it’s been well documented that her little eyeballs are kinda, sorta close together.  Having a gigantic piece of spandex slide down over your sockets is probably not something that you want to happen in the middle of a crosswalk, much less during a dance competition.

Instead of yanking it down around her neck, Chloe just kept on dancing and somehow made it through the number without falling off the stage.  I’m going to assume that somehow she suddenly acquired the same heightened sight impaired radar that Daredevil had in the movies, because he never bumped into anything either.

9.  Vivi-Anne Catches A Buzz.

This one just made you realize how much you miss the Candy Apples Dancers.

Cathy’s Spaztastic little girl Vivi-Anne was decked out in Vick’s VapoRub and that infamous bumble bee costume, back before everyone evacuated to Ohio to begin plotting revenge with the League of Evil Soccer Moms Gone Bad.

I think it was pretty clear to all of us early on, that Vivi-Anne will probably never be allowed to operate heavy machinery of any kind due to whatever condition it is that makes her so stuffed up.

I know it can’t just be me.   Between the age-inappropriate (…not to mention early in the morning inappropriateness of it all, thank you…) glitter eye shadow and Where Am I attitude, that poor kid really needs to just wait until Cathy takes some turkey jerky and a People magazine into the tub one night and then run like the wind in the opposite direction until she can’t see street lights in the rear view.

For the Dance of the Bee, Cathy had secretly taught Vivi-Anne a completely different number than Abby had originally choreographed (…more than likely done subliminally while the poor kid was blacked out from cough medicine…) and then sent her out on stage.  Needless to say, by the time Vivi-Anne combined the two routines into one big hot bee mess, it didn’t go well.

Afterwards, as Abby began pounding down on Cathy, her nerves got the best of her and Cathy appeared to break into a little vaudeville routine which I swear was set to the theme song from The Jeffersons.  For realz.  She was all like “Can we just move on…move on?  Moving on up…moving on up…” with Soul Train locomotive arms.

It was sort of like that singing frog on Bugs Bunny, too.  Hello, my baby.

8. Juvenile Detention And Jazz Hands.

In a tribute to Bob Fosse, the girls all got their Chicago on, in a jazzy jailbird routine.

Pushing around the rolling barricades that you always see at the top of a broken mall escalator (…though these had been turned into makeshift jail bars through the magic of elastic strapping…) the girls just couldn’t quite get it together.

Between one jailbird getting tangled in the bungee bars and then another jailbird kicking her jail wall halfway across the stage by mistake, Abby was not a happy warden.

I didn’t think the dance was bad enough to get inked with a permanent #8, but then again I’ve never been to a fabulously gay Bob Fosse jailhouse so I don’t really have a benchmark upon which to judge this dance.

But Melissa seemed to really enjoy it, because she was getting all down with the music like a BET video vixen.  Holly on the other hand, looked like she was in the process of passing a stone.  I think the nerves got the best of her on this one, combined with the free sour balls in that bowl at the check-in desk.

BONUS MONTAGE: I should be dancing, right?

Abby then tossed in a quick uncomfortably awkward retrospective showing Paige, Chloe, Maddie and Nia all forgetting their routines on stage.  Before I even had time to feel bad and give them all a hug, Abby told the girls to use their brains and freakin’ do something when you draw a blank on stage.

Geezis.  Don’t just stand there and cry.  Dance!

And whatever you do…do NOT run off the stage and cry like a baby.  Everyone knows the Pee Wee Dance, right?

Tequila, bitch.

7.  An apple a day guarantees Cirque du Soleil.

Gumby flexible Brooke owned the stage on this one as she contorted herself every which way but loose, all while holding a sequined apple from the Garden of Eden.

Even Abby didn’t have anything bad to say about the number.  She believes that Brooke is strong and flexible enough to someday ride a foam core unicycle suspended over Celine Dion’s head in Vegas.

Of course, she couldn’t let the number go without a few zings.  The only thing holding Brooke back right now are hormones and Mom Kelly.

And not to be outdone by a lousy Cirque clown,  Abby busted out her own mime drinking straight vodka out of a bottle routine every time she mentioned Kelly for the rest of the episode.

6. Halleloo to you.

Drag queen Shangela and Nia’s Death Drop.  Need I say more?

That bitch is F-I-E-R-C-E.  And not just the boy bitch.  Hell.  No.

Love me some Nia.

She was born to do jazz funk, even though the dance did flash back to an earlier time when Abby still insisted that afro wig-wearing Nia would never work in this town again unless she legally changed her name to Great Googlie Ooglie.

That sentence is so wrong in so many ways.

BONUS MESS: The Mom Dance. Don’t break a hip.

Cathy hogging the stage during the infamous Mom Dance.  A surprise attack.  And yet, no surprise.

Long before the two skinny boys in wife beaters sashayed out with a hook to drag Cathy off stage, we could see where Vivi-Anne got her motor skills.

No wonder husband Mike jerks it.

5.  Chloe gets a Star on her report card.

The final five were the best of the best, so Abby didn’t have much snark left in her by the time we got to Chloe.

With her little Wonder Woman halter top and obnoxious Hollywood Dance Competition backdrop, Chloe nailed the Dream On A Star number.

Even Christi had to take a break from her seemingness endless face making artistry to just put on a Proud Mom face and enjoy the moment.

Honestly, I swear that Chloe’s legs grew longer somewhere in the middle of that dance.

That kid was born for this.

4.  Grandma would be Proud, Maddie.

Maddie’s tribute to her late Grandmother wasn’t even hindered by the video game backdrop that Starpower always likes to plaster across every stage they sponsor.

Now I get the whole branding thing, but some of these back walls are so glaring that the girls might as well just dance in front of that moving Coke bottle in Times Square.  I was waiting for laser beams or explosions or something to bust out of the logo while tiny Maddie was flitting around the stage like a little angel.

Dial it down a little.  Can’t they just give out Starpower super soakers or frisbees or something?

The girl did some mad spins at the end.  Crazy mad.  Grandma and Charlie would be proud of that Angel.

BONUS: Paige and Mackenzie get their moments.

We finally got to see Paige just dance.  No distracting group numbers or trios or nothing.

Not even the distraction of that way too old for her head haircut that makes Paige kind of look like that girl we all knew in school who curled and teased herself into a stupor until she looked old enough to sneak into a bar to see her first cover band, and then missed the whole show because she was throwing up in the bathroom after two sips of a White Russian.

You know who I’m talking about.  We all do.

Attention Lifetime Makeup Dept: There’s no doubt that Paige is going to be a looker when she grows up.  Just let her get there on her own time.  Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Mackenzie’s solo was back when she had even fewer teeth, but she boinked around the stage so fast you barely noticed.  She is a human jumping bean.  And so perky you want to just slap the person next to you for no reason.

3.  Once you go Black Swan…

Another Chloe and Maddie production.  Good vs. Evil in the Ballet World.  Nailed it.

2.  Objects in mirror are larger than they appear.

The National Title winning dance!  Hand held mirrors and no f*** ups helped the ALDC team bring home the trophy.  Abby was positively giddy.

BONUS FOSHIZZLE IN THE HIZZLE: Nia werks it, girl.

The full length LaQuifa What? dance.  Afro and all.

Just a little slice of Fierceness that made me want to put on my Chess King satin, lace up my Thom McAn platforms and pick my hair till the cows come home.

Followed up by the gold lamé James Bond Secret Agent dance, complete with matching artillery accessories.  Guns make the outfit.  Duh.

1.  And the winner is…

The Number One best dance, at least as far as Abby was concerned, was the somber ode to missing children.

I know, right?

Bummer.  From its creepy coffee shop open mic nite intro to the children disappearing one by one from the stage, it was a bit of a downer for the audience and the judges.

Abby likes her edgy routines, and you could certainly file this one under that description.

Luckily, to lighten the mood a little, we had Vivi-Anne completely oblivious to her surroundings, swinging back and forth on a swing set like someone had forgotten their sack of potatoes at the playground after abducting the other kids.

Nobody quite knew what to think of the number, but it did what it was supposed to do, and sometimes you just gotta think out of the box if you want to fill that trophy case.

Abby did her drunk mime routine one more time, stuck it to the Moms again and then it was over.

The worst to the best…so far.

But it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.

Or dances.