I will get through SYTYCD tonight if it kills me

Oh yes. It HAS been awhile. But last week, my DVR did not work and I swear I was going to recap the SYTYCD madness, especially when I heard about poor Adechike getting his ass handed to him by that hater Mia Michaels.

So let’s try this again, shall we? I’ll start off by wondering, for the 5500th time, why this show must continue to be two hours. Unless The Goddess Cat Deeley is going to do a dress change for the second hour and I get to see my Sonya Tayeh more than once or twice, this shit is almost UNBEARABLE without hearing the shrill wail of the Hot Tamale Train’s lone conductor.

Alex Wong is gone and this makes me sad. I loved watching him dance. He had surgery. I hope he can dance again. I hope they’ve given him the good pills. And we may be down another one! One of the only two girls left, Ashley, seems to be injured. Oh noes! And Mia Michaels is dressed like Linda Richman going to Sunday brunch at the Forest Hills Jewish Center.

For one dance, they drew “random” all-stars. Somehow this doesn’t seem very random because why the hell isn’t Kent dancing salsa with Pasha. But Billy is dancing with some girl in a macrame slut dress. Jose received the gold star, which means he can dance with Dominic, one of the male characters one can choose when playing Dance Dance Revolution that’s inexplicably come to life from his animated form.

Mark Kanemura & Lauren Froderman
Tahitian
Jungle — Lost Voices

In the show’s first-ever Tahitian dance, Lauren (the girl who owns the macrame slut dress) gets to dance with everyone — and Lady Gaga’s — favorite, Mark Kanemura. Mark is from Hawaii, which is also a Pacific island where people dance in grass appendages, so this really doesn’t seem all that random to me. At first, I am frightened it will be akin to the somewhat culturally-insensitive ice dancing routines from those Olympics that happened a few months back.

They shook their asses, and their hips, and they wore native Tahitian costumes. I guess it was good. It made me want poi. Ok, not really, but I do wonder how long it took to Sharpie-on that mock-tribal tattoo on Mark’s delightful pectoral region. The judges have no clue how to judge it technically and Mia Michael says it was like a duck in heat. She has a duck in heat in her backyard right now. She likes ducks.

Anya Garnis & Adechike Torbert
Salsa
Oyelo Que Te Conviene — Eddie Palmieri

This is a traditional competitive salsa, but with more oomph. I’m pulling for Adechike because he’s got the cute nice guy thing going for him, his name kind of sounds like Ade, and I don’t like Mia Michaels hating on him when he does not deserve it. They really have it in for poor Adechike, as tonight he is forced to wear NEON LEMON LIME TRIM. The routine is one of the toughest Salsa numbers I’ve ever laid eyes on. Adechike was certainly up to the challenge. The choreography was fraking NUTS. Contemporary dancer Adechike was more than up to the task, even if they forced both him and Anya to wear such hideous outfits.

Mia, of course, has difficulty saying she enjoyed herself and thinks it could have been really good if they had a couple more hours of rehearsal. She doesn’t like his hips. Sure there’s gonna be a couple of bumps, but she would have found them if they had danced absolutely flawlessly. Why does she hate Adechike so much? Hip Hop Hooray Jose could have done that routine, been totally out of his element, and she would have heaped endless praise on he and his cornrows.

Courtney Galiano & Jose Ruiz
Broadway
Mister Cellophane (Chicago) – John C. Reilly

Joey Dowling Broadway routines are much easier to take than Tyce DiOrio Broadway routines, if only for the fact I know I won’t be listening to Ding Ding Ding Went The Trolley. This is a fact. Its about a stagehand loving a showgirl from afar and the music is Mister Cellophane, from the film Chicago, performed by John C. Reilly in a scene that literally brought tears to my eyes. John C. Reilly. One of the most talented bastards of our time. I mean, Mister Cellophane AND Dr. Steve Brule?

I digress. Jose’s emotive faces remind me of a Michael Jackson impersonator being told the monkey they stole and named Bubbles was sent back to the Zoo. Dowling truly deserves credit. This routine is one that focuses almost solely on the contestant with the all-star in an actual supporting role. But the entire thing left me a little flat. Perhaps I was expecting more after the high-octane salsa routine as seen before the commercial break? This just was not that good.

Mia has difficulty cutting Jose down because he throws down the sad face. She would not have let that stop her if Adechike was throwing down his sad panda face!

Allison Holker & Robert Roldan
Contemporary — Travis Wall
Fix You — Coldplay

Travis Wall choreographed a contemporary routine about his mother having surgery. This is a slam dunk and I haven’t even seen it. This is like the dancing equivalent of that Sarah McLachlan for the ASPCA commercial (or Mia Michael’s gorgeous routine from the showcase episode at the beginning of the season). They also have the evening’s best outfits thus far, in a Gap and Gap Body kind of way.

I’m still waiting to see astounding contemporary dancing I have never seen before, but hey, the shit was good and a teary Travis Wall and Robert Roldan kind of get to me. And now I have a lump in my throat. Robert is also hot. Allison did the Hallelujah number with Alex Wong, didn’t she? She is THE go-to girl for heartfelt emotional tragic dancing.

You knew Mia was going to lose her shit because of everything she’s gone through with her mother’s recent passing. The lump in my throat is getting bigger and I’m fighting it, but all I have to say is that I REALLY hope Adechike gets a sick mother routine next week. Adam wants Travis Wall to get an Emmy nomination for that. Travis Wall, I’ve only seen him as a choreographer on this show but he is really something special, and I cannot remember a routine of his that did not work.

Anya Garnis & Billy Bell
Jive — Louis van Amstel
Paradise by the Dashboard Light — Meat Loaf

Billy Bell playing the strong confident man? TO MEATLOAF? Jesus Christ. This is Cha Cha Diagoria shit. (Ok…I guess its a jive so…hand jive…jive…) I’m trying to believe Billy as a horny bastard. It’s not going that well. I mean, it helps he has a cheaply-dressed blond Russian woman slapping his ass around a bit. It does, however, end up better than one would have originally thought.

So, jidges, you’ve really never heard the term SEX BOMB before? Feast your eyes on Tommy J!

Neil Haskell & Kent Boyd
Broadway — Tyce DiOrio
Shoeless Joe from Hannibal MO (Damn Yankees)

When I saw Tyce DiOrio sitting next to Louis van Beer, who was sitting next to Travis Wall, I just KNEW Tyce would be gracing us with his presence tonight. I AM curious to see how Tyce interprets baseball to an ancient classic Broadway song, but it just makes me want to watch Field of Dreams. I love Field of Dreams. Give me a sports movie any day over shit like Steel Magnolias. Have you ever seen The Rookie? Oh my fraking flying spaghetti monster. I sob for the last half hour of that thing, just as I do Field of Dreams. You give me any film with estranged fathers & sons and baseball and I’m a blubbering mess.

Again, I digress. That’s what happens when these shoes are too long and I’m forced to endure recap two hours of reality TV AND look at faux-dirty “old-time” SYTYCD baseball jerseys. The dance? Meh. The judges all loved it. I WANTED MORE DAMMIT MORE. I swear I had seen that routine before but they weren’t wearing baseball jerseys. They were on a rowboat. Or a trolley. NO! They were paperboys. That makes so much sense. Tyce DiOrio realized his destiny while watching Newsies as a kid.

I’m still trying to muddle through this and now it seems, judging by my Twitter feed, I’m missing Jon Hamm on the ESPYs. WHAT WAS I THINKING? DAMN YOU SYTYCD. DAMN YOU. And then I needed to get something to eat and oh screw it for now…