misSTEPPING: A Spooky Spin Through the Ballroom (DWTS Week 7 Recap)

a blast recapping this. I wish Tory was here with me. I'm so sorry she's not. We hope she's back soon. But don't worry. You're in good hands with me. I got you covered. We're going to go through every single twist and turn and every single step of Halloween Night. This is you know. I had so much fun watching this episode. I just finished. Okay, this is It's Tuesday night as we record this. I really enjoyed this episode. Cheryl Burke back as a guest judge. Former pro Cheryl

Burke a member of our iHeartRadio Podcast family. I've known Cheryl for many years now. She is so great. I love her so much. She's a dear friend, and I loved seeing her in the judges seat. She did she was hard on everyone tonight. But before we get started here, I'm gonna just highlight that Cheryl was really given the critiques of the dancers tonight, but it was great to see her back on the dance floor this cold. Let's just get started here. Okay, let's start from the top.

From the top, everybody the cold open great. I loved it. The murder mystery thing, it was so cute. And then we got to see Julianne and Alfonso appear from a flash of smoke on the ballroom floor. That was cool. There's gonna be no shortage of tricks and treats on this episode. Seeing all the dancers and pros in their costumes, I had to think they must have gotten a bulk deal on those colored contact lenses. Everybody had them. I've never worn colored contact lenses. I've always wanted to, and

there's one simple reason why I haven't done that. I wear real contexts. Okay, I'm not goofing around here. This is the real I got the real deal on my eyeballs. But we saw some really cool fake ones tonight, and it's gonna be a really great show. But before we get into the first dance, it's so sad to hear that Elaine Hendrix suffered a terrible injury during rehearsal earlier that day, and she was at the hospital during the show,

so we will not be seeing her dance live. We will get to how they handle that later on, but let's get started here. We got Whitney Levit Mark Ballas kicking things off. They're dancing at Jazz to brain Stew by Green Day. You know, I was hoping for a monster mash at some point in this show. We did not get the monster mash. I talked about that last week, but we got some songs that were I guess brain Stew's a spooky song. I don't know. It's a rock and roll song. It's rock and baby. So we see

this like a rehearsal package, and Whitney is stressing. She is stressing that they're not dancing, They're they're not going hard enough. She wants to improve her moves. And they again, they danced jazz, and they were dressed as like beetlejuice, kind of another like Halloween adjacent vibe. I thought a really cool dance. There was this move that they did where Whitney leaned back and stuck her leg out and Mark like grabbed her leg and strummed it like a guitar,

and I thought that was really cool. I really liked that a lot. But she was out of sync. They they were out of sync, and as Carrie Anne said, it might be contact lens related. I again, I haven't worn those contact lenses the costume ones. I understand they are very thick and probably hard to see out of, and everyone's wearing them. I'm wondering how it's gonna go for the rest of the night. But I thought this was a great start. They have set a very high

standard for themselves. They are dancing so well. Derek huff that damn gigantic brooch is back. It's he loves that huge, like six inch long brooch. I wasn't hearing a rub against the microphone, but it is back. Nine's from Carrie and Derek and Cheryl Bruno gave it ten. They loved this dance. They really the judges loved this one. We're gonna move on here to to Jordan Chiles and Ezra Sosa again. They're gonna go very very far. They've just

been elevating every single week. They danced a contemporary to Elastic Heart by Sea, And something I loved about watching their rehearsal package was I love seeing the like the mechanics of how they are preparing for these dances. I because you know some of these, some of these I can tell, it's so obvious how much of these are like stage to the like the behind the scenes stuff where it's like it's just them like standing in a ballroom going like, uh, well it's Halloween week and we

really have to step things. That always kind of bothers me. But I felt that this week we got to see a lot more real moments of them rehearsing, especially in this one with Jordan and Ezra. I liked seeing Ezra really showing Jordan like the moves she was missing and giving her tips on how to make this flow easier.

I thought that was really interesting. I really enjoyed this. Uh, they gave themselves a huge challenge with this dance because Jordan's wearing a harness and they're like and they have like a like a rope or a something to work into the dance. They're dressed as mummies, so you know, it works with the theme that's like they're they're being unraveled, and that just the rope and the harness so much to remember and to handle and include as part of

the choreography. It looked to me like Jordan was kind of out of time with the rest of the dance. But they did such a cool spin. I thought it was another one I thought was great. There's so many elements at work, and they did a really fantastic job. But Derek and Carrie Anne given them some heat on this one. Derek gave him an eight, Carrie and gave M nine, Cheryl and eight and Bruno and nine. But Derek saying the execution wasn't fully realized. I don't know

if I agree with that necessarily. I think they I don't know if they nailed it perfectly, but I thought the execution was there. I thought was fun, and it was the first time that I had seen a harness on this show, so that was really great. Anyway, congratulations Jordan and Ezra. We love watching you dance. We're moving on to the Dark Horse, The People's Princess, Andy Richter

and Emma Slater. This is a special dance. It's Andy's birthday. Tonight, Andy's birthday and they're dancing a passadobla to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. You know that one. No no, no, no, no no. Andy's dressed as a priest, and he says in the rehearsal package he has experienced playing a priest in the movie Scary Movie Too, which fans of this show will know, also starred a great talented actor named Tory Spelling. I did not realize they were in a movie together, and

that was very fun. I love whenever Scary Movie Too gets evoked because of my love for Tory. In the rehearsal package, it sounds like Andy like lost his voice or something. He's not a kind of horse. I'm like he's going hard vocally here in these rehearsals. His dancing is just improves so much this week I think was an exponential leap from last week too. He is just getting better and better. And something I really enjoy about watching him is that he's aware that, like he is

the one. Everyone's kind of voting for him because they like his energy, because he's a nice guy, because he's funny, and he's got a great attitude. But he's not the best dancer. He's not the youngest guy there, he's not the fittest guy there. But you know, that can only take you so far, like having a great personality can only get you so far. And he's really putting in the work. He is enjoying dancing and he wants to

be better, and you can see that. And this week especially, I was looking you know, now, I'm a pro myself, but I've been watching more intently and with a bit more knowledge of how the mechanics of this work, of these dances, and I'm looking for andy like I'm looking for faults there, and I'm not. I'm just seeing improving. He's getting so so good. Something. I was watching his face a lot during this dance, and he stayed like

perfectly in character. You had this like spooky look on his face the whole time, which I think which must be hard to do, especially when you're trying to remember these moves. I just feel like what your face looks like is probably the last thing you're thinking of. But he really stayed locked in. And when the judges were giving their their judgments, when they're laying down their critiques, Derek snapped his six paddle in half. He's not given out any more sixes, and I'm just gonna skim here

a little bit. He does not give a six for the rest of the of the night, and so I guess he doesn't need that paddle. He could have just destroyed it. I know they've got spares, but that was a pretty dramatic thing to do. But Andy and Emma did a great job. They got straight sevens across the board from Carrie and Derek Bruno and our guest host Cheryl Burke, and really it was a great dance. I really enjoyed this. I enjoyed it so much. They go to a commercial break and when they come back, so

in between the dances, obviously we see the troops. The troop dance to other songs is like kind of a little interludes. It's kind of fun to watch. My wife and I have taken a calling this part the Talent Show where you get to see the other pros that have not yet been named or you know that we don't know specifically, dancing these fun little numbers. And when we come back from this commercial break, it's Jan and

Jenna Johnson. Jan Robinnick and Jenna Johnson dancing to canceled by Taylor Swift, a track from her new album The Life of a Showgirl. One of my least favorite songs on the album. I really hate this song, but it was fun to watch because, as you know, Jan was one of Taylor's backup dancers on the Airs tour. So as much as I disliked this song, I really enjoyed

watching this little talent show. That was a blast. Now we're moving on to Elaine Hendrix and Alan Burston, And as we talked about at the beginning of the episode, Elaine is injured. Elaine got her during the rehearsals earlier in the day on the ballroom floor, so she was

at the hospital getting checked out and recovering. And you can tell by they have and or Allan on stage talking with Alfonso about what's going on and how they're going to do the dance, and Alan looks so sad and you can tell he's really hurting for Elaine, and we are, so we're so saddened at home to know that she was injured, especially after such a great dance last week. So I was I'm watching this and I'm like,

how are they going to do this? Like, because there's still a competition here, and they're not just going to eliminate her because she got hurt, Like that's not really her fault. How are they going to do this. They must have a protocol in place, and they do. They do. So they're saying they're going to show the video from her last full rehearsal, the last one she did before she got injured, not the one where she gets injured

in the middle of it. We're going to show the last full dance, which was done earlier in the day, and that is what the judges are going to judge. They danced in Argentine tango to Bad to the Bone. We love that song, and it was it was cool to see how the rehearsals work. It was really fun seeing them do the dance on the dance floor with the cameras and the you know, all the effects and everything. But they're not in their costumes, they're not in full wardrobe.

They're in there like workout gear. So that I enjoyed that. I thought it was a fun peek behind the curtain, and like it's kind of fun seeing in the audience. There's like there's like just employees there, like crew, there's just like guys like me just sitting down there, like, look the clipboards and stuff, and that was I just enjoyed that as a as a kind of another look at how the show works. But it was a great dance. They did a great job and straight eight's across the board,

so much love from the judges. Cheryl said that she's a huge fan, and she said that they have been Elaine and Allen have been getting dangerously and offensively underscored, and I kind of have to agree. I've really enjoyed Elaine myself and a great great job on this one, even though it was done in an unconventional way. Before we move on to Daniel Fischel and Pasha Pashkav, I just I gotta do this, you guys. I am compelled. The Halloween spirit is moving me. I am just moved

and compelled. To take a break. We'll be right back. It's misstepping, hey, it's misstepping. My name is east In Alan, that's my first and last name. I'm here filling in for Tory. We usually do this together. I'm doing it by myself and that's okay. I'm just sitting here alone in my room, just screaming into a microphone about how much we've enjoyed Dancing with the Stars. Season thirty four,

Episode seven, Week seven. It's Halloween night, and just before we hear those lovely commercials, I did what's called a tease that we're going to be talking about Daniel Fishal and Pasha pashkof Friends of Ours, members of the iHeartRadio podcast Family. So Danielle explained in the rehearsal package that she has She's got a crazy idea for this dance. She's going high concept here. She wants to do this story that reveals halfway through the dance that she is dead,

that she had been murdered. They're going to dance a Viennese waltz to Die with a Smile, a current top forty hit by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, a Grammy winning song. Great song, by the way, and I really loved the makeup and the costumes that they had for this dance. Daniel had these like blood tears that looked so cool. The acting in this dance I thought was just incredible. They really told a story so effectively through these dance moves. Their timing was completely on point. They

did such a good job. I really thought they did great, and I thought they were so underscored on this. I think they deserved at least more nines, if not a couple tens in there. I thought they did such a fantastic job on this dance. Daniel's showing so much improvement. Carrie Anne coming in hot, I really think something's going on there. She said she had mixed emotions about the performance, okay, whatever. And Cheryl. I think Cheryl also is on all these judgments.

She is really she's not playing softball here. She wants everyone to know she came to be a judge, she is a guest judge this week, and she is not taking it easy. And she did not on Danielle and Pasha. But it was a great, great dance, and I'm excited to see more from them, and I really hope they move on. I'm afraid though. I'm afraid for Danielle. I think the competition isn't getting so fierce as we narrow

it down here, moving on through the weeks. A top contender for this competition Robert Irwin and Whitney Carson dancing in Argentine Tango to Sweet Dreams Are Made of This by the Eurhythmics made famous by the Rhythmics. The rehearsal package showed how tough it can be to be the leading man, and that's something that I know a lot of the guys on this show are struggling, with Robert included, but he's so talented and he's got so much natural ability.

This dance that they that they do here, there's so much technical precision and musicality in this, Like those terms that I'm pulling out really impressive, Just such a great dance. They did this awesome flip. I love a flip. They did a great job there. And Robert did this thing with his legs that I really loved that looked like they kind of looked like a ticking clock, Like it was like a grandfather clocks, like they were swinging back and forth while he was kind of crouched there. It

was so cool. And then he gets pulled into the garage. It's a part of the set that Tory filled me in on. There's a part called the garage. It's like this boxy thing. He gets pulled in by the backup dancers covered in blood, just completely covered in blood. Crazy, so much makeup at work here, and the thing. I couldn't stop laughing at it. I thought it was so funny. When he's back and he and Whitney are getting their

feedback from the judges, Roberts just drenched in blood. He's like completely red and it's just dripping off of him, and he's like looking at the judges with this like kind of serious intent look on his face to show that he's like listening to their critiques and taking their tips and their criticisms to heart. But he's like just covered in makeup and blood. It just looked very funny

to me. But I really enjoyed it, and they got crazy high scores, you know, at ten from carry In and ten from Bruno, and then nine is from Cheryl and Derek Man. I keep switching on who I think is gonna win it, but it's at this point I think it's between him and Whitney led it. I really do. He's just in such an incredible dancer. He's doing such a good job, and he's putting so much work into these rehearsals. I'm so blown away by him, as is

the rest of America. Clearly we're moving on here. On Halloween Night on Dancing with the Stars, too, Jen Affleck and Jan Rovnick. These are my least favorite. Okay, I'm not gonna hide it here. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of Jen. Jan has always rubbed me the wrong way. I know Carrie Anner really has it out for him too, but he's always kind of given me the ick. As it were. They danced a contemporary to Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift and in case you forgot, Jan was a dancer on

the Airs tour. They do not want us to forget that, and neither does he. Look What You Made Me Do is a great song. I watched you know this dance. I'm trying not to, you know, be too harsh. I just thought it was fine. I thought it was okay. Just felt more like a showcase for you on than anything else. He looked great. Jen was okay. Her snake eye contact lenses were great. Everyone's wearing the colored contacts tonight,

but she had different ones. She had snake eyes, like the kind of you know, like a cat or something as reptile eye contacts. I thought they were really cool. It's it's very funny because Derek keeps getting cut off when he's giving his like judgments and he's getting pissed about it. He does not like get hearing the music and reading out of time. I'm not sure we're kind of signals are sending the judges when they're talking, but like Drek's clearly getting the like you do not have

a lot of time to talk. But Carrie Anne said that the beginning of the dance was off the charts, but inconsistency in the performance, and Cheryl advised them that they need to work on their connection. Yeah, my least favorite so far, I'd have to say sorry, Jen and Jan Next up, Alex Earl and Valishchmerkovsky another just crazy contender. They're operating at such a high level and in the rehearsal package we see Alex wants Val to push her.

She wants to go harder, she wants she does not want him to take it easy on these rehearsals and she's getting she's getting full Val. They kept calling it vintage Val. And I'm not a long time watcher of this show. I'm sorry to say that I'm very new to this, but apparently this is how he used to be as a dancer and with his star he would push them a lot harder. He has softened over time. Alex does not want that. She wants to get pushed this. This dance was so cool. They danced to Tango to

Bury a Friend by Billie Eilish. They climbed out of the ground. I thought this was rare. They started buried just as the song says, and they like climbed out of their of their shallow grave. It was so awesome Alex. I saw great framing from her. She kept her shoulders high, she kept her arms high. She she's got the great tango pose there. I think she's doing a great job remembering those fundamentals and she's really kicking it into gear.

This is a fantastic dance. However, I mean, I'm not a tango expert here, but Cheryl Burke is, and she wants to remind everybody that there are rules when it comes to tango. And Alex broke the hold with with val and that is not okay. But high score almost straight tens. Cheryl is the only one who did not give them a ten. I believe this is the highest score of the entire season so far. Very cool to

see Dylan Efron and Daniella Catash are next. I love seeing her last name and now I feel more confident saying it. So I saw earlier in this week on Instagram, as I'm apt to do scrolling on the Insta, I saw that Dylan had gotten injured during the rehearsal Daniella broke his nose. He needed to go to the er, So I'm wondering how that's going to affect their dancing.

In the pre show package. In the rehearsal package, Dylan shows off his love of romance, fantasy, romantic as they call it, an audio books, so I'm wondering what kind of spicy stories he gets up to. But he's bringing that passion a live through their dance. They danced to Vienna's Waltz. Who can't help falling in love? And he's another one. There's just so much improvement here. He just gets better and better. He is a very attractive man. He's very fun to watch, and he could get by

on just that. I think he could do really low stakes dances and just because he's so fun to watch, he could probably get still get high scores. But he's really kicking it up a notch here. And something my wife pointed out that I thought it was funny is that in their dance, Danielle is wearing a blindfold. She's blindfolded through this, and my wife pointed out that Dylan is so brave to dance with a blindfolded Danielle after getting elbowed in the nose and breaking or close to

breaking his nose during their rehearsals. He is a very brave man. She does ditch the blindfold about halfway through. But they have great chemistry as dancers. They are very fun to watch. I really love Danielle and Dylan. They're so great and they got great scores from the judges. And during the at the end of their dance, they revealed that Dylan won Sexiest Tattoos in the People magazine poll for Sexiest Man Alive, and Derek won Sexiest forty

year Old. And he said when he was nominated for Sexiest Man Alive, he made some claim that if he won, he would shave his head, and Alfonso tried to call him on it. I don't know if it's gonna happen. I think he was saying, if I win Sexiest Man Alive, I'll shave my head, not Sexiest forty year Old, which is a sub category. But Derek is a very sexy

four year old, so congratulations to him. And Cheryl called them the most improved couple of the season, and I would give that to Andy personally, but they there is a lot of improvement. Dylan is operating at such a high level now, he's doing a great job. And that is our final couple dance of the but we move on to a group competition, the Monster Thon. When I saw this was happening, I'm gonna go. I started looking at my chomps. I was like, oh my god, here

it comes, Here comes my beloved monster Mash. I got so excited, but I was quickly disappointed. And I'm going to tell you why. Right after these words stick around. We're back. It is misstepping. My name is Easton Allen. We were talking about Halloween night on Dancing with the Star Season thirty four. It's week seven. We're at the final competition. Okay, this is the Monster Thon. This is an endurance competition, okay, And there's a lot of rules here.

I was having a hard time keeping track. It's like they have they have to stay in a square and do a choreographed dance. But then the squares go away. They can dance all over the floor, but they have to be mindful of the other dancers and the judges will decide who gets eliminated. As the competition goes on, they have to dance straight through for four minutes, NonStop, uninterrupted, and whoever makes it to the end gets extra points. I think this is funds adds another fun element to

the competition. But my favorite part was that the Grim Reaper was the one to tap the couples on the shoulder that they had been eliminated. I thought that was very fun to see the Grimm read through with their scythe grabbing couples off the dance floor that were chosen by the judges to go away. And it was fun because we had as this happens, we see the we see like the picture and picture in the corner of

the judges deliberating. They're all standing huddled around a stack of paddles with a couple's names on him, and it was fun seeing them kind of, you know, argue about who who was going to get eliminated. As the show went on, they danced the Hustle and the Lindy Hop to Murder on the Dance Floor by Sophie Allis Bexter, made famous by the movie Saltburn and ended up on

the charts a couple of years ago. And also we got a Little Party, Never Killed Nobody by Fergie Goon Rock and Q Tip respectively, and the elimination ended up going to Whitney and Mark. They won the whole challenge. They got an extra five points to their score. So now this brings us to the elimination round. Someone's got to go home, Someone's got to go It's so sad, but it has to happen. And as this competition moves on, the herd is going to be more thin and some

of our favorites might have to say goodbye. This was really stressful to watch. I was very happy that my beloved Daniel Fischl got saved pretty early on in this part of the of the elimination. But something I thought was very interesting. We get to the bottom three, and I'm going to call it the bottom three just because it makes sense, but it's not the real bottom three

that Alfonso explains. When we have the final three couples, there not necessarily the lowest scored one of these couples was the lowest scored of the combination of judges scores and the voting from the fans. But the other two couples were not. And this is just kind of an arbitrary choice, I guess, or dramatic choice of how to choose these last three couples before we announced who is

going home. Among these are jen Affleck and Yon Rovnick, Elaine Hendrix who is recovering in the hospital, and Alan Burston staying there by himself. And Whitney Levitt and Mark ballas one of the highest scoring couples of the entire season. Why are they there, you ask, why? Why are they in the bottom three? There? There's no way they got no fan votes. We saw the judges' scores. They got

highest scores. Here's why everybody. Maybe you know about this, maybe you don't, but I I was entertained by this this week. Whitney and Mark on social media a couple days ago, we're doing a They wanted to do a giveaway to get tickets to come to the screening of Dancing with the Stars. They were going to give away

a pair of tickets. I don't I wasn't there quick enough to see how they were going to give it away if it was like a follow us and we'll choose somebody, or if you vote for us or something like that. They quickly took it down and put up another post apologizing, saying they were told they cannot give

away tickets in an email. They were told this is not okay to do, and a lot of fans in the comments were speculating that they were going to be punished for this, for this giveaway, and some fans were saying like this felt like a bribe to get votes. I don't know about that, but definitely kind of a shady thing to do. And they being in the bottom three on here and being teased with you are going to be eliminated. I think that was deliberate by the

producers of the show. They want to prove to them, hey, you can't just give away tickets on your Instagram. This are on your TikTok. We're in charge here. You're gonna be up there sweating with another Mormon housewife or Mormon wife and and the woman that's in the hospital right now. But then we see the final elimination. It is not Whitney and Mark No, no, no, it is Jen afflecking Jan Robnick they are going home. They have been eliminated. I'm sorry. I was very happy with this. I was

happy every week. I think it's going to be andy. I'm afraid, you know, and I know that's got to come eventually, just because of how these things go, but I wanted to stick around a little bit longer. I'm really enjoying seeing him and I'm enjoying seeing him improve Jen. I've just been so unimpressed with her dancing the last couple of weeks, and he has always rubbed me the wrong way. I know this is his first season. I've gotten bad vibes from this guy the entire time, So

I am not shedding any tears for this elimination. I am very happy with it. Actually, next week is Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Week. Very excited about that. We're gonna see performances from Chicago from Cool in the Gang. That's gonna be a lot of fun. Can't wait to see what everyone dances to then, and I will be here to recap it all for you guys. Once again, this is misstepping, and I'm gonna misstep out of here. Siya