Dance Moms 7×09 Recap: The ALDC’s Perfect Score by Shana Lieberman

Dance Moms 7×09 Recap: The ALDC’s Perfect Score by Shana Lieberman With Dance Moms season 7 involving so many changes for the Abby Lee Dance Company, one might expect the team to struggle; but Dance Moms 7x09 proved that regardless of how many changes Abby Lee Miller makes, the ALDC can still win. Although Abby put a lot of focus on prepping solos for Brynn Rumfallo, Lilliana Ketchman, and Maesi Caes to take to Dream Dance Competition in San Diego, the team still brought home its biggest victory of the season. With slightly less drama from the dance moms than usual -- even with new dancer Jane Dickson joining the team to play Brynn's opposite -- and more focus on actual dancing, the ALDC managed to score a perfect 300 in competition. Exciting? For them, I suppose. Accurate? Well, you'll just have to check out our Dance Moms 7x09 recap to find out. Free the parking lot, 2k17. Rather than spending time rehashing old drama via "Dance Moms Loitering in Parking Lots," Dance Moms 7x09 kicked off at the pyramid. Like, we had the "previously on," then...BOOM! Fast cut to the ALDC LA interior. (Why, Dance Moms? Why? Where's the parking lot? Is it being repaved? Why haven't seen my favorite show within a show since the Dance Moms season 7 premiere, and I'm weeping for the loss of it!) Anyway. We didn't learn much at pyramid. Abby Lee Miller held Kalani Hilliker's trip to the emergency room against her; on the flip side, our fearless leader was very proud of Lilliana Ketchman's winning solo from last week's competition. As far as any other drama went, nobody was mentioning how awful dance mom Yolanda Walmsley had behaved; but Abby was more than happy to tell Yolanda to keep her mouth shut after explaining that Elliana Walmsley's relatively low position on the pyramid was thanks to a failure to place in the top five. I'm thankful for that. I mean, I don't like hearing about how Ellie didn't do well enough, but I'm here for Abby telling Yolanda not to talk. Hashtag so blessed. As far as assignments went, a bunch of blondes were handed solos (as we detailed in our Dance Moms 7x09 spoilers post). Oh. And the the ALDC group dance for this week was something about polygamy. I don't know. Has Abby Lee Miller been binge watching Big Love or something? Is that even available to stream through legit methods? Or is she, you know, YOLO-ing it up and watching television using "other methods" while she still can? The world may never care to know. At any rate, Abby started listing things that sister wives are assigned to do while dance mom Holly Frazier threw a lot of shade, and dance mom Jill Vertes loudly stopped Abby from mentioning the "s-e-x" word...which I don't even think Abby was headed toward. But let's make Jill think she matters. Important side note: The ALDC's real perfect score and overall winner in Dance Moms 7x09 was dance mom Holly Frazier. Girl can throw shade. Throughout the entire episode, her face was representative of my inner monologue -- but way better because I'm not remotely worthy. I've called Holly Dance Moms' Michelle Obama stand-in at least once before, and well. All I could think about whenever I saw Holly's face was this: Ok. Back to your regularly-scheduled Dance Moms 7x09 recap. So, there's really not a lot to say here? I feel like the biggest drama came when Jane Dickson's mom said Jane would be able to use her face better than Brynn Rumfallo; but with as fired up as dance mom Ashlee Allen was over the whole thing, it just didn't seem to cause the same level of ridiculous as some of Ashlee's fights with the other moms have. Or maybe I'm just desensitized after seeing Yolanda surpass dance mom Jill Vertes as The Worst ever at this point? I don't know. Anyway, there was something with shoes. Even that bus that hit Regina George Yolanda was good-natured about the whole thing. What is happening???? It's as if even the producers couldn't handle more new girl hazing in Dance Moms season 7. We've certainly had enough. Then again, I would've liked to have had more...something -- anything, really -- from Jane Dickson. She barely spoke, and the whole narrative was that she was just there because she was another pretty blonde. Not surprisingly, dance mom Ashlee and the others live in a bubble and therefore have never seen this: Girl's here because she can dance, probably has a crazy dance mom, and apparently doesn't mind being "blonde girl number 5 billion" on Dance Moms. Just saying. She doesn’t speak. I love it. This is a direct quote from Abby Lee Miller about Lillian Ketchman. You might think it was about Jane because it may as well have been. Bleh. Ok. Moving on. So, there was some drama between Abby and Team Caes. Or whatever. Dance mom Jaime Caes wanted to know whether or not her daughter was going to get to work on the ALDC group dance with the rest of the team, and Abby was like, "ok, but don't let her screw it up." (That's paraphrasing but not by much.) Arguing ensued. Rehearsals happened. Maesi was, at one point, about to be yanked from the group because she didn't fit in well enough; but then her mother didn't like that. Surprise. So, like. Jaime said Maesi deserved to dance with the rest of the group, which made Abby do her shrieking thing. She doesn’t deserve anything! You earn your way in life! If Abby would have just used slightly different wording there, I would've been like "yas, girl, yas." I'd like to believe she was going off about entitlement because that's basically the problem that most of the dance moms have. But she said Maesi didn't deserve anything. Subtle difference, but we all deserve quite a lot of things that we're going to have under this guy. (Examples: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, basic human decency, free press, healthcare, an EPA that's allowed to talk nerdy to us -- and without regurgitating a party line -- an emoluments clause that isn't violated on day one...I'll shut up now.) Long story short, Maesi did, in fact, get the chance to dance -- whether it was deserved or not. Despite a unified team being like, "girl, no" to Maesi for keeping her germs at the studio, dance mom Jaime's "girl, yes" kept her there. Guys. There was vomit, and I really could've done without the sound effects. I don't even want to talk about it, other than to say that even the thought of a stomach thing makes me want to move into a bubble -- especially since affordable healthcare is a thing that doesn't exist in America and is about to be even more scarce --. Oh, and while you'd probably be hard-pressed to find a dancer who hasn't managed to show up at the studio when sick? Just, like. There are limits: Barf is one of them. Rewind. Nothing to see here. Check out Lilliana Ketchman being all excited about her top-of-the-pyramid placement in Dance Moms 7x09. Woo! Oh, hey! Did you know Maesi Caes was only given a solo in Dance Moms 7x09 because Abby Lee Miller found out that she was popular on the internet? Cool, cool. Here's some video: Dance until you vomit. Or something. Were there more commercials than usual? Did Dance Moms 7x09 just kind of have no content? Am I the only one who feels like it flew by? Is this what living in the Upside Down is like? I don't know. At any rate, let's talk competition. “Route 66,”open category solo performed by Lilliana Ketchman. Cute? Check. Straight knees? Mostly check. Feet stretched? Some check, some crunching it through the toes whilst skipping out on stretching the ankles. Tricks? My back ached just from watching. I don't understand how the music was supposed to relate to all of the cutesy bows and random tricks? But sure, we'll go with it. Result: 1st place overall solo? She's cute. According to dance mom Ashlee Allen, "cute" means not having to have good technique; but maybe at this particular competition, it meant not having to have decent choreography. “I’m Alive,” hip hop solo performed by Maesi Caes. Excellent hair choreography! So, when I first saw footage of Maesi Caes after being told that she'd be joining Dance Moms season 7, I was super excited. But then she had to go and forget the choreography for the group number in her first outing with the ALDC. Not cool. From there, Abby Lee Miller (probably rightfully, based on that mess) didn't really use Maesi a whole lot; so, the disappointment started to set in. Cue Maesi's solo in Dance Moms 7x09. This was Maesi in her element: high energy, sassy, sharp, and fun to watch. I'm actually afraid of how much energy the kid might have had without the whole puke fiasco the day before the competition. Her competitors should be afraid, too. Result: 2nd place overall solo. "Botched," contemporary solo performed by Brynn Rumfallo. Brynn, you frustrate me. Stop being careful. Start letting go. I'm tired of always having to give that same correction. A girl with #thatpenchetho shouldn't be so tentative about everything. Good God. The beginning of the number, in particular, just needed the movement to be bigger. Also, if the whole concept of the solo was the idea that someone had screwed up Brynn's plastic surgery? Girl should have loaded on waaaaaaaaaaaaay more angst. Pro tip: Watch Nip/Tuck next time you need to be obsessive about your looks for a dance, Brynn. You can thank me by showing you've made your corrections. Result: 3rd place overall solo. Get angry, and show it when you dance. Post-solo tidbits: Abby Lee Miller said that the soloists looked "sooooo good!" But she refused to hug Maesi Caes because there were germs. Smart woman. Before the ALDC group dance, Kalani Hilliker read her lines straight from the script told Jane Dickson that she might get to stay another week if she danced well enough; and Kendall K. Vertes borrowed Kalani's script reminded everyone that Nationals was right around the corner. Back to the dance. Someone got fake married. I don't know.  "Blush and Bashful," lyrical ALDC group dance. Ok, so like. I have no idea how any of this had anything to do with sister wives, so I'm going to guess that Abby Lee Miller's binge of Big Love was from one of "those" sites...And she was actually watching Angelina Ballerina because some internet troll messed with the streaming links. It was all very pretty, flowery, and pink. There were exactly zero wedding or marriage vibes -- unless everyone was supposed to be a bridesmaid -- and just...What? But hey! Jane Dickson was actually asked whether or not she knew about polygamy since she was from Utah -- Abby! You can't just ask people that! -- and she actually said yes. Anyway. Back on track. The only thing that made this performance stand out was when Kalani Hilliker suddenly busted out the #KalaniThings™ and some massive performance quality during her featured part. Result: 1st place overall, perfect score, best ever...To quote Michelle Obama's face: There was the typical post-awards drama in the dressing room. Was Abby Lee Miller finally going to settle on a team? No. Omgz, but why not? Shut up, Jill. And that was about it. What happens after a perfect score? You go back to the studio, and you keep training. Because that’s what dancers do. Wise words from Abby Lee Miller, folks. That's it for our Dance Moms 7x09 recap. Join us next week as Dance Moms season 7 starts to get lit, as the youths say. Omg but really did y'all see that promo??? Shana Lieberman | January 24, 2017 at 11:42 pm | URL: http://wp.me/pCS51-wKy Comment    See all comments