Maxed Out

Week 4: Top 9 Results - November 15 2020

Last night! Everything was a bit weird, but given the nightmare week they’d just had, it was a miracle it all happened and went as well as it did. Also, Anton done a judging and mostly made it about himself, peppered with resurrecting the ghost of Len, but did chuck in one or two useful comments along the way. JJ's war jive tanked, and Clara's Charleston swivelled its way to the top of the leaderboard.

Tonight! I genuinely don't know who will hit the bottom two, which is quite exciting!

We open with a disco-themed pro dance to ‘Papa’s Got a Brand-New Bag’ and ‘Boogie Wonderland’. It’s set in a supermarket in which Anton is the manager; Karen, Oti, Giovanni and are employees and everyone else is a customer. There’s lots of flirting, including Johannes flirting with Gorka until he sees Gorka has a baby. Apparently daddies aren’t hot? That goes against what I believe the conventional wisdom to be, but gotta admit someone covered in milk and mashed banana stains who moans constantly about not sleeping probably wouldn’t do it for me either. [Also boo to the heteronormativity of assuming that someone with a baby must be straight, I demand a pro dance where Gorka and Johannes are hot daddies raising a collection of adorable gaybies. - Steve] Then Nancy picks up Neil and wheels him around in her shopping trolley what a kooky goddess please let us see her with a partner next year. It’s all very entertaining though – and I actually think the pro dances this year might be even better for the lack of having to rush through them in a live setting? (I get that it’d be worse for a studio audience to come and not see the pros doing a routine though, obviously).

Tess and Claudia enter: Claudia in a red dress and red lippy with her hair up, which is a different look for her, but I like it, and Tess in a sparkly blue and black tiger print dress with awkward shoulders. She does look a bit like she’s off out for a night on the tiles in 1980s’ Essex, but that doesn’t sound like a bad evening out, make mine a Taboo (but which one are you?) (LOL you’re Taboo too, literally no-one has ever drunk Mirage). The judges enter: Shirley in a natty green shift dress and the men in suits – Craig’s in boring black, Anton has a grey velvet jacket.

We get our recap of last night, and Motsi’s on duty, meaning Bruno has even less to do to earn those big bucks. She calls HRVY ‘powerful’ and ‘rhythmical’ then doesn’t get to say anything until calling JJ ‘old school quality’, Jamie ‘infectious’ and Bill having ‘brought it’. Also of note: Caroline treats getting 22 like being told her dog has to be put down and Johannes says ‘and we’re delighted about it!’

The first set of safety results reveals the following are through: Caroline and Johannes; HRVY and Janette; JJ and Amy (JJ is shocked, Amy screams the house down and JJ eye-rolls down the camera whilst she collapses on him in hysterics, heh); Clara and Aljaž (Clara still looked nervous despite topping the leader board in a nine-couple week), with the first couple in the bottom being… Maisie and Gorka. I’m not super surprised as I didn’t think they’d have a solid fan base, and they were very mid-table. If Nicola were still here they might have been safe for another week.

Tess asks Maisie and Gorka how they’re feeling and Pissy Gorka says ‘Great!’ <3. Shirley says that Maisie hitting the dance-off proves that anything can happen, so she should not take any prisoners, fight for her place and do what Gorka has told her to… and be up against anyone other than Bill, I assume.

Claudia reads through more possible names for the couple’s chat: ‘pairs on the stairs’ and ‘Claud’s Chatterpillar’ which is her personal favourite. Caroline says Johannes nearly broke her thumb squeezing it too hard when they were called safe, and we learn that when she makes mistakes in training, he tells her what she did was ‘interesting’. Next week they have the cha cha and Caroline says she’s terrified because everyone says it’s the hardest dance. Remember when it was always seen as the easy one?! HRVY says he face-timed his mum after he got a 10 and she was drinking a cup of tea, rock’n’roll. Janette’s mum texted her in Spanglish. We also learn that HRVY loves Mondays but hates Tuesdays, because he likes starting new things but hates having to focus on technique, and honestly, I relate so hard to that. JJ says he’s had his life saved more than once in uniform before and now it’s happened again (!). Claudia points out Clara looked nervous even though she was on top, and Clara says she’ll never take being safe for granted. Claudia tells her she got 3 10s. I mean… she didn’t, unless Claudia’s also keeping an imaginary spreadsheet of Bruno scores like quite a few superfans.

This week’s guest performance is from The Vamps, who I’ve never really ‘got’ and this track (‘Married in Vegas’) isn’t changing that for me. Neil and Nancy are on dancing duties, giving us mostly cha cha cha with a couple of lifts thrown in, a perfect match of song and dance that are both fine but instantly forgettable.

Time for Dance Debrief, and someone has cobbled together a backdrop for Virtual Bruno that looks like the studio. Week four everyone! Craig explains what a lockstep is and says he can’t believe Maisie is in the dance-off despite the judges’ scores. Anton goes on about Max’s left arm as if that’s a thing anyone has ever cared about. We then see Karen stopping Jamie doing a botafogo too early, which looks hilarious, and Shirley praises Jamie for improving so much after being in the bottom two. Bruno’s contractually obligated line of the week is saying that Clara made him feel like he was back in the 1920s which Craig ‘would remember’ despite being younger than him. (Also, I googled Craig and Anton’s ages and was SHOOK that Craig is a year older than Anton when I would totally have pegged them the other way round.) 

On the Anton thing then - I will admit he gave one or two useful comments and if he did more of that, it would be good, but mostly his Anton-ness was too much for me, especially when he channelled Len in places. It's possible he might settle into more of a groove next week if he calms down a bit, makes it less about him and discovers the lower range of paddles, but overall... I can see why he was never top of the list for a judging chair.

We get a plug for the spin-offs and socials: It Takes Two; the podcast; the weird BBC Blu Hydrangea thing that seems to be mainly there as a reminder that Drag Race UK is still a thing despite lockdown delaying filming and does not seem appealing to me in the least even though I love Drag Race generally; Instagram; Twitter; YouTube; Facebook; TikTok; Tumblr; WeChat; AOL; MSN Messenger; and Ceefax.

And now for the rest of the results. Safe: Bill and Oti and of the three remaining couples, Max and Dianne; Ranvir and Giovanni and Jamie and Karen, who all look like it might be them, Jamie and Karen are also safe. Ranvir and Giovanni are safe as well, leaving Max and Dianne to dance-off. I can’t help but feel this is the nation trying to exorcise last week from our collective memory.

Max says it’ll be nice to have one last chance to dance it, as he knows he’s going home, and Anton says he’s done well so far and to just give his best.

In the Clauditorium, we cover Jamie working through his nerves and he and Karen have street dance next week. Jamie says in rehearsals she’s occasionally doing the moves and when he asks her what they are she says ‘street dance, don’t worry, you’ll never get it’. 4/5 Couple’s Choices = ‘street dance’ this series is it, mm-hmm. Bill talks about his 17 year old son texting him and Oti says she appreciates Bill taking on all her crazy. Ranvir thanks everyone for keeping her safe and says it’s been a very emotional week for her. Next week they have the first…. Argentine Tango. I mean, I like the AT fine, but if the show thinks it’s OK to chuck even more cha cha and street commercial at us, someone better be doing a filthy dirty rumba and a lovely Blackpool quickstep so help me god.

Next week: (Spirit of) BLACKPOOL week! I don’t know what that means but I do know it means I’m on (Spirit of) BLACKPOOL hangover week, grr.

In the dance-off, Max is doing about as little as he did the first time, but I guess when the routine’s mostly choreographed around the pro dancer you can’t really change it. Both he and Maisie seem a bit deflated by being in the dance-off, actually, but Maisie is clearly the stronger dancer and I can’t see it being anything other than a 3-0.

Craig says both couples took the notes on board and improved things, but he’s saving Maisie and Gorka. Anton says it was really close and drags out his verdict, saying in the end it was the smallest timing issues but he’s also saving them. Shirley then says she would have saved Max and Dianne (I love it when Shirley randomly takes offence at someone doing Latin less than perfectly). Max thanks Dianne and says the fellow competitors are the nicest group of people. We watch their journey: Max’s nehves, not being Jay, some mid-table stuff for two weeks, A WEEK IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENED AT ALL, and a low-energy American Smooth.

Dianne says he’s done four incredible dances (nice of her to count the opening show there) and she thanks everyone, including the judges. And as they pan away from the judges, this reminds me of something I forgot to mention last night: above the judges there are some seats, and because of social distancing, the last few weeks each seat has just had a single person in it, and when the camera pans out to reveal a person sitting above each judge, it looks EXACTLY like the Muppet Show. There’s a missed movie week opportunity for you: Neil and Nadiya as Statler and Waldorf providing a grumpy running commentary about how they’d have choreographed that better; the producers as the Swedish chef chasing Coronavirus chickens; Tess as Miss Piggy and a set of GUNZ as Kermit, I want it.

Max and Dianne dance (or mostly hug) out to ‘World of Our Own’ and that is some next level boyband-rivalry trolling from the song-choice team.

We get a reminder to donate to Children in Need and there’s no post-show debrief. Next week: whatever the heck a (Spirit of) BLACKPOOL week is. Join Steve to find out!