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Who the hell is Jeanette? ETA: Never mind. She's the mom with the "stalker edit." I beg to differ when they say Jeanette's exit was the most spectacular. Across all the seasons, I still personally give that prize to Jill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb6SW1j9ZjQ

At the age of 12 I was small and flat as Kansas--but then again, I was a gymnast, and not even training nearly as many hours as Maddie is in dance. When girls that age are athletes training more than 20 hours per week, their bodies tend to delay estrogen production. The fact that she hasn't had a growth spurt while Dance Moms is not filming (in contrast to the non-Zeigler girls on the team, who have) is a testament to how hard she's training even during the off-season. For the video itself, I wasn't creeped out so much as confused. Regarding Sia's "warring personalities," were the cage-figures her id vs. ego? And if so, who was the id and who was the ego? Or alternately, did Maddie represent Sia's inner child while whats-his-name was representing the adult? Per that interpretation, wouldn't it have made more sense to use a female adult? >>The whole thing is probably going over Maddie's head anyways (...and probably Melissa's too, though not for age reasons), it's just a performance for her.<< Yeah, this too.

They're only 3 episodes into S2 and the contrivances have already become too much. In S1, Kim at least made the pretense that she was going out to scout new girls for her weekly project. Now the producers would have us believe she's just bumping into these girls by accident--that they're not completely scripted setups? As Kim might say, c'mon, we're not dumb as a box o' rocks, y'all. Is there some kind of hard-set rule of TV glam-overs that stipulates straight hair must get curls and curly hair must be straightened? There was no reason to iron out that little soccer jock's beautiful curls. A quirky, bouncy up-do would have been much more striking and left that poor kid with a thread of her personality.

I think Kim is (as she would say) the bomb-diddly-dot-com! I love her emphasis on education, versatility, and character. She's made me see pageants in a whole new light.

The tomboy-turned-archer-princess Asa (sp?) does kind of resemble Jennifer Lawrence. Wow, she's beautiful, and her transformation on the show was amazing. Her reluctant explanation about how the "mean girls" all start wearing makeup at her age, and how it becomes a point of identity not to go that route yourself lest you feel like a sellout--that jabbed me right in the heart because that was exactly my own experience in middle and high school. (I'm close to Kim's age; that high school social-stratification crap never changes.) Anyway, I like to think Asa was genuine, and not one of the other "newbies" on this show who've actually been around the pageant scene a long time. This may sound dumb, but I was a little disappointed they didn't show any more snippets of Asa's little sister in GRITS pageant. I know the "ugly duckling" was supposed to be the focus of this ep, but last year the producers were more inclusive, presumably because Deb's daughter Hannah was in a younger division last year.

As another fan once unforgettably said about the Alan/Melody lyrical: "Alan was saying good bye to his inner fairy before marching off to the military in the don't ask-don't tell era." That explanation just made the dance fit Mia's description of it as "beautiful, awful, and odd" better than ever. I was obsessed obsessed obsessed with Season 1. Really, modern lyrical dance had never been showcased on a prime-time network TV show before, other than a brief run of Star Search in 2003-2004. When I first saw Nick's audition, immature as his dancing was, it was a revelation to me that they would bother to air it. (Thought Ashle' Dawson's audition was pretty freaking great, too.) I was convinced SYTYCD was going to be another hip-hop show, the auditions were just filler, and that I was never going to see Nick Lazzarini again. When I caught glimpses of him during Hollywood week, I said to myself, "I'm going to judge the worthiness of this show by how well Nick does." So yeah, that was history. Never in my life would I have thought a TV show would come along and make me sick of lyrical. What a fabulous luxury. In all 11 Seasons, I've only missed one episode. Thanks, Nigel, you pompous, self-promotional d-bag, you.

Thank you, traboule, for linking the Top 10/All-Star dance I loved so much! It's just 31 flavors of wonderful. When I say Tanisha was a beast in that, I'm talking especially about the 1:20 to 1:24 mark.

I, too, am trying to figure out why Allison Holker was picked up as a DWTS dancer. I googled fitfully in search of some clue: Is Allison trained enough to be considered a professional ballroom dancer, or is DWTS branching out to include jazz and contemporary in its repertoire? I don't watch DWTS, but the choice of Allison is confuddling me. At the very, very end of a lackluster season, an unexpected shining gift from the gods: the Top 10/AllStar group dance. That was one for the ages. Tanisha was a BEAST in that--she was the only girl whose dancing caught my eye at all. My favorite part was when Will Wingfield (my favorite dancer of all seasons) came downstage banging those fabulous dreadlocks and doing that crazy krump/disco/happy-dance move. Then he turned around and saw the whole ensemble doing the same goofy move in unison behind him and gave the thumbs-up. I laughed. I cried. I can't wait for someone to upload it to YouTube (which is the only place my low-tech self knows how to download videos from--shhhhh.)

So there were "a hundred" teen-level dance teams competing in Woodbridge, VA? I find it hard to believe that Abby's worn and beaten girls would have placed way up in 2nd place out of a hundred competitive teams in the older division. Somehow I suspect the only team ALDC was competing against--for TV purposes, as always--was Studio Bleu. It's getting downright painful to watch Chloe schlopping around with simpler choreography than she was given at age 10. Of course there's talk Chloe is training at another studio, but I don't see any extra training showing up in her work. Her turns are the only thing that's improved in all these years. I wish she would stay in dance, but not with the twin toxins of TV cameras and Abby Lee.

Hey, I thought I saw a very brief shot of Season 1's Kamila Barret in there at 1:40. But I've always stunk at picking individual dancers out of crowds.