Some fear Nikita’s nips were too powerful.

This recap is lubed up and ready to paso!

Previously! Harry’s sprint through the Latin catalogue came to a crashing end, losing his place in the competition because La Voix managed to do one (1) heel turn correctly.

This week! It’s Blackpool Eve, an unavoidable fact unless you have the observational skills of my grandmother who has some breaking news for everybody

just imagine my gran, in her flat, watching La Voix’s full face of makeup fade in via the power of movie magic and to her, it being a plot twist akin to the reveal in Fight Club

I never thought we’d be able to say that La Voix was an unclockable diva but here we are. God knows who my gran thinks the man in La Voix’s training VTs is – just some sort of mystery 16th contestant that Chris Chibnall threw in there for funsies

more updates as I get them. But feel free to concoct your own fan theories.

So with Blackpool on the near horizon and the celebrities having definitely always dreamed of performing there for longer than the 8 weeks they’ve been on this show. The big guns were out – dead mums, mums with near death experiences, puppies, Nikita’s Glorious Oiled Up Puppies

he only felt comfortable doing this *after* Harry was eliminated, or else the biggest of all the pectorals would’ve eaten the other pectorals.
But this isn’t only about the celebrities and Nikita’s tiny slippery nipples – the professionals also have dreams of using the hallowed halls of Blackpool Tower Ballroom to perform the sort of nonsense routine that would’ve had them excommunicated from the ballroom community when Kai started dancing there in 1908

and of course we get treated to a walk down memory lane of the violations of the ballroom Geneva Conventions that this show has committed in Blackpool as a sort of warning shot for next week. The centrepiece of which is somehow still Anton sweeping Ann Widdecombe around like someone cleaning up dog sick

I will personally pay for the electro-shock therapy to help this show untether itself from her. Imagine being Katie Derham sat at home, having dragged Anton to Blackpool to let him spaff an American Smooth up the (allegedly golden) walls and STILL all he’ll talk about is Ann Widdecombe flopping around on the floor like a canary that died in a coalmine?????

And Katya, you’re on thin ice with your reverence for Ed Balls

apparently she’s just not allowed to say “Joe McFadden’s massive clock” before 9pm

why *was* he dressed like Peter Pan?

We’ll have to wait another week to see who gets lowered from the ceiling aboard the weirdest novelty prop – I would’ve guessed it’d have been Vicky going full on hen party but… Umm, plans for Blackpool have had to change a scooch as Balvinder soars to the lofty heights of Bottom Two Goddess status

the show had three extremely thinly veiled objectives this week:
1. Get La Voix to Blackpool
2. George Clarke Gets A Breakthrough (lol)
3. Send Balvinder Home With Dignity and a Nice Frock (lmfao, even)

As we can tell, despite the unsubtlety of having Balvinder stand below a “Taxis to the station” sign for her judging

they failed on two thirds of that front – they hadn’t accounted for Alexis being too Dancing With The Stars pilled to just make a normal… sad rumba? And of course, Vicky dancing a jive that was about as wobbly as the unstable prop walls she was looking for support from

it does not surprise me that there was allegedly a rumour that Vicky stacked it down those stairs in the Dance Off – all of the carpentry skills this week went into creating Nikita’s Gender Torment Nexus

all that was left for Vicky was 4 sheets of MDF, a can of spray paint and some chewing gum. Which is more than Linda Barker ever had to work with on Changing Rooms.

It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that Vicky danced her jive like the floor was made of mince. It was very much just reliving the trauma of her Charleston and was always going to be a real test of her public vote, which has been haemorrhaging over the last three weeks of my exit poll. Of the over 750 votes cast on it this weekend, Vicky got 15. Novelty political parties poll better! Hell, I think Harry would’ve received more votes if I’d accidentally included him on there!
So where did it all go so wrong for Vicky? Because she was very popular for the front quarter of the series. Well, if the show is being heavy handed with George Clarke as a gateway drug to BBC Online Content™, then the “Vicky Pattison Is Going To The Final” bit has been like a sledgehammer to the face

and combined with some forceful overmarking and boringly average routines (controversial and brave take: Kai’s the weakest choreographer on the cast, it’s fine we can’t all be Katya) then, much like Balvinder’s taxi, you’re driving down a one way road to voter apathy and you’re most certainly not stopping for any pedestrians

it’s been 0 series since Strictly Come Dancing last violated basic traffic laws

you really realise how much weight Bootleg Carpool Karaoke held in giving the celebrities something to do for their training VTs when you’ve got Amber trapped in a labyrinthe of instructional YouTube videos made by someone who just discovered After Effects

it’d be a real shame if she did something interesting this week that went completely unmentioned

lol, they will literally never show any part of this poor woman’s internal world. Meanwhile, they’re so low on things for Balvinder to do that they’ve resorted to just showing Hot and Weird Julian some squirrels

I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for something on this show than I am for this man to experience Blackpool and with there being absolutely no narrative tie for Balvinder to Blackpool they can go as bonkers as they want. Meanwhile Vicky had spent her entire It Takes Two segment waxing lyrical about her grandparents in a way that suggests that they’d filmed that entire VT already

RUH ROH – the entire Blackpool plan has gone tits up

it’s a turn of phrase, Nikita. Put them away.

Vicky of course couldn’t weaponise her grandparents this week because the show does have a strict two person tragedy limit and it was being taken up by La Voix doing Couple’s Choice and George doing a Familial Tragedy Rumba that was just a Couple’s Choice wearing a John Lewis 100% Egyptian cotton sheet like a Halloween ghost

this is almost as spectacular a conceptual backfiring as Tom Fletcher’s weird couple’s choice and if Cynthia Erivo was here, she would’ve destroyed this boy’s life

however, it doesn’t transcend to quite the same heights because Alexis doesn’t have the same manic glint in the eyes of a woman on the edge of a breakdown as Amy does

the judges were generally very kind to George for what was decidedly *not* a rumba and ought to have been his Couple’s Choice but nooooooooooooo, they had to waste that on the algorithm pandering Kpop Demon Hunters routine in Movie Week that had absolutely no relevance to anything in George’s life. And if they did that to George, God I am so excited for when Amber has to Couple’s Choice to “Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer” in Musicals Week while Alex Kingston does an American Smooth to Defying Gravity with Amber watching on like sad Kermit on the balcony

sorry babe, all they had to say was “off-puttingly sexy cat dance with questionably incestuous overtones” and Nikita signed away the rights to both his and your souls

they said he could have an anatomically correct amount of feline nipples, how was he meant to say no, Amber?

While most of the judges were willing to go along with George having done a “modern lyrical rumba” – even getting a pardon from the Rumba Tyrant herself

Craig was having none of it, making direct eye contact with George’s mum in the audience, who the dance was dedicated to and has been through HELL in the last few years, and essentially said “at least his fans will vote for him but if he’s in the bottom 2, it’s curtains for your son and his sad dog eyes”

and curse you, fans of miscellaneous white boys with podcasts! We could’ve had the wildest bottom two in a long time with Vicky jiving like someone trying to beat commuter traffic and George doing everything except a rumba. But no, it was Balvinder vs Vicky in a tableau of every stage of grief

You’ve got
1. Contemplating Arson
2. Thinking about a sandwich
3. Blind panic
4. Knowing You’ve Got To Drag A Dead Body Through a Jive AGAIN?

and here are the safe couples and their Safety Sex Faces

Balvinder is now competing with Jamelia for the title of Bottom Two Goddess Supreme. Jamelia got eliminated on her fifth Dance Off, and surviving a fifth one is a truly wild concept. HOWEVER, the important this to remember is that La Voix is dancing a Samba in Blackpool which is an almost certain death sentence. But we do also know everyone else’s routines
– Amber has Quickstep
– George has Salsa
– Karen has Paso Doble
– La Voix is being murdered by a Samba
– Lewis has Charleston

leaving Alex and Balvinder as the only unknowns with a jive floating between the two of them – the only times a jive hasn’t been performed in Blackpool was in series 15 and 8, the latter of which had a running order that looked like THIS

somehow this might be the most heinous thing Strictly has done in Blackpool – what a horrible evening of television. But given the special guests this week were Olly Murs and Diversity, apparently the show is keen to throw it back to 2010.

My guess is one of them has a Jive with the other getting an Argentine Tango, and I just can’t see them making Alex do a jive but I can already hear the collective thigh rubbing over her ganchos. It’d also give her a chance to prove she can dance to traditional music while also making a good change of pace from her frothy waltzing visit to the Oti Mabuse Memorial Jetty

it has been reduced in size ever since Oti flung herself from it in a moment that has come the closest to a broken back this show has ever seen

that however wouldn’t stop Johannes shoving in the most illegal lift you’ve ever seen

nor would this stop Motsi Mabuse from making a suicide joke at 19:03 on BBC1 and cackling at it

the whole thing goes completely unpenalized by the judges – remember how Craig went in on Nikita and Ellie Simmons for doing the same thing in their weird Apprentice themed Paso Doble?

Len Goodman is rolling in his grave! This show used to have honour, now all we have is a lawless playground of trage-rumbas and… there’s a Paso Doble somewhere in this swamp of fetish gear and baby oil if you look hard enough

give me two more weeks, a Costa Coffee gift card worth £50 and access to Jstor and I can write you a 10,000 word academic essay on why this routine is about gender dysphoria. My super secret favourite genre of dance on this show is Weird Gender Stuff Involving a Mirror and while I loved Nikita Kuzmin’s Ballad of Autogynephilic Perversion, nothing will ever beat Uncracked TransMasc Lulu

for the life of me, 14 years later, I truly cannot think of what narrative Brendan was aiming for but it’s nearly as gay as Motsi slamming the desk screaming “WE NEED THE RAINBOW!” after La Voix did a theatre jazz routine to Barbra Streisand – a braver ally has never existed

whereas, it’s obviously super clear what Nikita was going for – “what if Dorian Grey was also Buffalo Bill”. I said it once, and I’ll say it again: that partnership with Layton Williams unlocked something in Nikita: freedom of expression, an unshackling from Big Gender™, access to London’s most Machiavellian tailor

every night Johannes goes and writes a furious entry into his diary about how everyone’s ignoring his bespoke cape and matching hat collection because of this oily little twunk

Diary Dearest,
It’s only gone and happened again. I, draped in silk – resplendent, regal, possibly overdressed for 18:30 on BBC2 but I give the people what they want: FASHION. I hit my stride – a veritable strut and then I smell him before I see him. In walks that ball of KY Jelly and cheap cologne – single pearl earring glinting as fake as those BAUBLES on his arms. He wouldn’t know a look if it poked him in his beady little nipples! I’ve been wearing kaftans since before he could walk. He can have his polyester knock offs – he’ll never know couture. At least my silk is real and yet this Godforsaken show insists on sending me where? THE WOODS? I made the runners remove all brambles and scare away every bird in a 2 miles radius – it was a terrible day to pack only cashmere. Terrible for them, I’ve never felt better. Perhaps I should take a constitutional more often – it would be a wonderful excuse to buy a spare set of backup loafers for my other back up loafers? And perhaps a cane? Or is that gilding the lily? Curses, I fear that hunk of sexy pizza grease is rubbing off on me. It’s a sartorial emergency – I should go to HR, I think we have one of those?

Regards
Mr. J. Radebe

Johannes is so focused on his war of couture, he forgot he had to keep an eye on the potential horrors that Vicky Gill and her island of misfit seamstresses could do to his dance partner

I truly don’t know what this garment even is. It’s a hospital gown that desperately wants to be a coat dress and combined with their routine being about Johannes confronting his fear of a lightly wooded area (put him on Hamza’s show IMMEDIATELY)

it very much reminds me of when you accidentally give one your Animal Crossing villagers a towel wrap and you end up with Beardo walking around your cute cottage core island looking like someone’s recently divorced dad

La Voix was also in a dressing gown but you know, at least she took it off! She probably shouldn’t have, but she did!

I admire the bravery of doing a jazzy couples choice after Lewis essentially pissed all over the genre and claimed it as his own, especially one that attempts a tap section

you’d get more tap from slapping a pair of dead mackerel against the floor. This routine was not great, I think it does a good job of screaming “SHOWBIZ!” at your face and serving as a launch pad for a coup to overthrow Jools Holland and replace him with La Voix. The routine itself is just turgid – it repeats itself roughly three times over, it cannot be called synchronised in a single timezone and I think ultimately it was the wrong week deploy this – it needed a group number to make the big band chorus line section work. It probably also would’ve suited La Voix better to lean more into a musical theatre quickstep – it’s been 6 years, you can just redo Ashley and Pasha’s version, it’s fine

and for maximum Couple’s Choiceness, make her perform it in her mother’s wedding dress

I can’t think of a bigger compliment of your wedding dress than having your son growing up to be a drag queen and having it tailored to fit him. Aljaz however looked like La Voix had just pulled out a suit made entirely out of the skin of every one of his former partners

to be fair it is a little bit… “mental breakdown but in a fun way!” And after all the talk about how La Voix lost her mum really recently, for the whole dance to open with her lovingly looking at a photo of… Lily Savage!? I scream laughed

But ultimately, who cares if La Voix is flat footed and dancing a bit like a zoo penguin begging for frozen fish, she caught that stick and that’s enough for Shirley to score her a 9

ok Shirls, she’s a 45 year old drag queen not an 18 year old spaniel with glaucoma, be for real.
For reference, that’s the same score Shirley gave Lewis performing a very normal Tango of which the only problem was a slight left arm placement literally not 10 minutes before La Voix did her Club Penguin Chatroom Shuffle

I would also have deducted a point for this hate crime of a makeup job

he’s such a good looking guy, how did you make him look like the halfway point of an Animorphs cover about a girl that can turn in a dolphin!?

he’s bordering on the same levels of unrecognisable as Luba running around looking like Dr. Frank N. Furter reading the news in 1987 during the pro dance this week

the worst part? I’m not even 100% sure it’s a wig so much as the hair and makeup department distressing the hell out of Luba’s actual hair. This pro dance with Diversity was pretty spectacular, as disappointing as it is that none of them are small enough to crawl out of a duffle bag as it

Perrie now has to enter through a dog door big enough for a great dane

I am still entertained by how little the laws of gravity seem to apply to the members of Diversity. And as impressive as they are, I can’t help but feel that Jowita’s lethal ponytail

and Nancy… vaginally slamming a man to death(?) kind of stole the show?

I don’t understand why they won’t give Nancy a partner? Sure, she almost killed Will Mellor with a feverish depressive episode of a rumba, but c’mon! That’s not even the most ill-advised rumba anymore! You think I’m talking about George and Alexis’s home birth floor show

BUT I’M NOT. Because the final boss of wild rumba choices, will always have to be Adam Thomas’s rumba to his first dance song being… Dancing On My Own??????? THE CALUM SCOTT VERSION

heterosexuality must be stopped

so we’ve hit another 2 week stretch of Katya doing very normal (for Strictly) routines and will imaginably go absolutely bonkers with the Charleston in Blackpool

the fact it’s to an Arctic Monkeys song of all things is enough of a portent to potential batshittery. I know a lot of people are raising eyebrows at the song choice but as someone who has a whole alternative metal Charleston planned to Cabaret by North of Never that I will never shut up about, I see the vision. I would also trust my life with any and all nonsense that Katya wants to do, I don’t think you really have much choice in the matter with her. You can go have a fake argument with the wall about veganism

my most favourite genre of routine might be Professional Dancers Accidentally Experiencing Gender Dysphoria, however a close second is Strictly Attempting Feminism Or Something (see Example 1.A: Nancy Killing A Man With Her Bodyslamming Clitoris – that’s ✨girl power✨) as we go to Carlos’s Dungeon where Karen has been taken prisoner

truly obsessed with the best shorthand for the concept of this routine they could think of was a series of sinister keys dangling for the ceiling. However much the person having to design these custom AR graphics is getting paid, it’s not enough! I guarantee you My Evil Husband’s Big Gothic Keys and Planet Ice Cream do not come in Blender’s premade database

I did really like Karen’s routine – I’m a sucker for slightly darker ballroom and I think it suits Karen who, for better or worse, tends to dance a lot more sharply and intensely. I’m very excited for her Paso Doble next week but I worry that’s the end of the dances that really suit her style – she’s used up her two Tangos and I’m not sure they’ll let her get away with two instances of Empowering Female Trouser Ballroom

They’re going to demand a light and airy waltz at some point which I think could potentially tank Karen. It’s that, or Carlos’s grip on his own mental fortitude

(Karen already being on the brink of tear and desperately trying not to cry even harder as Carlos does the most nuclear ugly crying you’ve ever seen – CINEMA!)

Because Stefan Dennis became the third dead tendon of the series, we are down to a three couple final, which is hard not to see as being George, Lewis and Alex at this point. If anyone else had floundered their big emotional breakthrough dance like George, they’d be out in two weeks times. However, the show has put a lot of eggs in that beige basket so they can’t turf him out now – I give it barely 2 months before they announce his BBC Sounds podcast. Their biggest predicament is to make it feel like George has earned it, rather than just been handed the win because of a mobilied fanbase.

Karen has enough public support to get her to the semi-finals, I’m positive of that and I think even if she lands in the bottom before then it’s against Amber, La Voix or Balvinder and I think the judges certainly prioritise her over the latter two and still choose to save her for whatever reasons they can muster during Amber’s Musicals Week humbling. The Predicted Winner Projection has certainly whittled it down to Alex, Karen, Lewis and George

and you can vote for who you think will win after Week 8 HERE.
And you can also vote for Vicky’s Highs and Lows HERE.