"Dancing with the Stars": Hope Solo is out of hope
Who knows how much the votes really matter? It's not as if the producers wheel out an accountant to verify any of the results. Do we really know that someone in Nebraska voted for Rob Kardashian 12 times? We do not.
Still, here we were to witness the final three being announced on the results show, and one sole dancing star being tossed to the curb. That sole dancing star proved to be, unsurprisingly, Hope Solo.
Pictures: "Dancing with the Stars" Season 13
So what was going on behind the billowing scenes of the previous night? Well, Cheryl Burke - she who is trying to drag Rob Kardashian away from puberty and toward adulthood - yelled, "Yeah, baby!" as their samba reached its climax. Regretfully, before their next dance, Kardashian declared: "I really have to pee."
"No way," retorted his ever-forceful partner. "Are you pregnant?"
If only. Such an eventuality would surely take the Kardashian franchise to new and even more elegant heights. "Keeping Rob with the Kardashians." Or "Rob Kardashian: About a Boy and His Boy."
It should be noted that a large-scale petition has been launched to remove all Kardashians from the televisions screens of America. The person behind the petition declared: "We feel that these shows are mostly staged and place an emphasis on vanity, greed, promiscuity, vulgarity and over-the-top conspicuous consumption."
Shame on such cynicism. And shame on this crude attempt to cast a shadow on the Little Boy Kardashian's attempt to emerge from beneath his sisters' copious skirts.
Soon, thankfully, we were told he would be gracing the finals. This, despite his difficult grasp of the essences of movement, posture and, well, music. Take that, you Small-Bottomed Envy-Peddlers.
"Kiss my booty," Hope Solo was heard to say after she was offered a mere 7 by the judges for her paso doble. Sadly, her booty was surely about to kiss the show goodbye.
Solo had given such a spectacular exhibition of defensive drama-queendom during the whole competition that it was hardly a surprise when she was told that she was in jeopardy -- translation: you'll be up there at the end wondering if you're about to be eliminated.
Just to ratchet up the tension, we had to then witness Kermit the Frog singing. Was I alone in thinking he was dead? Perhaps.
Also still alive are those two miserable old men who used to sit on the balcony during Muppet Shows. They must be at least 105. This night, they were at the judges' table. Sadly, they had left their humor up in the rafters. Even host Tom Bergeron couldn't believe he was being forced to participate in this Mupperteering. It's bad enough pulling off a rehearsed joke with Len Goodman.
Being Bergeron isn't ever easy. There he was attempting to hustle some tension out of the inevitable. With pauses longer than a model's inside leg measurement, Bergeron managed to finally squeak out that J.R. Martinez was in jeopardy.
For those of you who have recently risen from the dead, this didn't mean that the Iraqi war hero was in the bottom two. It merely meant that producers had chosen him this week to participate in the Final Countdown - better known as the Charade of Clairvoyance.
How could America offer more love to Hope Solo than to Martinez? That would have been like America offering more love to Dick Dastardly's Dog than to Snoopy.
Solo decided she wouldn't participate in this nonsense. Even before the result was announced, instead of standing in tense attention, she leaned into partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy, as if to say: "Oh, stuff this crap. Let's go for a Chopin vodka."
Solo offered the required platitudes about how difficult the competition was. She did mention that, perhaps, winning the Mirrorball Trophy might not be quite as significant as winning a soccer medal.
Indeed, it's not quite as significant as making sure you've taken your cat to the vet or your kids to the lice inspectors. That's why we love it so much. It is frivolity given permission to twirl with gravity.
So three remain. Will this be the survival of the fittest? Will deep-seated irrational affections take hold? Will a Kardashian finally prove that they are something more than just a comely figure and a come hither look?
It's a good thing there will be no NBA games to give these finals truly stiff competition.
