Did Dancing With the Stars deliver a stunner in its last results show of the spring? After the past several weeks, one would almost assume so.
To recap, we’ve seen the elimination of Nancy Kerrigan, Simone Biles and Heather Morris, arguably three of the four top stars this year.
ALL BEFORE THE FINALE!
On Monday, that left Normani Kordei of Fifth Harmony fame to battle athletes Rashad Jennings and David Ross for the Mirrorball.
Could Normani stave off a hard-charging Rashad, who was doubly perfect last night, and David, who … gets a lot of fan support?!
One never knows anymore.
The first half of the Dancing with the Stars finale was great in terms of TV to watch, but good luck using it to handicap the results.
The second? Even more so.
Before the winner could be announced, each of the final three still had to dance one last time in a 24 hour fusion challenge.
Only then could they complete their judges’ scores; America, presumably, had already voted for David Ross enough times.
After those final dances, David earned 36 points with all nines, remaining at the bottom with an aggregate total of 109 over two nights.
Normani added a perfect score of 40 to her total and Rashad missed a perfect by one point, nearly making it a trifecta this week.
That put Rashad at 119 and Normani just one point behind at 118 in their final scores, pretty much making this a two-horse race.
Fortunately for NFL running back Jennings, that one nine from Len that kept him from a perfect 120 did not end up mattering.
He won! Congratulations to Rashad!
Jennings, who claimed that despite being a pro athlete, he’d never won anything, was elated along with partner Emma Slater.
Jennings follows in the footsteps of three prior DWTS winners who played in the NFL: Emmitt Smith, Hines Ward and Donald Driver.
Other football stars who have competed: Jerry Rice finished second, Calvin Johnson took third and Lawrence Taylor placed seventh.
Ross, interestingly, was the first Major League Baseball player to compete on DWTS, and he actually survived the third-place announcement.
Yes, Ross beat Normani for second. Dancing With the Stars voters are an interesting bunch, as they’ve shown time and again this year.
Jennings, a 32-year-old free agent, tweeted that he never would have imagined he would appear on the show, let alone win the thing.
But he has done just that.
Ross, 40, who partnered with Lindsay Arnold on his improbably run, wrote that he “couldn’t be happier” for Jennings and Slater.
While Rashad may not be the most surprising addition to the illustrious list of winners above, his season may be the most controversial.
For better or worse, it will likely be remembered for the slew of shocking elimination results that took place before we even got to the finals.
Once there, Rashad acquitted himself extremely well – he did top Normani on points as well – but could he have bested Heather? Simone?
We’ll never know.
The voters have spoken in any case: Did America get it right? Has Dancing With the Stars lost a step after 20-plus seasons? Discuss.
