Dancing with the Stars: In her 30's

There have been plenty of adjectives used to describe Kristi Yamaguchi and her dancing this season.

Excellent, scintillating, disconnected, beautiful, yummy — take your pick. One that I hadn't really heard before last night was, you know, fun. Kristi and Mark's jive (pictured, right) was fun last night.

Thanks to her thoroughly enjoyable and up-tempo routine, Kristi found the missing ingredient to her peerless technical prowess and finally scored a perfect 30. To be honest, I didn't catch the whole performance live because I was doing dishes, so I checked it out on YouTube. I guess some of Tiger Woods' awesomeness rubbed off on her during their visit to his charity function. And if visiting one of the most well-known athletes in the world wasn't enough for Kristi, we also learned that she grew up with clubbed feet, in yet another manufactured rehearsal package bit meant to make us think that Kristi might struggle this week. Kristi didn't struggle. She can't struggle. She's the best dancer this year.

Too bad a woman can't win this show.

Speaking of manufactured rehearsal footage, let's talk about the painfully forced showmance between Shannon and Derek (I kind of hate using the word showmance, so my apologies). I noticed the producers wanted us to think there was something up between these two during last week's recap, but this week, they did away with any trace of subtlety. Shannon once again professed how much she cared for Derek, who managed to stay out of the hospital this week and bring her flowers.

As if that wasn't enough, the two took a romantic trip to the beach, where they were all over each other, when they should've been working on a lovely, but awkward rumba, Shannon's second rough performance in a row. I've seen Shannon pull it together before, and I think she can do it again.

Unfortunately, that's not really the case with Marlee. The wheels are completely coming off there. She had her second consecutive "painful-to-watch" performance in a row, during her mambo with Fabian, the world mambo champion. I guess, a nice thing I could say is that Fabian looked great — too bad his talent just spotlighted how out of her element Marlee was. She's struggling mightily and seems to have hit her ceiling, and with the contestants dancing two routines from here on out, I don't see how she can get any better. She's had a very nice run on this show, and I think that it's time for her to (and that she will) go home. At least she can say she rocked a turquoise and tiger-striped outfit once in her life.

Coming in second place for the evening's "creepiest moment" award was Mario dedicating an overly sexy rumba to his adorable little brother — and then telling him not to watch. Despite the fact that Karina appeared to be in her underwear with a bed sheet wrapped around her, the couple delivered a second stellar performance in a row. Mario was a bit more aggressive than last week, but he was still on the smooth side of the smooth/overly-aggressive fence. I hope he stays there.

The remaining three couples were the biggest surprises of the evening.

Of course, the aforementioned "creepiest moment" award goes to Len threatening to bare his bum in a supermarket if Cristian and Cheryl return to the bottom two. Thankfully, Cristian turned in his best dance to date, so I'm fairly sure I can walk into a Publix Wednesday morning and not have to worry about running into the increasingly creepy DANCMSTR. Anyway, back to Cristian and his fox trot, which he picked up after a visit to the pool. He was fluid, and his footwork was great (as Bruno noted) and he looked dashing and debonair (not everyone can pull of both of those). Maybe the overtly Latin Cristian really is better suited for ballroom. Who knew?

Also turning in her best work of the season was Marissa, who delivered a lovely waltz, which I was ready to give a ten, until she kind of screwed up in the end. Nevertheless, her movements were nimble, graceful and (thankfully) spazz free. At least until they announced her score of 27 and she went ape shit.

Finally, there was Jason, who opened the night by stepping up to Len's challenge to dance more and delivered a subpar cha cha cha. His hip action just wasn't there, but at least his lines were still beautiful (take a shot every time Carrie Ann compliments his "beautiful lines"). Either way, it's not a great sign when the most entertaining part of his dancing (other than the end of the routine where Edyta made like she was going to fall on him, and he catches her) last night was his and Edyta's visit to a freestyle, hip-hop class. I don't know why, but the idea of Edyta regularly hanging around a hip-hop class (with a dude named Sho-Tyme) makes me chuckle.

His performance wasn't bad by any means, but Jason needs to step his solo dancing if he wants to make it to the freestyle round of the finals, which he slyly mentioned last night.

As for the big country-themed group dance — what's there to say? It was mostly a hot tranny mess, and it was really nice that no one was seriously injured during their lifts. I also found it curious that Kristi and Jason were chosen as the leaders for the sheriffs and the outlaws respectively. Could ABC BE setting this up as the final matchup anymore?

So what'd you think of this episode? Did Kristi deserve the season's first 30? (And was was up with Mark's glasses during that jive?) Should Mario and Karina have been penalized for their lift? Is there anyone that can stop a Jason/Kristi final? Finally, who do you think is going home?