Dancing with the Stars: Three-style

Crowning the season 12 winner of “Dancing with the Stars” will come down to the fans. (It will also come down to “not Kirstie Alley.”)

With Hines Ward and Chelsea Kane tied atop the judges’ leader board at the end of the final performance episode, it’s up to voters to push their favorite to the top.

Although I still think Chelsea is the most talented dancer this season, Hines and Kym has been my favorite partnership all season and I enjoy watching them dance more. (The fact that I mostly can’t stand Mark Ballas probably has a little something to do with this.)

Even before Kym suffered that scary spine injury last week, I have a feeling Hines and Kym had most of the “Dancing” nation behind him, so I expect them to pull out the win. Chelsea, meanwhile, can join the likes of Gilles Marini and Stacey Keibler on the list of Best Dancers In Their Season Who Didn’t Actually Win.

Even Kirstie Alley can take solace in the fact that she lost a considerable amount of weight…and in the fact that Maks won’t be psychologically terrorizing her anymore.

See? Everybody wins! Let’s break down last night’s final three couples, in order of appearance.

Chelsea Kane and Mark: This is the week where the judges visit the remaining three couples, and I think they were all extremely helpful. (Although pretty much any reality show judge seems helpful these days when compared to the fiasco of a judging panel on “American Idol” this year.)

Carrie Ann stopped by and helped Chelsea get in touch with her womanly side by teaching her some impressive body rolls and hip swivels. One of my main complaints during Chelsea’s Latin dances is her disappointing hip action. She absolutely corrected that during the Judges’ Choice samba, which was her best Latin dance of the season. I still think she could benefit from adopting some of Kirstie Alley’s slinkier movements, but Mark’s choreography is so ambitiously over-stuffed that there’s just no time. Still, this was a big improvement!

Did someone say “ambitiously overstuffed”?! That was the theme for the pair’s “Tron”-ish freestyle. Wow, Mark and his partner are so young and hip! (Gag.) In all seriousness though, youth and athleticism is this couple’s biggest advantage, so why not use it? The fact that Chelsea pulled off this incredibly difficult routine packed with challenging lifts meant that she deserved the three 10s she got. The battery that was supposed to power her hands and feet, on the other hand, gets a 5 from me.

Kirstie Alley and Maks: Bruno stopped by this couple’s rehearsal space and encouraged Kirstie to take more moments for herself during the dances. He also encouraged her to be more assured with her movements, but I still saw some tentativeness in their samba. Kirstie’s routine was always going to look a little tame (and lame) after Chelsea and Mark’s borderline psychotic samba, but the judges made sure to point out (for the 100th time) that Chelsea and Kirstie’s styles are very different. Overall, Kirstie did a good job.

I wish I could say the same about their hot mess of a freestyle, which I’m putting up there with Marie Osmond’s doll-themed freestyle on the disaster scale. I loved how you could tell that Maks did NOT want to do lifts, but felt compelled to throw them in just because it’s the freestyle round. To their credit, their very first lift was lovely. Unfortunately, everything else that followed was bad. Kirstie and Maks seemed out of synch when the music sped up and when Kirstie came out of doing her cartwheel. On the plus side: Kirstie Alley can do a cartwheel!

Hines Ward and Kym: I wasn’t a fan of Hines’ first quickstep, but Len was able to straighten him out by fondling Hines’ deltoids and fixing his frame and posture. Hines and Kym’s quickstep was completely charming and probably my favorite dance of the night. (Poor Kym, having to rehearse in a neck brace.)

I was a little worried about the couple for the freestyle round. As Maks solemnly pointed out, you’re expected to bust out lifts during the freestyle and that’s precisely how Kym almost got paralyzed. Fortunately, the solution was an incredibly clever halftime show-themed routine that displayed several dancing styles and included relatively low-risk lifts. (Except for the lift at the end, which was awesome and perfectly timed to the music.) Objectively, it wasn’t better than Chelsea and Mark’s routine, but I enjoyed it more…and I think that pretty much sums up this year’s contenders for the Mirrorball Trophy.

So what’d you think of this episode? Which judge would you want to counsel you? Does Kirstie have ANY chance of winning? Finally, who’s going to win — Hines or Chelsea?