This week's episode centers around each of our favorite TV Olympic hopefuls getting new choreography on floor. "Jazz hands," Austin Tucker teases, and it reminds me of the "spirit fingers" line in 2000's "Bring It On." The writers have taken more from the decade-old cheerleading movie than just "spirit fingers," as we find out later.
Payson, still struggling with the concept of being an "artistic" gymnast in the sport of artistic gymnastics, is upset when Sasha tells the choreographer that she'll need something lyrical that starts in the middle of the floor and works its way into the corner, rather than something that starts in a corner and leads directly into a tumbling pass. Payson obviously doesn't read message boards, which are filled with gymnastics purists longing for a return of the 80s Soviets and their floor compositions, but no matter.
In her desperation to re-unite her parents, Kaylie asks her father Alex to manage her, and when that appears to make her mother feel left out ("you two...back together at the gym," she comments sadly) Kaylie asks her to manage her too. The idea is that dad will take care of the athletics, while mom handles the PR. But Kaylie's parents quickly clash over the idea of floor music. Mom the recording artist wants something cutting edge and hip hop, while dad wants something slow and dance-y for his "American classic," as he refers to Kaylie.
Carter, with a new haircut that makes his head appear to be a funny shape, is busy in bed with Lauren when she goads him to say he loves her. "Is our whole relationship about sex?" Lauren asks. "No, it's about safe sex," he retorts. Carter has apparently preserved a shred of decency despite his exposure to the toxic Lauren, and tells her that love is something he takes seriously. In short: Yes, it is all about sex.
Lauren whines that she's lost her best friend Kaylie over him and is being looked at as the gym's tramp. So they decide to try romance without sex for awhile, which culminates in a kiss in Lauren's car in front of the gym, which is seen by Kaylie, who backs her car up to get away and almost clips Austin Tucker. "You want to make them jealous?" Tucker asks, and you can see that there's a smarter, more understanding man behind the party boy smirk than we've been led to believe so far. Sure, he seems to oscillate between Emily and Kaylie, but it's not all about sex the way it seems to be for Carter and Lauren.
Despite the good offer, Kaylie is still having none of it when it comes to boys, and chides Emily for accepting a ride to the gym on Austin's "crotch-rocket" despite the fact that Emily had car trouble and was standing by the middle of the road. "Paying attention to boys because they're paying attention to other girls is still paying attention to boys," Lauren reminds her. Kaylie is still barely eating and running 10 miles a day outside of practice, but no one notices.
Kaylie's parents's involvement in their daughter's career inspires Chloe to get more involved in Emily's career. When she asks Steve how to do this, Steve suggests hiring a choreographer to do a custom floor routine for Emily. Lauren's preferred choice of choreographer is Lacey Grimes, who only works with one Olympic hopeful at a time. So Chloe calls Lacey, beating Lauren to the punch, as Lauren is too busy not having sex with her boyfriend.
Lacey Grimes appears nice at first but immediately becomes frustrated with Emily's inability to dance, confirming Emily's perception that she is "the blob" on floor. "You're blocked," she tells Emily. Lauren, pissed off to see Emily learning a routine that would be perfect for her, whines to her father and learns he suggested that Chloe hire a choreographer for Emily. So Lauren makes him promise not to help "the competition" anymore (you can see Emily's "sponsorship" going straight down the tubes here).
Payson actually does highly decent ballet choreography (and an impressive Memmel-style scale at the barre) but they pretend it's horrible for the sake of the show. Meanwhile, Summer discovers two tickets to the "Flight of the Swans" ballet on Sasha's desk. Summer thinks Sasha might ask her to go see it with him, and is disappointed when he asks her to mind the gym instead since he's taking Payson in an attempt to convince her to embrace the whole ballet thing.
Emily stays at the gym late working on her routine in order to be able to show something for the next morning's dance through performance. Tucker arrives and convinces her to go out for a slice of pizza, telling her some problems are best solved out of the gym. Emily vents about all the money being spent on her choreography, and Tucker tells her that she should take advantage of every resource offered to her, and that she's worth every penny. When Emily, assuming she's talking to some priviledged Olympian, tells him about her family's struggles, Austin talks about the sacrifices his family made for training, including living in a van for three months when he changed gyms and moved to Texas.
Turns out Tucker isn't such a party boy, but lets people think he is because it suits his image. "Fancy-schmancy people aren't all they're cracked up to be," he says. "All in, Emily. You have to believe you're worth it."
Sasha, in suit and tie, picks a dressed-up Payson up at her house in what looks for all the world like a date (Told ya last week there was more sexual tension between Payson and Sasha than between Sasha and Summer). "Flight of the Swans" turns out to be a modernish retelling of "Swan Lake" done by a rather flat-footed ballerina named Jaedyn who seems to be more ugly duckling than anything else. Payson loves it. Meeting her before the show, Payson mistakes Jaedyn for the stage manager. Meeting her after, she is far more enthusiastic. Which brings one to the point: "Grace and elegance come from inside," Jaedyn tells her. "If you feel it, others will see it."
Kaylie's dance through performance, combining classical and hip hop styles, is such an unmitigated mess that even her parents realize it ("This is our fault, isn't it?" one asks the other as they sit and cringe, along with everyone else in the gym and viewers at home). Lauren tells Kaylie about Emily and Austin's pizza "date" the night before, which puts an end to the purity ring nonsense Kaylie instituted a couple episodes back. Lauren also tells Kaylie that Carter has been saying he loves Lauren, even though he hasn't.
Lauren, stuck without the best choreographer, simply steals the routine Emily's been learning and performs it to jazzy music (Again with "Bring It On." Fun fact: Cassie Scerbo had a lead role in the cheerleading franchaise's fourth movie, "Bring It On: In It to Win It," which mercifully went straight to DVD in 2007.) Lauren's routine meets with general approval -- "At least someone knows the choreography," Lacey Grimes says snidely to Emily. Faced with this latest humiliation, Emily storms out of the gym. It's a proud moment if you're an Austin Tucker fan -- Tucker marches up to Carter and tells him point-blank that his girlfriend stole Emily's routine, then rushes out to tell Emily to get back in the gym and do the routine better than Lauren. "You're worth spending the money," he says forcefully. "You're worth being the best." Turns out he's a good guy after all.
Emily marches back in and performs the routine (to different music than Lauren's) and it's a bigger hit than Lauren's, even to Grimes. Lauren of course doesn't see it that way, and gloats about her supposed victory to Carter. "That was a really lousy thing you did out there," Carter tells her. He adds that he can't love her bad side, which causes her to do things like that to other people.
Enlightened by Kim that Summer likes him, Sasha asks Summer out on a date.
The curtain falls on this episode with Payson, in a ballet leotard, walking onto the floor of the now-empty gym and performing her highly balletic new routine.
Storylines that are getting tired: Payson's whole "I'm not a ballerina" deal, and Sasha and Summer's duet (just make out already). I'll be looking for new drama next week.
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