“The Bachelorette” star Hannah Brown has had a tumultuous season on “Dancing with the Stars,” with high highs, but also low lows as the judges criticized her lack of emotional connection to certain routines. She redeemed herself during the Semi-Finals, but her scores were so low for one dance that even one of her competitors, James Van Der Beek‘s pro partner Emma Slater, came to her defense. Watch that under-scored routine above, and scroll down to check out her redemption number.
Brown was mentored by Carrie Ann Inaba for her redemption rumba. The last time Brown performed it Inaba criticized it as a cheerleader routine. This time the judges gave her ample praise and 9s across the board for a total of 27 out of 30.
Those numbers were fair enough, but then she ended the night with a contemporary routine inspired by her own experience of falling in and out of love in the public eye during “The Bachelorette” and its aftermath. Contemporary numbers are usually the ticket to perfect 10s, and in fact, Kel Mitchell had just gotten 10s across the board for his contemporary routine a few minutes earlier. I thought Mitchell did a great job, but Brown’s was even better, more difficult, with a clear narrative through-line and risky lifts. But she got all 9s again, which is unusually low for that style of dance on “DWTS.”
After Brown got her scores even Slater expressed her surprise and displeasure, even though a lower score for Brown could have helped Slater, who surprisingly landed at the bottom of the leaderboard with James Van Der Beek. But the surprises didn’t end there. Brown ended up safe from elimination, while Mirror Ball front-runner Van Der Beek not only landed in the bottom two, but was eliminated.
So the bad news for Brown is that she still hasn’t gotten a perfect score from the judges. But the good news is that she’ll get another chance in next week’s finale.
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