S02E10 brings out the dancers' inner divas

Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition, season 2 episode 10 recap

This week's episode is titled "Divas in the House," with a diva theme and an emphasis on performance. To kick off the episode, Abby brought in little Asia, whom she described as the "ultimate diva from season 1," to host a dance battle for the first competition.

Asia pretty much smoked all five of the season 2 dancers. JoJo was doing pretty well until she copied one of Asia's moves. Gianna lost when she laughed and clapped for Asia during their dance-off, but how could you not? That kid is adorable.

Since there was no clear winner, Abby put the two who had done best against Asia (McKaylee and Kalani) to battle each other, while Asia and Abby judged the contest. Kalani won, which earned her the right to the first place on the "diva chain."

This was a complicated, Musical Chairs-style thing, where each dancer got to choose the dance they wanted to perform, and then got to choose the next dancer who got to choose what dance THEY wanted to perform. Long story short, the last dancer got stuck with the dance no one wanted.

The "diva chain" selection method would prove to be many of the dancers' undoing. There were four routines for selection: a number based on Marie Antoinette, a number based on Cleopatra, a hip hop duet based on Nicki Minaj, and a Sassy Jazz routine based on a movie star.

Kalani picked a Sassy Jazz number because she had done well with a Sassy Jazz routine the week before. Both her mother and Abby thought she had chosen poorly, wanting to see her in a slower routine that would show off her strengths a little better.

JoJo made two mistakes. First, she picked the hip hop duet. (Mainly because she had never heard of either Marie Antoinette or Cleopatra.) Then she chose Trinity to go next, and Trinity naturally opted to be her partner in the hip hop duet.

McKaylee chose Cleopatra, and Gianna got stuck with the leftover Marie Antoinette. (Gianna admitted that she too had never heard of Marie Antoinette.)

As the practice began, Cindy continued to be a divisive force backstage. She griped about everything, and bluntly said that "I think the biggest problem I have with Jessalyn is she's stupid."

This week during practice, the other moms walked into Gianna's practice space and sat in on her training session, presumably to psych her out. It was an odd move, and kind of made them all look bad.

The first routine was Gianna's jazz funk piece inspired by Marie Antoinette called "Let Them Eat Cake."

Okay, hold up a second. I just have to stop and say, from a historical perspective, this routine was in poor taste.

Let's talk about Marie Antoinette. She wasn't a sassy diva. She was kind of a psychopath, and her ineptitude as a ruler combined with her relentless "one-percent-ism" as we would call it today, caused the misery and death of thousands of her subjects, and ultimately tore France apart.

The story behind her "let them eat cake" line goes that when told her subjects had no bread to eat and were starving to death, she flippantly responded with those famous words. (In fact there is no evidence that she actually said this line, and contemporary theory holds that it was invented by the French peasantry as libel against her. But it was certainly believable that she would have.)

Marie Antoinette's controlling manner and ostentatiously opulent lifestyle, at a time when the people of France were starving to death, eventually drove the French to storm the Bastille and dismantle the French monarchy over the course of several years (the French Revolution). It was a bloody and brutal war in which the monarchy used lethal force against its own people. She was eventually caught by the revolutionaries, who publicly executed her in 1793.

On the up side, Antoinette's rule was so horrible that it motivated the French to draft up a Constitution and become a democracy, in order to ensure that something like that would never happen again.

And now we have a young dancer performing a jazz funk routine with cake as a defiant punchline.

Let me be clear that I'm not blaming the dancer on this one. In fact, Gianna did a great job with the routine, which - if you'll remember - she didn't even choose.

I basically feel like whoever is in charge of setting up these routines needs to study up on their women's history. The Cleopatra routine trivialized one of the most powerful female rulers, but at least it wasn't tone-deaf to human suffering like the Marie Antoinette routine.

But still, I couldn't just let that go without comment. Anyway!

Abby criticized Gianna on a few technical flaws, and on the state of her shoes. This caused Cindy to turn her wrath on Abby, which I'm sure the other mothers were relieved about. I'm sure if you're on the show, any day that Cindy's wrath is being turned on someone else is a good day for you.

Next up was McKaylee as Cleopatra in a contemporary funk routine called "Queen of the Nile." The idea behind the routine was that it captured Cleopatra on the night before she was crowned the ruler of all of ancient Egypt. Cleopatra was one of the most powerful women in the whole of human history but here she's… I don't know. I give up. You see where I'm going with this.

Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I was afraid it might be. McKaylee brought a strength and dignity to the role, and earned high praise from the judges.

Kalani was third with her Sassy Jazz routine called "Movie Star." Abby continued to gripe about Kalani's choice right up through the judging phase. (LET IT GO.) Richy said "It wasn't bad," which I'm sure stung.

And finally, we had the hip hop duet inspired by Nicki Minaj. (Who is legitimately a diva, and not a historical female political figure. I wonder if season 402 of Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition will feature routines inspired by divas like Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton.)

This duet… oy. JoJo was upstaged by everything, including Trinity, the timing of the routine, and the bejeweled Coke can in her hair. (Perhaps a not-so-subtle tribute to the can Abby wore in her hair in the Lady Gaga episode.)

Trinity did an amazing job, possibly being the only dancer who picked the perfect routine. The only down side to her performance was that poor JoJo was tacked on like an afterthought, constantly a step behind, and unable to perform some of the more difficult moves Trinity broke out.

Abby had nothing to say about Trinity's performance, which I'm sure was a relief to Trinity. The judges were merciless on JoJo's performance, and ultimately JoJo was sent home. (Cut to Cindy, smirking gleefully.)

Image copyright Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition/Lifetime