So You Think You Can Dance - Air Date June 7

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Unless your wacky antics are broadcast over the continent for all to see.
We've finally got through the initial stages of auditions, and the worst thing that could happen now to most dancers is that, hey, they got a free trip to Sin City. It's the Las Vegas stage where those who got through now get to prove they've got what it takes to make it to the final stage and the audience voting. Everyone was excited and happy but you know that's not going to last for long.
I'll tell you one thing, if you have body issues that keep you from being seen outside of anything short of a burqa beside a swimming pool, seeing that many dancers' bodies in the sun isn't going to help any. Just take comfort in their future of leathery skin.
So what happens now in case you missed it is that each day a different choreographer teaches a routine to the dancers, and the judges then score them anywhere from 0 to 3 with 15 being the maximum possible score with all five judges combined. One thing this round shows is how important training is for this process. More on that later.
This is already not going to be pretty. People who feel like they're good enough to win the competition aren't going to take it well if they get a low score, and sure enough, many people don't. But we've already seen pissed off and sad people in the first round. Now it's time to roll out the crazy!
Oooh, we're not going to get there yet though! We need to build up to that! What's comedy without tragedy? Claire Calloway, sad Claire Calloway. She was doing well, but had hurt her foot. A trip to the doctor finds that she had bruised it badly enough that it was strongly recommended to her that she not dance. But not our Claire. She's a trooper and is ready and raring to go. Nigel puts on his human skin and does something really decent, he tells her that he's not going to let her go on, but next season she can come back right to the Vegas stage without the initial audition. Unspoken are the words, "providing we get a third season."
I hope she uses this year well. More training, watch the show and see what's expected, and mature as a dancer. This could actually be the best thing that could have happened to her, and I wish her the best and hope her foot heals quickly.
Now back to the fun!
Lynn Rae, who did well in the initial auditions, but not so much in her first dance in Vegas. She got lucky though and with the rest of the dancers in her group got a second chance. They had to be back to start ballroom choreography in ten minutes, time she wisely used to go back to her room and refocus and change. In ten minutes. In her room, she seems to have dressed herself for a night out partying. Because, you know, never mind that at this point it's ABOUT THE DANCING!
All the other female dancers were there and ready for this important point in the process, but dear sweet Lynn Rae was nowhere to be found, and Nigel noticed this. This can only lead to a fairy tale ending.
Somehow Lynn - is "Rae" her surname or a second first name like in "Mary Ann"? - defied time and space and made it in time to start learning the next bit of choreography. Let's SAMBA!
She did so-so. Not bad enough to be cut immediately, but she had to come back later and do a solo to earn her way on.
In an interview outside of the stage area, she's crying but I swear she seems drunk. It's easy to feel bad for her, but at the same time get the impression that she's not emotionally stable enough to handle anything that could result in rejection. Maybe she could teach dance, because she's still much better than some of the dance teachers who auditioned. Or maybe not, because as nice as I'm sure she is, she's not someone who did a good job on national television of making herself look like someone you want around your children.
Later on she comes back and does her solo... dance? There was a lot of running, and she wrote all over herself which isn't nutty at all. Run, Lynn Rae, run! Sadly it wasn't in German with three alternate endings.
On to other contestants. Two of them, Andrew Something who go incredibly low scores and Ryan Sabado who did about as well as Lynn Rae and got to do a solo (which ended in one of the most spectacular falls to the head yet) didn't take their ousters well, though Andrew wasn't as distraught as Ryan. Basically they were left wondering if dancing is really for them. Here's the thing, if you want to be a professional dancer, if you can't take low scores in a competition well enough to want to do better or rejection in an audition as motivation to keep going until you nail it, then maybe dancing really isn't for you.
There's only one other person I really want to bring up from this episode. Hawk, the last surviving member of the SickStep crew. He was struggling with the choreography, but did well enough to stay in the competition. Talking to the camera, he told us how unprepared he was for all of what's taking place. Now another member of SickStep, and I've mentioned this before, is Ryan from season one. Earlier this season when the rest of the crew was auditioning, Ryan was there giving them support. However it doesn't seem like he's talked to them about his experience on the show. If he did, you'd think the others would have known what to expect, and maybe taken a few lessons to learn some basics and be ready for the choreography.
Hawk had one of the more unusual reactions of anyone ever. He managed to get the chance to go on further, and was very upset by this. He really felt he didn't deserve to be there with all those people with all those years of training. I felt for him, and I want him to take this chance to grow as a dancer. Next season between his experience in addition to Ryan's, if they actually choose to share it with the others, we could well see another SickStepper make it to the audience voting, and possibly even further than Ryan.