‘Dancing With The Stars’ Finals Recap: Riker Lynch, Rumer Willis & Noah Galloway Vie For Mirror Ball

Dancing With the Stars’ season 20 finale featured boy band singer and actor Riker Lynch, actress Rumer Willis and Iraq War veteran Noah Galloway competing to claim the coveted Mirror Ball Trophy.

Dancing With The Stars Finals Recap

For their first dances of the evening, the contestants had to choose one of their prior performances with the goal of improving upon the original.

Noah Galloway & Sharna Burgess

Dancing their Argentine Tango from the middle of the season, Noah and Sharna did their best to prove that they belong in the Dancing With the Stars finals. Despite the confidence Noah built up over the weeks, his nerves got the best of him. After messing up on a step, he was shaky on one of the lifts. The judges agreed that it was a nervous performance, but an improvement nonetheless. Scores: 8+8+8+8

Riker Lynch & Allison Hoker

Allison wisely decided to bring back Riker’s crowd-pleasing Pirates of the Caribbean themed-Paso Doble. While the dance was stellar the first time around, it was impeccable the second time around, even earning a standing ovation from Len Goodman, who said, “That was epic.”  Scores: 10+10+10+10

Rumer Willis & Val Chmerkovskiy

Rumer and Val opted to bring back their Foxtrot to Hozier’s “Take Me To Church” from the very first episode of the season. With the confidence she’s built up over the weeks, Rumer looked like a professional dancer. After the camera panned to a teary Bruce Willis, the judges weighed in. Bruno Tonioli called it “pure ballroom bliss,” while Julianne Hough said it was “flawless.” Scores: 10+10+10+10

Following the reboot performances, Noah, Riker and Rumer had to wow the judges and the voting audiences with the much-anticipated freestyle performances, for which their pro partners choreographed some daring routines.

Noah Galloway & Sharna Burgess

Sharna designed a deeply personal and emotional freestyle dance for Noah, whom she wanted to use his pain to give it some extra emotion. “I think it’s going to be powerful because it’s real,” Noah said before they performed their routine to “Titanium”. Sharna’s choreography teamed with Noah’s progress made it easily his best performance of the competition. Bruno said that he “transcended dance.” Scores: 10+10+10+10

Riker Lynch & Allison Hoker

In rehearsals, Allison was more emotional than Riker, expressing her belief that without him she’d never have gotten this far in the competition. For their final dance, outfitted in top hats, they modernized old Hollywood dance with a song that kept speeding up. Riker’s performance drew comparisons to Fred Astaire, and “brought the past into the present.” Scores: 10+10+10+10

Rumer Willis & Val Chmerkovskiy

Val has brought three other stars to the DWTS finals, but has never won and was  really was feeling the pressure to choreograph something perfect for Rumer. Instead of going over the top, Val designed a stripped down dance to “Toxic” that had all of the focus on the dance moves. Bruno said that the routine had a “bewitching intensity.” Scores: 10+10+10+10

The winner of the 20th season of Dancing With the Stars will be announced Tuesday night during the finals.