‘Dancing with the Stars’ Recap: Paige VanZant Tops Finals Leaderboard

The Dancing with the Stars finals Monday night featured finalists Ginger Zee, Paige VanZant and Nyle DiMarco each performing both a Redemption Dance and a Freestyle.

DWTS Finals

Ginger Zee and Val Chmerkovskiy

Ginger and Val’s Redemption dance was a Contemporary routine set to “Adventure Of A Lifetime” by Ray Chew Cover. Val opted to choreograph the number as a medley of their dances throughout the season, starting off on the yellow bench from Disney night. Scores: 9+10+9=28

For their second dance – the Freestyle – Val put together an homage to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In the old school number, Ginger made up for the limitations of her back injury with personality. Scores: 10+10+10=30

Nyle DiMarco and Peta Murgatroyd

Peta staged Nyle’s Quickstep Redemption dance with a cowboy theme – ditching The Mask theme from their original quickstep. While the dance did include an impressive amount of content, Nyle’s footwork was at times sloppy. Scores: 9+9+9=27

Though Nyle’s Quickstep didn’t wow the judges, the same cannot be said for his freestyle, for which Peta brought in a seasoned Contemporary choreographer. The number, which told the story of Nyle’s desire to bring hope to he deaf community, was the best that’s ever been performed on the show, according Carrie Ann Inaba. Scores: 10+10+10=30

Paige VanZant and Mark Ballas

Bringing it back to the second week of the competition, Paige and Mark were tasked with performing an improved Salsa. Mark had been unable to perform the dance with Paige last time due to injury, but brought it all to the dance Monday night. It was fast and fun and the judges loved it. Scores: 10+9+10=29

Taking on a theme of fighting back against one’s bullies, Paige performed an emotional and elegant dance with Mark. The raw performance even brought Mark to tears by the end of it. Scores: 10+10+10=30.

Dancing with the Stars returns Tuesday night on ABC.