‘So You Think You Can Dance’ season 18 finale recap: Did Dakayla, Anthony or Madison win the grand prize?
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Last week, after a few up-and-down weeks where he showed tremendous technical precision but perhaps not enough versatility or confidence, Easton Magliarditi was sent home from “So You Think You Can Dance” in fourth place, leaving three to compete for the grand prize in the season 18 finale episode: Madison Alvarado, Anthony Curley and Dakayla Wilson. So what happened in “The Finale” when the judges crowned a new champion?
The episode begins with a smooth-as-silk Luther Brown-choreographed routine highlighting the finalists to “Fly as Me” by Silk Sonic. And they’re joined by seven special guest stars: the rest of this season’s top 10 contestants. But we’re here to find out who wins this whole thing, so what does tonight’s competition entail? Host Cat Deeley explains that Madison, Anthony and Dakayla will each dance a duet with an eliminated contestant of their choice. Based on those performances, judges Allison Holker, Maksim Chmerkovskiy and JoJo Siwa will eliminate one contestant and narrow the competition to the final two. Those last dancers standing will then perform one last solo to decide who wins “SYTYCD.”
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Flash back to rehearsals, where the finalists’ duet partners are revealed. We start with Madison, who chose Braylon Browner as her dance partner for a jazz-funk routine. “I chose Braylon because I love a dancer who gives 150% energy.” The choreographers for the routine are Tucker Barkley and Kayla Radomski, whom Madison describes as perfectionists just like her. “Madison is a performer. She is a full-force-all-the-time dancer,” says Kayla. Tucker describes one “tricky” lift that they’re attempting in the performance: “There’s a lot of weight dynamics, and if you give too much at any point, it falls.” Madison feels “extremely stressed” throughout the process. And no wonder. Every time Braylon drops her, she damn near breaks her neck. Poor girl has been injured enough this season.
JoJo visits Madison and Braylon during their rehearsals. They show the judge what they’ve been working on, but “the one thing I’ve been craving all season is someone to have eye contact with us three going crazy,” JoJo tells them. “Whatever you have in your tank, use it all. It is the last time you will be on this stage.” Madison declares after performing for JoJo, “I’m not going to let my hip affect me in any way. I cannot give less than 100, especially on show day. Trust that.”
Show day comes, and it’s time for Madison and Braylon to perform. I personally prefer their side-by-sides to their partner work, and the big lift is kind of a letdown. It’s hard to tell if it was even executed as planned. They looked a little tentative doing it, but the routine gets a standing ovation from the judges. JoJo praises her for her “versatility,” from the elegance and poise of movie week to the hard-hitting intensity of this duet. Maks calls Madison a femme fatale, “amazing.” She’s ready for “any job, any opportunity, and every spotlight.” Allison calls her the season’s most consistent dancer, and she’s happy to see Braylon again on the stage. But when the judges confer privately, Maks wonders if it was competitive enough, and he noticed a moment where she broke eye contact with the judges.
Anthony’s duet is next. He has teamed up with Mariyah Hawkins for a routine choreographed by Diana Matos and season two alum Ivan Koumaev. “She’s literally the queen of movement,” says Anthony about his choice. “The piece that we’re doing, me and Mariyah are kind of these western bandits, and we just robbed a bank,” he explains. “This is my last hurrah moment, and I’ve got to make it really special.” Sounds kinda gimmicky to me, but Anthony did a killer job in character during the “Frankenstein” routine in movie week. This time, though, rehearsals get tricky to the point where “I have to turn off my personality” in order to focus on learning the moves. Hopefully he can marry the character with the choreography.
Maks is the one who visits Anthony and Mariyah to preview what they’ve been working on. “Remember, the connection is going to be just as important as the physicality,” Maks tells them. He comes from partnered ballroom dance, “so nothing I ever did was a solo. For me it was important that there’s a relationship … I want to see that Bonnie and Clyde go viral.”
On performance day, the theme of the routine gets a little bit lost on me. The bags of money as props feel kinda forced, but the dancing and choreography are about on par with what Madison threw down. Another standing ovation from the judges. Maks praises Anthony’s “incredible” emotional connection with Mariyah. “You’re a true dance warrior. You’re ready to get hired right now.” Allison says the choreographers put him in a number that was right up his alley. Anthony ends by giving a loving shout out to his mom in the audience; this is the first time she’s been able to be there to watch him perform. But we don’t get the judges’ more candid thoughts this time. It’s straight into Dakayla’s clip package.
Dakayla is doing a Talia Favia contemporary number with the just-eliminated Easton. No surprise there. This is his signature dance style, and he never had any trouble delivering when a routine was so in his comfort zone, so he was bound to get picked for this. “In the audition round, Easton was my partner, and since this is my last, I want to end it with him,” says Dakayla, bringing the season full-circle. And “doing a contemporary piece with Talia has been my number-one dream.”
We don’t get to see much of their prep work before Allison arrives. She watched them rehearse and tells them, “Slow down, and almost not hold onto so much strength in your arms. Make sure you’re letting Easton sometimes move you.” She asks what the story of the routine is, and Dakayla explains that it’s about change in her life and in herself. She’s learning not to “hold a wall in front of myself, and just really letting go.” She mentions her father coming back into her life, and also someone who could be in her future — Anthony, of course. “Overall, I want to show them that out of everything that’s happening, there’s still a confident and brave and powerful girl who is willing to show them every single side of me.”
Performance time comes, and it starts with some major athleticism right out of the gate: Easton holding Dakayla upside down. The moves are clean, swift, complex, innovative. Probably my favorite of the round-one dances. And yes, one last standing ovation from the judges. “I am so in awe of you right now,” Allison tells Dakayla. It’s one thing to be a good dancer, it’s another to be able to make people at home feel something. JoJo is “so insanely proud” of her. Maks calls the performance “passionate, soft and emotional.”
So the question is, are the judges gonna carry this whole showmance theme to the very end and declare Anthony and Dakayla the final two. I think Dakayla is a shoo-in based on her performance, but it could go either way with the other two routines.
But first, a performance by Natasha Bedingfield with the seven other season 18 finalists dancing with “SYTYCD” All-Stars Bailey Munoz (season 16 winner), Alex Wong (season seven finalist), Alexis Warr (season 17 winner) and Jasmine Harper (season 10 finalist). That’s one of the special things about “SYTYCD.” Standout performers from the past become lasting members of the show’s artistic family.
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Okay, moment of truth. The judges sound off on how great the top three are one more time. Yeah, yeah, everybody’s wonderful but one of you is a teensy bit less great than the others. And yep, it’s Madison, this season’s bronze medalist. As totally not surprised as I am, it does feel kind of weird, and a little shady, for her to have never been at the bottom only to now exit the competition so the show can pay off its romantic subplot. Feels like we could have anticipated this from the moment Dakayla called Anthony a “beefy” hunk. “Never before on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ has a couple gone head-to-head for the title,” Cat explains. Can’t help but feel like it was designed that way, or at the very least edited to emphasize this season-long story arc.
“Looking back to audition day, I did not think that I would make top three,” says Madison in her final clip package. “I’m not someone who expects to get something. I truly gave my all in this competition. I don’t think I’ve ever been in so much pain, but I feel like I have shown how strong and powerful I am. I’m very grateful that I have made it this far to be able to show that.”
“I can’t believe I’m competing against the love of my life right now,” says Anthony as we get a look at his journey throughout the season. Okay, cool it, Casanova. You’ve known each other for, like, a minute. Then he performs his solo to “Better Alone” by Aaryan Shah. It’s a dynamite performance, athletic, emotional, though I think he has had more impactful solos when he was at the bottom in previous weeks. I have a feeling Dakayla is winning this. But JoJo calls Anthony “so special. You have the potential to be the best of the best.” Allison is impressed by how different each of his solos have been. Maks calls him “the most honest performer” of the season.
Oh, and he’s bleeding from both feet after that routine. Now that Madison is out of the running, we’ve got to have someone get maimed.
“I did not think I was going to be competing against my boyfriend, but secretly, I would love to win. That would be incredible,” says Dakayla before her performance. See now that’s an appropriate level of lovey-dovey for a teenager who just started dating a boy on a reality show. She dances to “A Pale” by Rosalia. It’s another excellent performance, one of her most acrobatic, and she takes time to connect with the judges and the audience, which I think will be what puts her over the top. The judges are kinda telegraphing the punch; after her performance they look like they just found Jesus. “I’ve never seen somebody go through a 10-week transformation such as this. I thank God I was here to witness that,” says Maks. JoJo is “shocked” from how far she’s come throughout the competition.
But when they announce the winner, it takes me by surprise. Anthony is named the season 18 champon! Apparently the solos split the judges, and Cat says it was the closest result in the show’s history, which is a weird thing to say when it was only the three judges voting instead of fans at home voting for the winner as in past seasons. Nevertheless, Anthony is more than deserving of the title. He made a strong impression on the judges every week and on the choreographers, who consistently called him clean and reliable no matter what was thrown at him. I actually had him tipped to win the season back when the top 10 were announced, until the show started pushing the Dakayla growth and evolution narrative as she opened up and allowed herself to be more emotional.
So how was that for a season overall, though? Ten episodes, a little short, could have used more time to get to know the top 10 dancers after the audition rounds. I would have liked to see more participation from “SYTYCD” All-Stars throughout the season instead of just at the end. And some of the judges’ decisions from week to week felt arbitrary. But I really like the format shake-up that tested the contestants in scenarios they might face as professional working dancers. And, as always, there were a number of routines with the potential to be remembered at Emmy time. Looking forward to seeing how that shakes out. And I hope I can look forward to “SYTYCD” season 19 in the not-too-distant future.
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