“Dancing With the Stars” always goes all out for Monster Night and this year’s Halloween episode was no different. Each pair danced twice on Tuesday night — first, for their solo routines and second, in the group marathon.
Many of the duos had a lot of fun with the Halloween theme, including Alyson Hannigan and Sasha Farber. Hannigan leaned into her “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” roots and while she didn’t mention the name of the show (and couldn’t due to the SAG-AFTRA strike), she dressed as a vampire and dedicated her paso doble to the fans who had stuck with her through the years.
Xochitl Gomez and Val Chmerkovskiy impressed the judges with a contemporary routine. At the end of the dance, however, Chmerkovskiy carried Gomez to get their scores, as she suffered some sort of injury. She pushed through the pain, receiving a score of 37 out of 40, and came back ready to fight in round two.
Harry Jowsey, on the other hand, struggled with the judges’ low scores and the negative comments he had read about himself on social media. “It feels humiliating because I’m doing my best but it’s never good enough,” he told partner Rylee Arnold. For reinforcements, she brought in her sister, former pro Lindsay Arnold, to try and up their spirits.
During the Monster-thon, the pairs all danced at the same time in the ballroom. The duos removed first only received one bonus point while the winning pair — Gomez and Chmerkovskiy — received five. Heading into the elimination, Gomez and Chmerkovskiy sat at the top of the leaderboard while Jowsey and Arnold remained at the bottom.
In the end, however, the votes spoke louder than the judges’ scores and Mauricio Umansky and Emma Slater were eliminated.