Dancing with the Stars season 22 is in the home stretch with only four weeks of competition remaining. With the eight remaining couples all tackling two routines and a double elimination, week 7 is bound to put more pressure on them than ever before.
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The double elimination is even trickier to predict because the leaderboard is so close, with all the couples getting 8s or higher from all of the judges. So which two couples will be eliminated?
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THE LEADERBOARD
29: Wanya Morris
28: Paige VanZant
27: Antonio Brown
25: Jodie Sweetin, Nyle DiMarco
24: Kim Fields, Von Miller, Ginger Zee
PROBABLY SAFE
I refuse to claim that anyone is “definitely” safe this week, but Wanya and Paige are at the top of the leaderboard, delivered great performances and consistently been at the top. They have the highest average scores from the judges for the entire season and seem destined for the finale.
POTENTIAL SHOCKERS
Nyle and Ginger have both been on top of the leaderboard multiple times this season. But one bad week could be all it takes to undo that hard work. Ginger is tied at the very bottom of the leaderboard while Nyle is just one point ahead of her. Making matters worse, Nyle’s cocky attitude during Famous Dances Night may have hurt him with some voters. They are clearly better overall dancers than most of the field and either one going home this week would be a very disappointing surprise, but it’s within the realm of possibility.
Similarly, Antonio Brown benefits from performing last and coming in third on the leaderboard. He’s been wildly inconsistent (he was dead last the week before), but perhaps he did enough in that one night to avoid elimination.
IN JEOPARDY
The other three couples will all be in real trouble. Kim and Von are tied with Ginger at the bottom of the leaderboard and they are the two stars with the lowest average scores from the judges for the season, so objectively they should be going home. And in terms of bad omens, the only other time Sasha Farber was a pro, he and Snooki got eliminated on team dance night.
Then there’s Jodie, who is sadly saddled with pro Keo Motsepe. We’ve never seen him make it past week 3 before, and unfortunately the narrative the show is using is that he’s not a particularly strong choreographer or partner. Fair or not, the way the stars and pros get edited on the show definitely matters when it comes to how viewers perceive them and whether they’ll vote for them.
MY PREDICTION
Three out of four times this season, the eliminated contestant was at the nbottom of the leaderboard. So I’m taking the safe route and predicting that Von Miller and Kim Fields will be eliminated. However, it’s worth noting that the one time last place didn’t go home was Marla Maples, and that week Von was tied at the bottom.
It’s a difficult week to predict because I could imagine a scenario where NEITHER of my predictions come true. Maybe it’ll be Jodie and Ginger or Nyle or Antonio. Anything is possible.
Dancing with the Stars airs Mondays at 8pm on ABC.
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
