Halloween Night brought out the darker side of the remaining eight contestants on "Dancing With The Stars." From vampires, to creepy contacts, to a lot of eyeliner and a Marilyn Manson theme that weirdly turned on judge Julianne Hough, the night was filled with the best, and spookiest, parts of the upcoming holiday.
At this point in the competition, it's getting harder to tell who should be eliminated next, as they have all proved on more than one occasion that they're giving it their all. While some have continued to excel throughout the entire competition so far, the ones who came up short in the beginning have improved so much that they're now getting some of the highest scores.
The combined votes and scores from last week's Famous Dances Night left Tamar Braxton and her partner Val Chmerkovskiy, Alexa PenaVega and her partner Mark Ballas and Hayes Grier and his partner Emma Slater all in jeopardy.
PenaVega couldn't hold back her emotions as this was shockingly her second week in a row in the bottom. As someone who has actually been doing really well in the competition and receiving high scores, the votes must just not be coming in. She and Braxton, who was also shocked to be in the bottom - as she and Chmerkovskiy are always close to the top of the leaderboard - were luckily given a second chance, as Grier was sent home. Following his best night so far, the 15-year-old Vine star was sad to go as he finally felt comfortable here.
"You go out on a night where you excelled," host Tom Bergeron told Grier following the bad news.
"All those guys, they're brilliant people," Grier said of his competition as he tried to hold back tears. "This has meant so much to me; it's been really life-changing."
"Sadly I don't get to walk away with a mirror ball but I do get to walk away with a life long best friend," Grier captioned a photo of him and Slater following the elimination. "Thank you to everyone who voted for us each week and kept us in it. Doing this show changed my life. And to all the couples left, guys go kill it you are all such amazing people and dancers so I'm really excited to see what you guys have in store. I love you guys."
As for the highest score of the night, Bindi Irwin and her partner Derek Hough once again delivered a dance worthy of a perfect score. As they've remain at the top of the leaderboard since the very start, they continue to prove they're still the biggest threat.
Irwin tried to transform into an evil vampire queen, but she had a hard time hiding her infectious smile. Evil or not, she still won the judges over, and Bruno Tonioli told her it was an "Argentine tango master class." As a pro, Derek is always a threat in this competition, as he's the one with the most Mirrorball trophies, and the only one who has the ability to turn literally anyone into a decent dancer. His choreography and teaching skills shine above the rest, but there's just something about the chemistry between him and Irwin - a 17-year-old animal rights activist who has never danced before - that has pretty much already won them a spot in the finale.
Carlos PenaVega and his partner Witney Carson had the second highest score of the night with a 28 out of 30 for their paso doble. Following Carlos came his wife Alexa with a 27, Grier and Andy Grammer with 26's, Alek Skarlatos with a 25 and Nick Carter and Braxton at the bottom with 24's.
Following the individual performances came the highly anticipated group dances - and it was interesting to see the underdogs of the night come out on top. Team Who You Gonna Call consisted of Irwin, Alexa, Carlos and Skarlatos while Team Nightmare was Carter, Braxton, Grammer and Grier.
Team Nightmare performed a flawless team dance to "This Is Halloween" from Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" - black and white striped outfits and all. They not only worked well as a team, but really stood out during their individual dances within the team dance, earning them a perfect score. Judge Julianne even went as far as saying is was one of the best team dances in the history of "DWTS."
Team Who You Gonna Call did an amazing job, but had a hard time syncing up their moves, causing them to get a 28 out of 30.
This marked the first ever team dance loss for Derek, and the Bergeron made sure to dramatically point this out. Before the show, Derek admitted that he was nervous he was going to break his winning streak.
"I'm not gonna lie, I actually haven't lost a team dance in like, 13 team dances, I've never lost," he said in a video vlog on Entertainment Weekly. "But I don't know, the other team looked really good today, so I'm a little like, 'Uh oh! Maybe we can tie.' But who knows. I have faith in us."
