Assassin’s Creed

Nov 20, 2020 by Rob

Week 4 of Strictly witnessed an exquisite takedown of Max. When your number’s up, your number’s up on Strictly nowadays. There have been more brutal assassinations over the years – Danny John-Jules week 8 elimination in 2018 taking high rank as a deadly sniper’s hit. This was a more subtle affair; more Machiavellian in its execution.

Max put in a decent AS but you wouldn’t have known it based on what was to follow with Craig leading the way with the vote-deflating criticism, the dreaded 3 slot cleverly utilised by TPTB once more.

To then tie Max with Ranvir, despite her CCC being weaker than Max’s AS, hinted at producer intentions, the door left open for JJ to be placed below them but with the tie directly above him, his escape from the dance-off became that much easier.

Prince Harry turning up in JJ’s VT, the military garb he was outfitted in… the clues were all there this was a ‘save JJ’ mission on the night, and they were confident they could generate enough support for him to rise above Max following the public vote.

The sympathetic treatment for Ranvir was a further hammer blow for Max, leveraging off the goodwill they had built up for her across the series, and ensuring her pv would also jettison her to safety.

Meanwhile, poor Maisie, who put in one of the most technical, content-laden, well-executed routines of the night, endured heavy criticism and low scores in relation to the 10s being handed out like confetti and generous scoring afforded to others, which immediately put her in a hugely vulnerable spot on the judges’ leaderboard.

Week 4 judges’ leaderboard –

Clara and Aljaž: Charleston – (9) – 9, 10, 10 = 29
Bill and Oti: Couple’s Choice (Street) – (6) – 8, 10, 9 = 27
HRVY and Janette: Salsa – (1) – 8, 10, 9 = 27
Jamie and Karen: Samba – (8) – 8, 8, 9 = 25
Maisie and Gorka: CCC – (5) – 7, 8, 9 = 24 – bottom 2
Caroline and Johannes: Waltz – (7) – 7, 7, 8 = 22
Max and Dianne: AS – (3) – 5, 7, 8 = 20 – eliminated
Ranvir and Giovanni: CCC – (2) – 5, 7, 8 = 20
JJ and Amy: Jive – (4) – 4, 6, 7 = 17

Also hindering her, visually, her CCC was a bit of a horror show – from the set to her and Gorka’s outfits – and choreographically it certainly wasn’t Gorka’s finest hour.

With Bill and Oti’s inspired ‘Street’ routine memory-holing Maisie, she very likely would have polled last on the night, strongly hinted at by our week 4 exit poll, and it looked like this was all intentionally engineered by TPTB. They were actively striving for a Maisie vs Max dance-off and for Maisie to operate as a dance-off assassin which made the usual comments about her appearance in the dance-off being a ‘shock’ that much more distasteful.

The coup de grâce was to follow with Shirley claiming she would have saved Max in the dance-off which was an insult both to him and, even more so, Maisie. Motsi has even chimed in from Germany informing she would have saved Max. This starts to beg the question, what on earth has Maisie done to upset them? Shirley does have previous, however, for holding a grudge when it comes to younger, attractive female ringer-types on the show.

Anton’s long overdue first chance on the judging panel was a total triumph. He deserves to be a permanent judge but with Motsi due to come back and Bruno to return presumably in time for the semi-final, Anton may find himself sidelined once more.

Clara had her overdue breakthrough on the night with her excellent, pimp-slotted Charleston. She is now 3rd favourite in the Outright and a samba tomorrow night looks a good chance for her to consolidate her position in the market.

It has to be on the cards for Maisie to receive a first pimp slot of the series, as compensation for the cruelty they inflicted on her last Saturday, with her salsa potentially a leaderboard-topping routine if they take the pimp route with her.

Ranvir earns the first Argentine tango of the series. This is likely to be on late in the running order and it is hard to imagine it not being well-received. Giovanni has good AT form, notably his 2017, 38-scoring routine with Debbie McGee, though Debbie possessed more natural dance affinity than Ranvir.

Jamie once again gets the chance to be the uptempo entertainer performing a Street routine with Karen who has a strong track record for this genre. This has looked high impact fun in training.

Bill has a classic song to sell a stylish AS, with him and Oti looking set to perform it with canes. So it all starts to point heavily, pre-show, towards Caroline and JJ being in most elimination jeopardy.

We know CCC is the dance of death, often used to kill off contestants, and Johannes went out last year dancing it with Cath Tyldesley. Caroline has to hope for a Ranvir-style CCC treatment, with Anton leading the way with a sympathetic critique and generous scoring. Her technique has looked ok in training, it appears her and Johannes are aiming for a fun routine, with Johannes styled as a fireman, and a clue to her treatment might reside in her song title this week, ‘Rescue Me’.

A QS for JJ looks an easier task for him compared to last week’s jive. It is all going to come down to the script and whether they actively seek to help Caroline escape the dance-off, as they did JJ last week, or they go in for the kill. One alternative might be, Caroline is tied with JJ at the bottom of the leaderboard which would allow for a potential dance-off save.

Bill might not find himself flying so high this week but the other contestant who could end up flirting with the bottom end of the leaderboard on the night is HRVY. A tango for him looks potentially forgettable and the routine has looked too frenetic in training with HRVY struggling with the correct frame and posture. This could easily be open to nit-picking and harsh scores if, for fairness, they are keen for him to have his turn as the dance-off patsy and be used, like Maisie was, as the assigned assassin on the night to take down either Caroline or JJ.

As we head into the halfway point of the series it’s very much all to play for and you sense a few more twists and turns yet, the composition of this year’s, as of now, 4-couple final far from clear cut. Please do register your vote(s) for tomorrow night’s Week 5 exit poll, which will open towards show end and can be found here.

Week 5 songs & dances:
Bill and Oti: American Smooth to Under My Skin by Frank Sinatra
Caroline and Johannes: Cha Cha Cha to Rescue Me by Fontella Bass
Clara and Aljaž: Samba to That’s The Way (I Like It) by KC and The Sunshine Band
HRVY and Janette: Tango to Golden by Harry Styles
Jamie and Karen: Couple’s Choice: Street/Commercial to Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) by C&C Music Factory
JJ and Amy: Quickstep to For Once In My Life by Stevie Wonder
Maisie and Gorka: Salsa to Better When I’m Dancing by Meghan Trainor
Ranvir and Giovanni: Argentine Tango to When Doves Cry by Prince