"DWTS" Week 5: Switch-Up Night

October 12, 2015

Last night’s “Dancing with the Stars” had all the ingredients that make this show so delicious: Minor drama! Major sparkles! Inter-partner flirting that may or may not have been real! (Work that romance angle, Alek Skarlatos and Emma Slater.)

Yes, it was switch-up night on “DWTS,” and as usual, the partner swapping generated a flurry of worries about chemistry and familiarity. But before we saw how each new star-pro pairing played out, we were treated to a delightful little opening number that made clever use of some aggressively glittery doors on wheels. The newly engaged (!) Witney Carson and newly preggers (!!) Allison Holker looked especially fabulous:

As it turned out, neither Mr. nor Mrs. PenaVega had any need to fret about their swaperoos. In fact, Alexa’s post-apocalyptic tango with golden boy Derek Hough earned the first perfect score of the season. The end of the world looks good on these two:

Not far behind was Alexa’s hubby Carlos, who teamed up with the fantastically fringed Lindsay Arnold for a sweetly retro quickstep that earned them a solid 39 points. Rock those saddle shoes, Carlos!

And no “DWTS” recap would be complete without an update on America’s (not to mention Australia’s) sweetheart, the too-cute-for-words Bindi Irwin. Her sunny cha cha with Val Chmerkovskiy may have lacked a little polish, but it had us grinning like fools—and landed Bindi in third place for the evening.

What did y’all think? Were you 100% obsessed with Hough’s amazing French man-braid? Do you wish you’d seen 100% less of Paula Deen’s booty? Let us know in the comments—and tune in next Monday night for the elimination that’s been two weeks in the making.