So You Think You Can Dance Elimination: Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?

Nine dancers remain—only three of them women—after salsa star sent home on tonight's results show

First Mary Murphy rode off in her hot tamale train. Now So You Think You Can Dance is out of salsa.

What remains for fans of delicious flavor?

Plenty, Nigel Lythgoe assured us backstage after tonight's bland results show...

This season's only salsa dancer, Cristina Santana, was sent home after opening last night's show with what Nigel called a "fabulous" paso doble. Her performance wasn't spicy enough for fans—or Nigel's fellow judges, who overruled him in tonight's final vote.

Judges Adam Shankman and Mia Michaels voted to let tapper Melinda Sullivan keep dancing, but Nigel has reservations. "I do think she's almost a little too pretty and a little too confident for the young girls who vote to connect with her. They like vulnerability. They like to see somebody being a bit goofy, take Kent [Boyd] or Billy [Bell] doing his krump. That krump was terrible."

Terribly awesome, you mean?

Robert Roldan, the third member of tonight's bottom three, "hasn't connected with the audience," Nigel said, "[but] we think he's going to be stronger in weeks to come...He looks magnificent."

No one would call Jose Ruiz's Bollywood routine "magnificent," but Nigel said he was "more surprised" about Jose's performance in tonight's opening routine, choreographed by Sonya Tayeh: "He didn't stand out as being bad."

Wait, is that a compliment?

"He was with some really great dancers tonight and he did Sonya's work really well. We always take into account these opening routines."

Hear that, boys and girls? All your performances count—especially the ladies, who now number three to the guys' six. What happens if all the women are eliminated?

"If it's great dancing," Nigel said, "I don't care."