ABC/KELSEY MCNEALHeading into Tuesday's show, Steve-O was alone in last place after dancing a better-than-usual but still not particularly good Viennese waltz, while Gilles Marini had firebombed the competition with a can't-miss combination of intensity and chiseled abs and landed in first place with a 29.
Spoiler alert: Gilles is safe until next week.
(We wanted to really shock you before revealing who was eliminated from Dancing With the Stars tonight.)
But Steve-O, popular guy that he is, wasn't even in the bottom two, as Las Vegas oddsmakers—and rational types—expected him to be. So he'll be busy learning the jive or the rumba this week.
Meaning, someone who danced at a higher level was sent home.
As it turned out, elimination night was no laughing matter for David Alan Grier.
Although he and Kym Johnson scored a 24 in the dance-off—a two-point improvement from last night—the comedian was booted from the competition despite possessing a suplus of potential that the judges sensed but just hadn't drawn out of him yet.
"There's so much support and camaraderie backstage that it's really been awesome," Grier told hosts Tom Bergeron and Samantha Harris afterward. "And my biggest goal was to try to make Kym proud."
Which he did.
"I loved working with David and he's improved so much. He's done amazing. I'm very proud of him," the petite Australian said.
Still in the game then is retired linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who tonight matched his first paso doble score of 20 but apparently curried just enough favor with the voters to further his cause.
Before performances by Etta James, the cast of Cirque du Soleil's La Reve and Demi Lovato, Shawn Johnson and Lil' Kim were scuttled off to safety. They tied for second place last night with 26, the closest anyone could come to Gilles and Cheryl Burke's nearly perfect performance.
Also good to keeping going are Melissa Rycroft, Ty Murray and Chuck Wicks, whose Academy of Country Music Award-winning partner, Julianne Hough, is once again planning to take next season off to focus on her singing career.
"I wasn't planning to come back this season because I wanted to focus on my music," she told Fox News backstage during the ACMs Sunday. "But I went back and it's been so much fun to dance with my good friend who happens to be my boyfriend."
"I will be taking next season off," Hough promised.