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‘Dancing With the Stars’ Recap: Who Was the First Celebrity to Get Eliminated?

There are many casualties on the road to the mirrorball, and on Dancing With the Stars‘ Monday, March 27, episode, the first couple were sent home. They’re not the only ones to stumble, however. Early on, it was revealed that Maksim Chmerkovskiy (who is paired with Heather Morris) suffered a pretty serious calf injury during rehearsals and is out for this week — and possibly longer. The rest of the teams have been working ’round the clock to prepare for week two, and while the effort paid off for most, it didn’t work its magic for all. Watch our video recap above to see how it all went down, and read on to find out who went home.

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The Good

Despite a grueling international tour schedule, Fifth Harmony’s Normani Kordei and her pro, Valentin Chmerkvoskiy, nailed their cha-cha. She has been traveling around Asia with her girl group, and Val, happily, has been traveling with her. Immediately after finishing their routine, she admitted she was “exhausted” and that she’d downed a cup of coffee before heading to the dance floor. “Honestly, you could not tell at all,” Julianne Hough said. The rest of the judges were equally impressed and rewarded the pair with 32 points, the highest score of the night. Once the show wrapped, they were off to China. Seriously.

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Tying with Normani and Val were Rashad Jennings and Emma Slater. They tackled a Viennese waltz, which might seem like a tough sell for a football player, but he found inspiration from a bad breakup that ended a week before he proposed, and the judges loved it (the dance, not the story about the romance gone wrong). Julianne said the performance was “hot,” and Carrie Ann Inaba said, “There is a safety and security in this partnership that is beautiful.” Len Goodman (who seemed to be in a sour mood in general) said Jennings was “a bit flat-footed,” but conceded he “liked it” anyway.

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Just behind the leaders were Heather Morris and Alan Bersten (who was filling in for Maks). They put a hip-hop spin on a jive, which Len absolutely hated. Julianne, however, liked it, and Bruno Tonioli said the second half of the dance was “brilliant.” Everyone gave them 8s except crabby Len, who gave them a 6, landing them two points behind the leaders with a 30.

The Bad

Mr. T and Kym Herjavec performed a paso doble with a boxing theme. Mr. T was all about being a fighter with a positive attitude, which both Kym and the crowd appreciated. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t a very good dancer (so far, anyway). Julianne thought it was “awesome” and that he was “crushing it,” but his scores didn’t seem to reflect that. “I wanted to work hard and give it all I got,” he said, which he undoubtedly did, but he still had the lowest score of the night with a 22.

Chris Kattan and Witney Carson tied them for the last spot, despite a better showing this week than last. Chris got very emotional in his video package talking about a back surgery he had that makes him unable to perform physical comedy anymore. They performed a jive, which featured him as a zany film director, along with Witney decked out à la Marilyn Monroe. It didn’t have much dance content, but it was still an improvement.

Charo and Keo Motsepe did better than the first week, but that wasn’t saying much. They performed a paso doble (with Charo rocking a giant, puffy, bright red dress). The judges claimed to love her passion, but pointed out that she was basically one step ahead of Keo (i.e., off the music) the entire time. She responded by telling Bruno that he has a heavy accent and his English isn’t good — and when she received her scores, which added up to 25, she looked like she was going to run back down and attack the judges. She had got a lot of energy, but … umm … it’s unclear what to make of her.

David Ross and Lindsay Arnold performed a cha-cha to “Bust a Move” by Young MC. Though the former Chicago Cubs player clearly had a great time, he got lukewarm reviews from the judges. Len said he was “past second base and heading to third,” and Julianne praised his “charisma.” His charisma wasn’t enough to move them up the leaderboard however, and they ended up with a 27, which was lower than their score in week one.

Everyone else fell somewhere in the middle. Bonner Bolton and Sharna Burgess sparked romance rumors from the judges, and tied at 29 points with Simone Biles and Sasha Farber. (Simone was struggling to embrace her sexier side.) Nancy Kerrigan and Artem Chigvintsev performed a passable but forgettable cha-cha, and Erika Jayne and Gleb Savchenko did a fox-trot based on the idea that Erika used her sex appeal to get out of a speeding ticket. Both couples ended up with 28s.

The Gone

At the end of the show, it was revealed that Chris Kattan and Charo were the celebrities in jeopardy. Ultimately, Chris was sent home. Asked about Witney Carson, the Saturday Night Live alum said, “She was amazing. She was an amazing inspiration, and I couldn’t have done this without her.” He couldn’t help but add, “I wish that my surgery — all of that — was noted before, but it wasn’t, and that’s OK. I had an incredible time, an incredible time.” In other words, he was pretty sure he would have lasted longer if people had known about his physical challenges. Maybe.

Tell Us: Did the right couple go home?

Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.

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