To understand why Viennese waltz rehearsals were happening under emergency conditions in week six, you have to rewind to October 13. That night, judge Carrie Ann Inaba called out an illegal lift in Jenna Johnson and Harry Shum Jr.’s samba and read the lift rule aloud. Johnson’s husband, pro Val Chmerkovskiy, answered with a since-deleted TikTok alluding to Will Smith’s Oscars slap. He apologized publicly and privately on October 15 — but by October 17, BBC Studios had suspended him for a week, the first pro suspension in the show’s history, and Alan Bersten was learning somebody else’s choreography at sprint speed.
So when Jenna Dewan walked onto the floor on October 20, the question hanging over Dedication Night was whether a partnership assembled in two or three days could survive it. The answer was a Viennese waltz to “Unchained Melody,” dedicated to Dewan’s mother Nancy, scored at 37 out of 40 — and a 10 from Inaba herself. It was the night’s most poetic scoreline: the judge at the heart of the controversy rewarding the dancer most affected by it, purely on merit.
The Scores, and What They Actually Say
With guest judge Kym Johnson-Herjavec swelling the panel to four, the leaderboard was scored out of 40, and it told a clear story. Amber Glenn and Pasha Pashkov led with 38. Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach matched Dewan and Bersten on 37, with Frech collecting the season’s first 10 for a dance dedicated to his mother. Julia Stiles and Ezra Sosa and Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson followed on 36, Maura Higgins and Mark Ballas on 35, and a four-way logjam — Tatyana Ali, Jackson Olson, Connor Wood and Tyler Cameron — sat on 32.
That logjam matters more than usual, because of the twist waiting at the end of the show: no elimination, scores carried forward, and a double elimination looming next week. In practical terms, Dedication Night’s scores are only half of next week’s verdict. The couples on 32 are not safe; they are exposed, carrying the night’s lowest marks into a Halloween episode where two couples will leave. Cameron’s pregnancy-reveal routine may have won the night emotionally, but competitively, he and three others begin Horror Movie Night already behind.
(Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0))A Reunion 27 Years in the Making
Stiles’ dedication deserves its own paragraph in any account of this season. Her dance honored Heath Ledger, her co-star in 10 Things I Hate About You, who died in 2008. As the routine closed, her former castmates — Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik, Andrew Keegan, Susan May Pratt and Gabrielle Union — joined her on the floor. It was not choreography; it was a group of people who shared a formative film standing together to remember the friend who is no longer there. Dedication Night has produced emotional moments before, but a reunion built around an absence hit differently, and the audience knew it.
(Drew de F Fawkes / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0))The Guest Judge and the Bigger Picture
The return of Kym Johnson-Herjavec as guest judge was more than nostalgia casting. A two-time champion pro, she set the tone early, urging the couples to embrace the moment because nights like this are special — and then handed Frech the season’s first 10, signaling that sentiment would be rewarded where technique supported it. Her presence also steadied a panel that had spent a week as a news story in itself.
What week six ultimately proved is that this show’s machinery is sturdier than its scandals. A suspended pro, a substitute partnership, a pregnancy reveal, a cast reunion and a beloved country icon’s tribute all landed in a single two-hour broadcast — and the competition still moved exactly one week closer to its mirrorball, with ten couples intact and a double elimination sharpening every rehearsal between now and October 27.
(The White House / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain))What the Carry-Over Really Does to Next Week
The mechanics of the twist deserve attention, because they quietly reshape the competition. Ordinarily, a weak week can be survived on fan votes and forgotten by Tuesday. Under the carry-over, Dedication Night’s judges’ scores become the foundation of next week’s result, meaning the four couples on 32 begin Horror Movie Night needing both a strong performance and a strong vote simply to stand still. Amber Glenn’s six-point cushion, by contrast, is a genuine asset — the kind of margin that lets a couple take a creative risk in costume week without gambling the whole season on it.
There is also the Val factor. Chmerkovskiy is expected back with Dewan for the October 27 episode, which hands the show a ready-made redemption storyline and hands Dewan a peculiar challenge: rebuilding, in a week, the partnership chemistry she had spent five weeks constructing, after proving she could score 37 without it. Bersten, meanwhile, exits the week as its folk hero — an eliminated pro who returned, learned a Viennese waltz in days, and took a bow with the season’s most scrutinized celebrity. His own partner this season, Giada De Laurentiis, was voted out in week two; his Dedication Night detour may end up the most memorable chapter of his year. And hovering over all of it is the week’s strangest statistic: the judge whose ruling started the controversy, Inaba, gave the replacement couple its highest mark. Whatever narrative the feud tried to write, the scoresheet refused to cooperate.
One more thread ran quietly through the night: the judging panel itself. Inaba’s 10 for Dewan and Bersten will be quoted for weeks, but the panel’s overall generosity told its own story — a season’s first 10, a 38 at the top of the board, and not a single routine savaged on a night built for vulnerability. Whether that was sentiment or standards hardly matters to the couples now; with the scores banked and carried forward, Tuesday’s kindness has become next week’s arithmetic, and the couples at the bottom of the table will spend Horror Movie Night paying for points they could not earn on the one evening nobody wanted to be the villain.