'Dancing With the Stars' recap: Lady and the Champ

"M-V-P! M-V-P!" Come on, 'fess up: Who cried? On week 8 of season 11, former NFL star Kurt Warner was banished from Planet Mirrorballus one night after wearing fringed pants to deliver his best performance to date. Kurt heads home to his seven children, who can award him 7s to their little hearts' content as he completes mundane tasks around the house. (Tea party table setting: Seh-vehhhhhhn!)

Within just a few seconds, Kurt managed to teach a life lesson about how it's not about winning or losing, thank his wife, and call his partner Anna Tre-BUN-skaya "this wonderful woman." He certainly ended on a high note, and so did my DVR recording: the absolute last frame showed Kurt turning back to look for Anna -- ever his tiny dancer and ballroom BFF (BBFF?) -- while being swarmed by the rest of the sparkaliens. There she was, smiling back at him. Oh, Anna! I think I'll miss her most of all.

TRAGEDY! I'm watching Kurt and Anna on Jimmy Kimmel Live right this second. (Also tragic: this recap is turning into a live blog of ABC's all-night slate. I just had to delete an unnecessary paragraph about the ridiculous dialogue on Detroit 1-8-7. Stay tuned for my live blog of the 1:06-2:05 a.m. Oprah rerun!) Anyway, Anna's refusing to answer whether Kurt was a better dancer than Jerry Rice (because he's sitting right next to her) and whether Bristol Palin deserves to be in the semifinals. Well-deflected, Ms. BUN! Anna's wearing the most intriguing electric blue heels with tiny gems dangling from the ankle straps. I gotta stop and turn off the TV. It hurts too much. Oh, the pain!

Back to past-tense. Brandy and Maksim Chmerkovskiy stood under the red light of faux-jeopardy last night, so that Maks could continue to bicker with Carrie Ann out in the open instead of from within the confines of the Brooke Burke Red Velvet Sanitarium. "Maks, I just wanna say something," said Carrie Ann, after being asked to explain why Brandy should stick around. "To all of the dancers: I have always respected all of you." She proceeded to list as many of Our Pros as she could think of, enunciating like an elementary school speech therapist to show extra respect. "So, I hope you will let it go," she concluded. It was pretty bizarre, as is everything that ever happens on a Tuesday. Or a Monday. Luckily, Brandy covered Maks' mouth before he could lose his cool within the next 12 seconds.

Dance Center! It's truly the most wonderful time of the year, without exception. Listing all of the jokes would take hours -- even the contestants' statistics cards were chock full o' gems. My favorite was on Kyle's: "Straight Out of Magic Kingdom, Yo." Best, Worst Dancer Kenny Mayne and season 2 runner-up Jerry Rice cut everyone down to size from their bejeweled perch within the vague realm of "above it all."

NEXT: Dance Center takes a wonderfully sinister turn.

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