‘Dancing With the Stars’ Motown Week Brings Season’s Highest Scores and a Downbeat Elimination (Recap)

*Caution: Spoilers Ahead

Dancing With the Stars celebrated Motown Night on Tuesday for the third week of competition, and the 12 stars still standing — along with their pro partners — brought their very best to the ballroom for a night of impressive performances and unpredictable scores.

Tuesday’s new episode also featured a special guest judge, Michael Strahan, who joined stalwart judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli.

After two hours of passionate and greatly improved dances, it was up to America to vote on who deserved to perform once more next week, and whose time was already up.

In the end — through a combination of judges scores and audience votes — two couples were determined to be in jeopardy: Tyson Beckford and Jenna Johnson, as well as Alyson Hannigan and Sasha Farber.

This time, Beckford’s places at the bottom of the leaderboard with an unfortunately low score — a 20 out of 40 for his foxtrot with Johnson, set to “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” by Stevie Wonder — was an accurate predictor for the couple getting the axe this week.

After the elimination, Beckford said of his time on the show, “It’s been good, I learned a lot of things that I can take into the real world, so I had a good time.”

One of the night’s first big stand-out performances came from singer Jason Mraz and his pro partner, Daniella Karagach, who busted out a jive set to “Do You Love Me” by The Contours that sent Inaba over the edge into total adoration and earned the pair the first 9s of the season. The couple walked away with a total score of 34 — including two 9s from Inaba and Strahan and 8s from Hough and Tonioli.

Meanwhile, Ariana Madix and her partner, Pasha Pashkov, also wowed the judges with their skillful samba, set to “You Can’t Hurry Love” by The Supremes. The number was a remarkable display of talent and skillful footwork and even earned Madix a hug from Inaba during the judges’ feedback.

The pair wound up tying with Mraz and Karagach at the top of the leaderboard — similarly earning two 9s from Inaba and Strahan and two 8s from Hough and Tonioli.

As for the rest of the celeb-pro couples, here’s how the leaderboard looked after Tuesday’s premiere:

Jason Mraz & Daniella Karagach: 34 (9,8,9,8 — Inaba, Hough, Strahan, Tonioli)

Ariana Madix & Pasha Pashkov: 34 (9,8,9,8)

Charity Lawson & Artem Chigvintsev: 32 (8,8,8,8)

Xochitl Gomez & Val Chmerkovskiy: 24 (8,8,8,8)

Lele Pons & Brandon Armstrong: 27 (7,6,7,7)

Mira Sorvino & Gleb Savchenko: 26 (6,6,7,7)

Barry Williams & Peta Murgatroyd: 25 (6,6,7,6)

Alyson Hannigan & Sasha Farber: 24 (6,6,6,6)

Harry Jowsey & Rylee Arnold: 15 (6,5,7,6)

Mauricio Umansky & Emma Slater: 23 (7,5,6,5)

Adrian Peterson & Britt Stewart: 22 (5,5,6,6)