Is it just us, or has Halloween significantly lost its luster since the world became a real-life horror show? Forgive us if we could not care less about costumes, passing out candy, or the annual candy corn debate this year (for the record: we’ll allow it seasonally—now pass us a caramel apple), but when reality’s scare tactics so far eclipse fantasy, Michael, Freddy and Jason are basically eliciting shrugs from us during this second pandemic Halloween.
So, it came as some surprise that, thanks to Iman Shumpert’s turn on Dancing With the Stars, we find ourselves reluctantly getting into “spooky season” after all. Granted, the NBA player isn’t known as the dancer in his family, that title belonging to wife Teyana Taylor, but his Monday night performance on DWTS had us reminiscing on more carefree times—namely, when Jordan Peele terrorized the entertainment writers of The Root by sending out golden scissor-laden press kits in anticipation of his second feature film, Us.
Hard to believe that was nearly three years ago (time flies when you’re in a global pandemic), but on Monday, Shumpert brought that old thing back with DWTS dancer Daniella Karagach and a strategically-used pair of scissors, performing a tether-tastic routine choreographed to a slightly sanitized version of “I Got 5 On It (Tethered Mix from Us)” by Luniz featuring Michael Marshall. And...well...check it out.
Is it the dynamic lifts? The all-fours crawl? Or is it the super-creepy stares that would’ve compelled us to issue a perfect score, were we on the judges’ panel—as did the judges on Monday night’s show? Admittedly, we’ve never been steadfast viewers of DWTS, but if this is how they’re getting down, we might have to get into it on a more regular basis. Does this mean we’ll be celebrating Halloween this year? Unless you count face masks and this pandemic weight gain as a costume...probably not.