Monday night's "Dancing With the Stars" was the first night of a two-night season finale.
With no eliminations scheduled for that evening, the three remaining finalists each performed two dances: a redemption (a second shot at less than stellar effort earlier in the season) and a freestyle, one of the biggest competitive dances of the season.
After last week’s shocking elimination of Olympic gold medal gymnast Simone Biles, the stars who made it to the finals are NFL running back Rashad Jennings and his partner, Emma Slater; two-time World Series champion David Ross and his partner, Lindsay Arnold; and Fifth Harmony singer Normani Kordei and her partner, Valentin Chmerkovskiy.
Ross and Arnold kicked things off with their redemption dance, a Viennese waltz to “Let’s Hurt Tonight” by One Republic. The sports hero knows he’s not the best dancer but gave it his all and earned praise from the judges, including Len Goodman, who congratulated him on making it to the finals and remarked that his progress was “a Cinderella story.” The combined judges’ score for his first dance was 33 out of 40.
In spite of a slight injury to her ankle, Kordei and Chmerkovskiy brought the heat to the dance floor with a quickstep to "Check It Out" by Oh the Larceny. She looked stunning in her sparkling black catsuit, and while she appeared to mesmerize Bruno Tonioli and the audience, Goodman and Julianne Hough offered sharp critiques. Kordei still earned an impressive 38 out of 40, with 10s from Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba and 9s from Goodman and Hough.
While all the stars shined, the night truly belonged to Jennings. After he and Slater danced a Viennese waltz to “Dark Times” by the Weeknd, featuring Ed Sheeran, they earned a perfect score — his first — and high praise from the judges. Jennings returned to impress with a spirited, funky freestyle to “Let’s Go” by Drumline and “Uptown Funk” from Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars, bringing Jennings another perfect score for the night.
Kordei and Chmerkovskiy got a perfect score for their freestyle to “What the World Needs Now Is Love" by Andra Day, and Ross and Arnold’s baseball-themed freestyle to “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” by Ronnie Neuman gave Ross his first perfect score of the season.
Host Tom Bergeron took a moment at the end of the show to acknowledge the explosion at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, which killed at least 19 people and injured nearly 50 others earlier that night.
“Dancing With the Stars” concludes tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.