Scenes During The Final Two Episodes of Cheerleader Nation That Moved Me To Tears
6. While the adults were chillin’ in their hotel room at Nationals, Ryan’s Mom/ Coach comes in to chat with her husband/ Ryan’s Dad, who immediately asks “How’s Rhino doing?” This struck me as the cutest nickname on the face of the planet– perhaps because Ryan herself is so teeny and adorable and in no way rhino-like– but also because her dad used her pet name in the third person, when she wasn’t even there. I didn’t know parents did this, and I feel like most of them don’t– probably because I can’t picture my dad calling my mom up and going “and how’s the little pumpkin doing today?” And for reasons other than the fact that the two of them don’t plan on having a fruitful conversation until they have to fight out who has gets to pay for my wedding. Still, it was endlessly cute, and it made me cry the same way that AmEx commercial about the father of the bride does, and the steve martin movie of the same title. (“He’s… wearing… Reeboks.” Or was it Nikes?)
5. Ryan sprains her ankle but competes anyway, and starts crying from pain and nerves during practice. This one had me because Ryan was the most consistent cheerleader in the WORLD leading up to nationals, the one who constantly talked the other girls (and occasionally her mother) down from the ledge, so seeing her crying meant there was something really wrong. What REALLY killed me was when she was talking about throwing her full to a recently graduated cheerleader and said “I know I’m not going to fall, I just don’t think it’s going to look good.” So even in the midst of all that STRIFE she still knew she was going to pull it off. This scene in coupled in my mind with the one that came immediately after their final performance when Ryan’s mom/coach asked her if doing all the jazz handy/ spirit fingers thing she does when on top of the pyramids makes Ryan nervous about falling, and Ryan looked like that had never occurred to her before and said “Nope.” I love Ryan. Does it show? I. Love. Her.
4. Chelsea’s big sisters find her after the final performance at nationals and Chelsea looks like she’s going to explode from excitement and happiness. I blew hot and cold on Chelsea all season– she obviously has some primadonna issues, as well as some hair not matching eyebrows issues, and in the words of her teammate kaitlin clearly needs to “get over yourself, Chelsea,” but doing so well just made her look exactly the way she was supposed to– like a happy 16 year old cheerleader who hadn’t spent the weeks leading up to this staying out all night and giving her mom heart attacks. And it was refreshing.
3. The montage following the awards ceremony that showed the girls carrying their trophies, wearing their championship jackets, and running towards their families. This was done over some song that I recognized that was about feelings and stuff and sounded vaguely like that Five For Fighting hundred years song but wasn’t. A good montage kills me every time. To wit, I was at a Mets game monday night where they did a big screen montage that opened with “The greatest phrase a sports fan can say is ‘I was there for..’” followed by scenes of Mets doing amazing things over a U2 song. I damn near lost it. Seriously, God help me if the Mets every actually follow through on their potential and make it to the playoffs, I’m going to be weeping on the subway everytime I see a shot of them on someone’s Daily News. Anyhoo, the cheerleaders hugging montage was way too much for my emotional circuits, and I had to get up and eat a cookie just to calm down.
2. Aryca’s Dad, the SuperFather of the cheerleading squad. I love this man. One of my favorite scenes all season showed him watching his daughter at the football games, and people coming up to him and asking which one of the football players was his son, only to have him proudly correct them. Aryca’s dad goes nuts when she hits the mat. Specifically, he does a very loud, junkyard pitbull sounding dog bark (they’re the Bulldogs, afterall) which is the only thing out of his mouth that the producers did not close caption this year (he’s a bit of a mumbler). I’m actually relieved he only has daughters and won’t ever be a football dad, because if he were able to channel this much energy into cheering for a contact sport, he might accidentally destroy anyone in his path.
1. Megan, who had been working all season at landing a full (which apparently involves a lot of twisting in the air, and is a big-girl version of a layout, which also looks extremely complicated to my untrained eyes), fell on it during prelims, inspiring a lot of debate over whether or not she should attempt it in finals, or just go with a layout. Which inspired a lot of yelling in my apartment as I instructed them to let her go for it– it’s her DREAM! She’s a SENIOR, this is her LAST YEAR! You KNOW she can!! Luckily, they heard me, and let her, and she nailed it. And all the parents went insane cheering for her, and I stood up and clapped very loudly. Later on Megan commented that even though her finishing stance after the full was facing the back of the mat, she turned around to the audience for one beat to clap before running to her stunt group, which also made me really, really proud of her. You effing EARNED that shit, megan! You work it.
