‘Dancing with the Stars 23’ results: Was Ryan Lochte, Marilu Henner, or Jana Kramer eliminated?

Tonight, “Dancing with the Stars” further established itself as a show of tiers this season. You’ve got Calvin Johnson, Laurie Hernandez, and James Hinchcliffe on one tier, and then everyone else on the rest. We thought that Terra Jole was more on the top tier, but we’re starting to think now that she and Jana Kramer could be competing for fourth place. By this logic, we felt going into tonight that Ryan Lochte and Marilu Henner would be the two leading candidates to be eliminated.

Of these two, we thought that Ryan probably would be the one to leave, if for no other reason than that he’s been the weakest overall celebrity for the majority of the season. The one reason for uncertainty here is simply that there have been plenty of times over the course of this show where we’ve been surprised before. Having a shock elimination here wouldn’t be all that crazy.

Ultimately, the team who was eliminated tonight was Ryan and Cheryl Burke, and we do think that this was the right choice for now — even if we understand that there are going to be some people disappointed by it who were fans of his. Marilu’s scored better here and there, and we think she was probably also aided in part by having a really famous partner in Derek Hough.

We do wonder just how much redemption Ryan got from doing this competition after what happened in Rio over the summer. We’re not sure that he changed many minds about what he did down there, but he did prove himself to be a multi-faceted guy and we especially appreciated this week getting to see more sides to his personality.

If you want to get our review of some of the solo dances from tonight’s “Dancing with the Stars” episode, be sure to head over to the link here! (Photo: ABC.)