‘Dancing with the Stars 23’ spoilers: Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Witney Carson return for trio dances

Come Monday night, the remaining five performers on “Dancing with the Stars” are all going to hit the stage with some rather-huge aspirations of dominating this competition. Will they all succeed? It’s late in the competition, so we figure that they are all likely to at least draw some solid scores.

Note that there are two separate rounds coming up on this particular episode. First, the remaining Stars will have a solo routine similar to the sort they have performed all season. From there, they will then have an opportunity to take part in a trio routine! Each Star will pair up with two pros for a chance to take on something particularly exciting — we’ve seen these before, and we do always find them particularly fun.

Round One Routines

Laurie Hernandez & Valentin Chmerkovskiy – Foxtrot – “Hollow” by Tori Kelly

James Hinchcliffe & Sharna Burgess – Argentine Tango – “Santa Maria” by Gotan Project

Calvin Johnson Jr. & Lindsay Arnold – Tango – “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes

Terra Jolé & Sasha Farber – Rumba – “Scars to Your Beautiful” by Alessia Cara

Jana Kramer & Gleb Savchenko – Quickstep – “Go Mama” by Wayne Beckford

We actually very much prefer that there are no particular themes or gimmicks associated with these routines, since it feels more like this will enable the pros to choreograph something really individual and interesting. So much of dancing, after all, is storytelling. You want to convey real emotional to your audience.

Round Two Routines

Laurie Hernandez & Valentin Chmerkovskiy with Maksim Chmerkovskiy – Samba – “Magalenha” by Sergio Mendes

James Hinchcliffe & Sharna Burgess with Jenna Johnson – Jive – “Gimme Some Lovin’” by The Spencer Davis Group

Calvin Johnson Jr. & Lindsay Arnold with Witney Carson – Salsa – “Limbo” by Daddy Yankee

Terra Jolé & Sasha Farber with Artem Chigvintsev – Tango – “Hideaway” by Kiesza

Jana Kramer & Gleb Savchenko with Alan Bersten – Paso Doblé – “Kill of the Night” by Gin Wigmore

So many of these trio pairings make sense on the surface. Val and Maks are obviously brothers, while Jenna and Alan already worked with these Stars after some injuries were suffered in rehearsals. (It’s already been confirmed that Sharna will be back this week.) Witney and Lindsay are really close friends away from the show, so it makes sense to have the two of them working together with Calvin.

Check back tomorrow, as we’re going to be providing you with our official contestant rankings for the week! (Photo: ABC.)