Julianne Hough

Julianne started the night in a Not Completely Awful silver gown. I REALLY do not like the hip pocket, though. The way it encourages her to stand makes the dress look like a sack. Shiny, yes, but still shapeless.

Julianne Hough

She switched it up for this one, which fits better most of the way down, if perhaps a tad aggressively in the chest. It's fine. It's actually probably a good choice because she isn't supposed to be trying to one-up the contestants, and this certainly doesn't.

Julianne Hough

And then we have this lamentable jumpsuit. I can't believe they made her stand next to the outgoing Miss USA (Olivia Jordan) in that thing. Julianne seems like such a nice person, and yet that jumpsuit looks like REVENGE. (I kind of like Olivia's dress, though. Or do I only like it because the dress isn't pants with a cummerbund so big it's got Spanx in its DNA?)

2016 Miss USA Competition - Show

I think she wore this for the end of the show, so maybe she was in costume as The Black Widow of Miss USA, cruelly killing the dreams of the hopefuls who whiffed.

2016 Miss USA Competition - Show

Speaking of. Miss California got a question about the gap between rich and poor in this country, and she basically just stood there for an eternity before trying to answer, pausing, getting patronizing applause from an audience that knew it was watching a spiritual faceplant, and them bumbling out some closing words. You can see in Julianne's face what's happening. Her producers are probably in her ear all, "LOOK SUPPORTIVE. DO NOT CRINGE. YOU'RE WINCING, JULIANNE. TURN IT INTO A SMILE. DON'T GAWK."

Hough

Hawaii was the first runner-up, and a beneficiary of the carefully stated rule (during the eveningwear parade) that WHAT the girls are wearing doesn't matter as long as they are poised and composed and whatnot. (This after they noted that Alabama tried on more than 20 dresses, whereas Connecticut sampled only three. Because i guess they ran out of things to say about these women? How is that possible? If nothing else, most of them have about 80 different hobbies on their resumes. it's like the push to get into college, multiplied by 40.)

Anyway, Hawaii looked scrolldown-crazy, AND she got stuck with the voting question. She was basically like, "Everyone should vote for who they think will help America," and what else can you really say without wishing to start a political riot? That seemed like a really unfair question. Especially when you consider that they tried to lob fan fave Miss Alabama a TOTAL softball about what Muhammad Ali's legacy should be. (Her answer was, essentially, "He was... so good at his sport! Aim high!" The poor kid is kicking herself today for not googling him that morning.)

Julianne Hough

Miss D.C. looked awesome, and got the easiest question of all -- if I remember right, it was about gender equality in the armed forces. And SHE is (was?) in the armed forces, so she TOTALLY knew she had this one in the bag. She was right. She gave a great answer about how women are powerful and should never be underestimated, and if she hadn't won, it would have proven that the Q&A session doesn't count.

Ali Landry

The dress was whole when she pulled it out of the trunk in her attic, but slowly eroded during the cruel march of the elements.

Olivia Jordan, Ashley Graham

Ashley's dress looks like it cost $19.99. Money that would have been better spent sewing a lining into Olivia's.

Olivia Jordan

I mean. Is it meant to be a metaphor -- like, that she's glad to see the back of being Miss USA? Because this sure as heck SEEMS like something you'd wear if you wanted to flip off your employer a little.

Backstreet Boys

And then the Backstreet Boys showed up.

(We can't leave it there. They sang, and were... fine. They did "I Want It That Way," which was as perfect a match of song to target demo/audience makeup as possible -- SO MANY shots of people in my age group singing along -- and then they walked each of the finalists across the stage while singing solos to them, and basically by then every last one of them was out of breath. Brian Littrell may have forgotten the words? Or he just held out the mic for the audience to supply them and they just didn't. It was so weird. And therefore weirdly perfect.)

Fugs and Fabs: Julianne Hough (and more) at the Miss USA Pageant

The person who is not in this slideshow, but arguably had the worst night, was Laura Brown of Harper's Bazaar. She was a judge, and the question she got handed to ask Miss Hawaii was, essentially, whether she'd vote for Trump or Hillary in the general election. The ENTIRE crowd started booing her -- Miss Hawaii dodged her answer, as well she should, as a person's vote is private and should never be demanded as a passage to first place in a beauty pageant -- and the male co-host, Terrence J, had to specify after the break that the Miss USA organization picked the questions and not Brown herself. If I were her, I'd have shouted the names of six of their sponsors' direct competitors into the microphone and then dropped it and left. [Photos: Getty, Fame/Flynet]