Alfonso and Witney! The man who wanted this for ten years has achieved his life’s goal, and the vivacious new pro can now and forevermore trumpet herself as “former champion.”

It was an incredibly close finale, but in the end, the top three ranked as expected: Alfonso, Sadie, Janel. From Week 1, Alfonso positioned himself as the one to beat, and Sadie was the one hot on his heels. The three remaining couples all performed one last dance, a 24-hour-fusion, for one last perfect score apiece. Alfonso was saved for last, with a spectacular fusion of cha-cha and Argentine tango. This was one of the best dances of the entire season, and made a convincing case for crowning Alfonso as the champion.

Sadie and Mark were the first to perform their fusion dance, a samba/quickstep that was a touch rough around the edges. Len said that “it wasn’t perfect,” but gave a ten anyway because that is required in the finale. The remarkable moment however, was when the stars were saying their final words to their partners, and Sadie thanked Mark. Mark totally started crying, and seemingly couldn’t stop – he has expressed several times that this was his favorite season, and it showed. Mark Ballas, consider yourself officially redeemed.

Janel and Val performed a foxtrot/paso doble that was pretty much entirely paso doble, but a very good paso doble at that. Showmancing each other to the bitter end, Val said he is excited to get to know Janel outside these extraordinary circumstances. I expect news of their engagement any day now… at least until Val’s next showmance.

Alfonso was the only one of the remaining three who really badly wanted the Mirrorball trophy. Each of the three had a mantra that was repeated ad nauseum throughout the night: Alfonso has wanted to win for ten years, Sadie is amazed to be here with no dance experience, and Janel just wants to jump Val’s bones. Upon being eliminated, Janel said that Val was her trophy for the season, which I think encapsulates their attitude perfectly. With the way the night ended, everyone left happy!

Alfonso is the first male champion in five seasons, and the sixth actor to win (following Amber Riley, JR Martinez, Jennifer Grey, Donny Osmond, and Kelly Monaco). Witney is the second pro to win in her first two seasons since season 5 (with the other being Peta in season 14). Sadie ties Rob Kardashian as the second-most successful reality TV star in the show’s history (first place goes to season 15 champ Melissa Rycroft). This is Mark’s second time as runner up; the other time was in Season 14, which seems to hold a lot of similarities to this final. Janel ties Chelsea Kane as the most successful ABC family star on DWTS. This was Val’s third final that did not net him a Mirrorball; the only pro who tried and failed more is his brother, who finally won on his fifth attempt.

Of course, before the fusion dances and results, we had to sit through an hour and a half of every kind of filler imaginable (two and a half hours if you watched the “Road to the Finals”). Quick highlights, if you can call them that:

Most of the stars did encore performances that lasted all of twenty seconds; Lolo and Tavis (who?) did not. Randy, who is but a distant memory, reprised his sweet Week 1 Foxtrot. Betsey did a cha-cha, but this time rejected the boa that was her downfall in the premiere. Jonathan (whose bugging eyes I’ve missed) danced with Allison and her husband Twitch, which made zero sense. This was the silliest finale trio dance since Bachelor Jake Pavelka included his then-fiance/future archnemesis Vienna in an attempt at cross-promotion.

Antonio reprised his cha-cha; he was such a nonentity this season that he wasn’t even in the video recaps of the early weeks. Ouch. Michael walked to and fro in a NASCAR-themed dance as pretty girls danced around him… which does not do justice to his time on this show. Same goes for Lea, who did a cougar-themed dance with four guys set to “Maneater.” Tommy reprised his appalling drug-filled haze from Week 1. This all served to drive home that, while the finale was very strong, this has been a terrible season overall – one of the very worst this show’s had.

Bethany and Derek got to dance twice. The first time, they were chosen by the Internet as the encore freestyle, which is ironic given that they were the ones eliminated. They were excellent, and reinforced the idea that if the public were given a chance to vote on their performance yesterday, they might have won it all. Instead, they were eliminated because of their lackluster semifinal. This new system, of eliminating couples based on past weeks, provides many incongruous moments like this. For their favorite dance encore, Bethany and Derek did their Halloween paso doble. Personally, I thought this was one of their weaker numbers, because Bethany got lost in the shuffle – still true.

The final three, however, did not get to dance their favorite dances in full. Rather, they performed snippets of their favorite dances when dancing us in from commercial break. This is completely unacceptable. For as long as I’ve watched the show, the finalists have performed their favorite dance on the final night – it allows everyone to end on a triumphant note, celebrating their achievements. Bad call, DWTS… then again, it’s been a season of bad calls, so why am I surprised?

DWTS also made up for a season of no results shows by stuffing musical performers and video packages into the show until they could stuff no more – they even brought out a cake for Bruno’s birthday. The musical guests added nothing – Nick Jonas, Meghan Trainor, and Jennifer Hudson all sang. The video packages were hit-or-miss. The finalists all rapping a parody of “Fresh Prince” was definitely a hit. The pros talking about the finalists was a miss – they keep reciting the noble lie that the judges are looking for technique in the finals. Come on, nobody believes that after a season like this. A video of outtakes from dress rehearsal was definitely a hit – Tom and Erin were being funny and inappropriate, and I now request live streams of the dress rehearsal because I was very entertained.

One of my favorite parts was a Thanksgiving-themed video where the stars and pros talked about what they’re thankful for. Best moment was Sharna saying she’s thankful for her BFF Peta, and then they made each other cry. Awwww! Six professional dancers then ushered in the holidays with a winter wonderland dance, which was very cool. Much better than the “women of DWTS” number, which involved strutting and posing and very little dancing.

One of the videos was the finalists sizing each other up. At first it was the usual banalities – “She performs! She can dance!” But then it turned to trash talking, and it was amazing! Janel said, “I eat ducks like that [Sadie] for breakfast!” Alfonso said, “Janel’s gonna go from Pretty Little Liars to Pretty Little Loser!” And Sadie closed with the best zinger, “Shouldn’t Alfonso be retired yet?”

They have already started hyping up the spring’s tenth anniversary season – hopefully it’ll be epic! See you all here next spring! In the meantime, what did you think of season 19? Are you happy with Alfonso’s victory? And what celebrities do you hope to see on the next season?