'Dancing with the Stars' Recap: One Couple Eliminated on First Night of Finals

The night included a sexy kiss and one couple getting a completely perfect score

Photo: Craig Sjodin/ABC

It was the first night of finals on Monday’s two-part Dancing with the Stars – and the last night for one couple.

After weeks of participating in one of the most competitive seasons, three couples moved on to vie for the mirror ball trophy Tuesday night. Read on to find out who didn’t make it.

In a show that saw a hot smooch from Peta Murgatroyd and James Maslow and an injured Mark Ballas pulling off two dances effortlessly, at the end of the evening, it was the lip-locking pair who got sent home.

“I’ve really had an amazing experience on this,” Maslow said after learning his fate. “I enjoyed it more than I ever thought was possible.”

Murgatroyd gushed, “He was absolutely amazing.”

The duo kicked off the night with a sexy 29-point tango during which they shared a kiss on the mouth. The judges liked it for the most part, but judge Carrie Ann Inaba said the musician looked uptight.

Next up, Meryl Davis and Maksim Chmerkovskiy danced an elegant Argentine tango that the judges called perfection and scored them as such with 30 points out of 30.

Candace Cameron Bure danced a 27-point quickstep with injured Ballas that had Inaba saying she was “surprised and totally impressed.”

Consistent stunners Amy Purdy and Derek Hough wowed yet again with a 30-point salsa.

“Every week I’m baffled by you,” raved Inaba.

Murgatroyd and Maslow kicked off the most fun part of the night: the freestyle dances. Their martial arts hip-hop routine scored a 29. Inaba called Maslow “the most versatile” contestant this season.

Chmerkovskiy and Davis’s perfect-scoring contemporary freestyle made them the only entirely perfect-scoring couple of the night.

“First of all, I think you should get married,” Inaba told the pair while crying over the beauty of the routine. “What you did there was the most stunning example of divinity in motion.”

Len Goodman raved, “There’s good, there’s great and there’s Meryl.”

That powerful routine was followed by a panned 24-point space-age-themed number by Bure and Ballas.

“I don’t feel like you connected with the music,” Inaba told Bure, with Bruno Tonioli agreeing, “You’ve got to be on that beat.”

Purdy and Hough’s 29-point freestyle was called “profound” by Inaba, but Goodman didn’t think the gravity-defying rope move was necessary.

Amy Purdy s Special Prosthetic Feet for DWTS