OK, so Dancing With the Stars is over and Alfonso Ribeiro won. Janelskiy fans everywhere are heartbroken that this season's it couple didn't achieve Maks & Meryl-type status by winning the mirrorball. But don't say goodbye to the idea of Janel Parrish & Val Chmerkovskiy quite yet. Obviously the end of the show means the end of their on-stage romancing, but off stage is a whole other matter.
On Tuesday's finale, they both acknowledged that no matter what happened they were going to keep in touch. Whether they mean just as friends, or as something more, I don't know. But the important thing is that we'll probably see Janel and Val together again. Perhaps we'll see them at the DWTS mirrorball tour. (Janel promised she'd make a cameo!) Or maybe we'll just get a glimpse of them hanging out on Instagram. Any way you slice it, this pair isn't splitting up just yet.
Most telling about the couple's future was their parting words. "I'm going to miss dancing with Janel," Val admitted. "But I'm finally going to get a chance to get know her outside of these crazy circumstances, so I'm excited." For her part, Janel also refused to say goodbye forever. "Val, you've made this the most amazing experience in my life," she told him in a special video message aired during the finale. "I really have grown to love you so much as a person. I'm going to miss you and I'm not going to say goodbye to you because I know I'm going to see you again."
They may not be this season's winners, but they won each other over and got a friendship (and maybe even a romance?) out of the deal. As Janel put it after being eliminated, "I honestly am just so lucky to be here standing next to him. [Val was] my trophy the whole entire season."
Amen, sister. On behalf of Team Janelskiy, I wish the two of you luck in the future with whatever your relationship holds, from friendship to courtship. The fans have watched the two grow together over the course of the season, and it's a relief to hear they plan on staying in each other's lives. This kind of chemistry is too good to waste.
Image: Adam Taylor/ABC
