This episode begins with Chloe taking the bus to work only to bump into Michelle! Despite trying to hide, Michelle spots Chloe and notices her uniform, prompting Chloe to admit that she has to work in order to continue dancing. To Chloe’s surprise, Michelle totally understands her situation, but Chloe asks her to keep it a secret from the rest of A-Troupe anyway.
Next we see the entire A-Troupe rehearsing for the solo auditions which take place the following day. Eldon continues to chase after Emily’s heart by tying her shoelace for her, thinking it would be romantic. Unfortunately, Emily doesn’t think so and brushes him off and begins rehearsals.
Thanks to the pressures of having to work a lot, Chloe has falling behind on learning the dance routines and ends up messing up the moves and falling out of time, much to Emily’s annoyance. Emily ends up criticizing and putting Chloe down for not being prepared and falling behind.
Concerned, Michelle approaches Chloe and offers to help her learn the dance moves and catch up with everyone else. Riley overhears this and is further convinced that Michelle should replace Emily as leader A-Troupe and she and James scheme to make this happen.
While helping Chloe learn the routine, Michelle tries to convince her to tell Kate about her troubles, but Chloe refuses. Michelle then decides to cover for Chloe whenever needed, making Chloe feel like she finally has a true friend in the troupe.
Later, Riley and James “accidentally” bump into Michelle and start up a conversation about how her offering to help Chloe was very “leaderish.” Michelle is unimpressed and insists that she is not interested in taking over as A-Troupe’s leader.
The next day at the auditions for the solo, Emily reveals that she is using Eldon and manipulating him to see how much he will do for her.
When the auditions begin, Michelle is worried because Chloe is late again and may miss the auditions.
At the end of his audition, Daniel lands on his ankle in a painful way. He hides the injury and hopes it’s nothing, but West notices him limping.
When it’s Chloe’s turn, she’s still not there, so Michelle covers for her by saying she’s at a doctor’s appointment and when Kate says they cannot wait all day, Michelle offers to call Chloe. Kate agrees and the auditions continue while Michelle gets in touch with Chloe who is still at work. Chloe says she’ll be there in an hour and Michelle lies to Kate saying Chloe will be there any minute.
When all the auditions are over and Chloe still isn’t there, Michelle tries to make Kate wait by saying Chloe will be there any second, but Kate says she can’t wait and reveals that maybe Chloe needs to go back to B-Troupe!
Kate announces that Daniel has won the solo and James is his understudy! Right after this announcement, Chloe shows up and an unimpressed Emily chews her out in front of the entire A-Troupe by claiming that she isn’t as dedicated to dance and to A-Troupe as she should be. Chloe tries to defend herself, but when Emily asks her to perform the routine, Chloe is forced to admit that she doesn’t know it. Emily continues to berate Chloe until Chole runs out in tears.
Michelle then steps up to Emily and the two have a showdown with Michelle defending Chloe and Emily asking Michelle to tell everyone why Chloe is always missing rehearsals. Michelle can’t since she promised to keep Chloe’s troubles a secret, so instead she storms away leaving everyone wondering if Michelle’s quit the A-Troupe.
Meanwhile, Daniel is icing his hurt ankle and discovers that the injury is much worse than he thought, but decides to keep it a secret and hope it’ll get better so that he doesn’t have to give up the solo.
Later, Riley and James are trying to figure out whether or not Michelle has quit the studio when Michelle suddenly approaches them and asks if they still want her to replace Emily as A-Troupe leader!
You won’t want to miss what happens next, so be sure to tune in to THE NEXT STEP on Fridays at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Family Channel!