RuPaul’s Drag Race: Catwalk Meltdown

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PinRu’s drag has been looking a little tatty lately. The dresses are kind of standard and the wig and makeup have been looking a bit harsh and mannish, which is totally unlike Ru. Now, as drag queens get older, time takes its toll and it gets harder for a man near his 50th birthday to mimic feminine characteristics as effectively as he did when he was younger. That could be part of it, along with Ru’s reported health problems during the taping of this season. But Ru looks fine when he’s out of drag:

PinSo we tend not to think age or health have much to do with the lackluster looks this season. We get the impression that Ru’s heart really isn’t in it anymore. Or at least, not like it used to be. Ru spends more and more of her public life out of drag now and her major project of the last couple of years has been about passing the drag torch. We wonder if Ru isn’t thinking of eventually transitioning out of drag altogether.

PinSo Yara wins the mini-challenge and we have no idea why. Look, she’s fun, but her shrieking, over-the-top, Univision variety show persona has its limits and we reached them a while back. Ru genuinely seems to think she’s funny, and to be fair, she is, a lot of the time. But as the competition progresses and girls get cast out, it’s been more shrieking and less comedy. To be perfectly honest, we have no idea what she was trying to sell here. Yes, the hair piece, but what was the pitch? We couldn’t tell you.

PinMike, seriously. That hair. There’s no excuse. You’re a 45-year-old Muscle Mary. You can’t wear the Bieber hair, especially if your hair requires a pound and a half of product to get it that way. Consult a mirror. Or a friend. Or a friend with a mirror.

PinFun. Not given enough time.

PinLoopy as hell, but that’s no surprise.

PinThe musical number was surprisingly well done, all things considered.

PinWe could not stop laughing at Raja, however. Total deer-in-headlights look on her face and no attempt at all to follow the words of the song. Completely in over her head.


PinSo Miss Manila wins it again, we were a little surprised again. Not that we disagreed at all.

Loved Mike’s review of this swimsuit as “Samantha Jones at the Hamptons.” Oh, Mike. You so gay.

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PinMichelle, for all her annoying qualities, really nailed it when she pointed out that Manila is the only one who’s “on” the entire time she’s on stage.

We liked this look. Apparently they all had to use the gold fabrics for this challenge. Manila’s the only one who managed a look with a little style and personality to it. Raja tried with his Paris Hilton drag, but it fell a little flat. Sure, it’s stretching the bounds of “after 5,” but who the hell wears gold lame after 5 anyway?

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PinGreat, funny, over-the-top look. We didn’t think it was the best evening gown on the runway, but looking over everything, she was the most consistent this week. A decent job with the mini-challenge (“MAN Ila Spray!”), and three very good runway looks. What probably got her the win was her sassy comeback to LaToya’s silly big hair complaint. Ru loves a queen who can give it right back and maintain her poise under criticism.

We’re so glad she made it to the finals. For our money, it’s always been down to Raja and Manila, but Raja would have to set herself and her competitors on fire in order to be sent home, which left us nervous all season that Manila would be eliminated in order to prevent two shoo-ins for the finals. We’re happy to be wrong about that.

PinPoor Yara had a meltdown this week and that meltdown ultimately sent her home. Did we not say she was the next to go?

This is an excellent look, but someone didn’t tuck as well as she should have.

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PinThis is awful. We have no idea what she was thinking here. She looks old and depressed, and that’s pretty hard to do in a gold lame dress.

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PinAnd this was just a total WTF. You can’t just throw any old crap together and try to salvage it by calling it an homage to Alexander McQueen. That only makes you look like you have no idea who McQueen was. Everything from the boobs down is okay, but everything above them looks ridiculous, awkward, and ugly.

PinThese two really tripped themselves up this week, but if we’re to believe the editing, we think Alexis accidentally got inside Yara’s head and left some insecurity behind. Yara was trying to prop her up and tell her to get back in the game and she kept whining about how the judges hate her. But Alexis won three challenges and Yara won only one. After a while, all that crying about how she couldn’t please the judges must have done a number on Yara, who may have realized that of the 4 of them, she’s the weakest one, according to the judges.

PinIf you watch Untucked, you saw that the two PR queens were feeding off each other’s negative energy and wound up getting themselves way more worked up than they needed to be. Alexis at least blew off a little steam by throwing some thinly veiled shade at the Asian contingent, but Yara shut down.

PinAll that emotional ping-pong took its toll at the exact wrong moment: when she was lip synching for her life. She couldn’t move in that hideous dress and when she tried to do a strip tease, she got stuck in it. After that, she just gave up. Sad, because until Alexis got a hold of her, Yara seemed mostly immune to the judges’ criticism.

[Screencaps: tomandlorenzo.com]

• RPDR
• RuPaul’s Drag Race