Sorry this recap’s a weensy bit late, darlings. We needed time to process this weird little episode so we didn’t sound like bitter bitches when we recapped it. Transparency in blogging!
We’re not mad; really we’re not. It’s not a bad episode, just an oddly constructed one featuring a cast that seems to be deflating as the season wears on, rather than getting more intensely competitive. It’s well established at this point that making it to the second half of a Drag Race season will increase any queen’s profile, followings, and booking fees substantially. It’s also well known that the finalists if not the winner of each season is easy to peg by the first few challenges. Here. Look at this while we continue rambling:
Wait. No. Don’t look at that. Here:
For these reasons, it only makes good sense for any queen in the competition, even the frontrunners, to dial back their responses to everything. Q had a moment where he couldn’t rein in his disappointment and it made for a few minutes of entertaining bitchery, if only because someone was letting the mask slip. It’s not that we’re asking for more clashes in the Werk Room or anything, but look at Plane, for instance. He’s done good work establishing himself as the season’s villain, but no one’s really biting. Most of his more obvious attempts to stir the pot are met with eyerolls. Ten years ago, if the season’s bitch fucked with another queen’s project for giggles, it would have erupted into a full-blown drag war; a rivalry to last the ages, likely culminating in a highly dramatic lip sync showdown. These things just don’t happen in the show anymore, for good or for ill.
At this point in Drag Race‘s highly successful history, we can’t really claim to know how the show can deal with its structural issues. We long ago shifted our way of talking about the show when we started saying to look at it like a variety show with cash prizes rather than a strict competition.
But despite the show’s continued success in ratings and awards, there is a definite sense of staleness creeping over the whole enterprise and it affects how the queens are approaching or responding to each task. No one’s hungry or insanely jealous enough to drive great breakthroughs or rivalries, so the performances of each task tend to get flatter or time.
Still. this week’s episode had a pretty fun mini-challenge based on a forty-year-old t-shirt that Ru remembers fondly (because of course).
You won’t catch us complaining when the show makes the queens do something stupid, funny, and extremely gay.
The main challenge, on the other hand, came off more than a little spotty and unfocused, as if the production had checked out and left the queens to their own devices. We don’t mind a stupid-fun challenge (even if it does involve *shudder* improv), but it was hard to shake the feeling that no one really knew what was expected of them. Remember the days when Ru was constantly on set, directing and interacting with them?
But because this challenge was so unfocused and because even the queens without a win under their belt don’t feel desperate enough to make any sort of wild play, you can’t point to anyone and say “Oh, she ate that one” or “What a trainwreck.”
It feels like it all should have worked better than it did, given the elements. But Michelle and Carson just aren’t great scene partners (Ru, on the other hand, is a spectacular one, in case anyone forgot) and “Design a naughty bathroom” is just a weird thing to ask of a drag queen, especially if you’re not going to give her much in the way of guidance or materials.
Having said that, Sapphira and Plane were the clear standouts, as they are every week. We wouldn’t say they produced a moment that will go down in DR herstory, but they were smooth, occasionally funny, and had a clear sense of what they were doing.
Tapping into Sapphira’s opera skills didn’t quite make sense, but it allowed them to come off way more prepared and talented than anyone else.
The runway category was chain-themed and there were some surprising results. Except for Nymphia, who was as stunning as ever, the costume queens all kinda fell down on this one.
Morphine’s was spectacular. Q’s was the worst thing she’s worn all season. Those big plastic chains are not fabulous. Her wig is terrible, her makeup is harsh.
Dawn’s was sort of interesting, but in the end, it was just a bunch of chains hanging awkwardly off a semi-basic look. Nymphia’s was absolutely stunning. It might be our favorite look of the season.
Michelle was absolutely right that this was a highly typical Plane Jane look. We suspect, given how much of a player she is, that she’ll unveil some unexpected glamour near the end of the competition. We’re sorry to say, we just don’t love Sapphira’s. Drag queens are allowed to express their art in any way they want, but to us, this is a fetish costume only. There’s little about it that reads as the kind of drag you’d sport in a drag competition. But condrags to them both for the deserved win.
The bottom two were the two without a win. At this point, regardless of their output, if they’re not landing in the top, it’s time to sort them out and send them home. There was a lot of social media joking about how Dawn just gave up the second Megan Thee Stallion started playing and it’s true that she’s way less suited to the song than Morphine is, but it just feels like an ongoing trend of queens shrugging their shoulders and going home instead of fighting.
We do feel bad for her, however. She’s original and interesting, but she never gained a foothold in the competition. Sometimes, good drag queens just aren’t suited to the show’s format, although we’d still rather see them go out fighting.
Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life, a New York Times “New and Notable” pick, praised by The Washington Post “because the world needs authenticity in its stories,” and chosen as one of the Best Books of The Year by NPR is on sale wherever fine books are sold! It’s also available in Italian and Spanish language editions, darlings! Because we’re fabulous on an INTERNATIONAL level.
[Photo Credit: MTV via Tom and Lorenzo]
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