It’s good to be reminded at least once a season that RuPaul’s Drag Race is an extremely well-produced reality competition show. This was a smoothly directed and edited hour of the show doing what it does best. And by that we mean the thing that all reality shows attempt (through direction and editing) but only a handful manage to execute in a way that seems seamless and effortless.
Back in our Project Runway recapping days, there was a point we made frequently regarding the show’s sometimes awkward attempts to inject drama into the proceedings: an hour of people sewing quietly is not going to make arresting television. You have to do something to make it more interesting to the audience but if you’re too obvious about the levers you’re pulling and strings your cutting behind the scenes, it’s annoying to watch.
Since this was nearly an hour of people sewing relatively quietly that somehow entertained the hell out of us, we’d almost believe our prior point was wrong. But RPDR as a production is extremely adept at wringing drama out of that scenario, partially through its casting and partially by knowing how to set up challenges that heighten tensions among the contestants.
But first, a little fetish moment to enjoy.
The spit-take mini-challenge was silly and pointless, which is what mini-challenges should be, for the most part.
The main challenge was fun, not just because the goth theme applies so well to drag, but because none of the queens were expecting another design challenge. We’re thrilled to see anything that shakes up the format, just as we’re thrilled to see anything that keeps the queens unsteady on their feet.
And nothing will bring out the rivalries and insecurities like a design challenge. You had Mhi’ya more or less treating Sapphira as a dressmaker, to the annoyance of every other queen there. Plus you had Plasma coming up against the limitations of her own drag. You had every one of the sewing queens (Q, Dawn, Nymphia, Sapphira) eyeing each other up suspiciously AND Plane starting shit with Plasma about their designs being similar. It was one of those perfect challenges where pretty much every contestant got some sort of storyline or motivation. We’ve said it before, but episodes like this one are why the show wins Emmys. It’s just really well-constructed reality television.
The results of the challenge were almost uniformly great, except for one “Girl, we guess so” and one “Oh honey no.”
We were originally underwhelmed by Plane’s design because we felt like she was repeating looks we’d already seen, but the embellishments were really well-executed, especially the ribbons. Mhi’ya’s look was only passably good. For all of the complaining by the other queens, it’s not as if Sapphira whipped up some amazing creation for her. That’s clearly Mhi’ya’s design and sewing. Not that we think the other queens were wrong to be annoyed a little by it. Cameraderie and congeniality are great, but at this stage, you’re kind of fucking with the natural order of the competition.
Dawn’s look was gorgeously rendered and at this point, we feel a little bad for her. In a different competition, she’d be sweeping these design challenges, but her engineering degree is going up against some world class fashion and costume designers. Morphine acquitted herself well and elevated the look with her makeup. Plasma is a straight-up disaster and any optimism she showed ahead of time looks completely delusional in retrospect. She’s an absolute wreck up there. She is right, however, to feel that Mhi’ya would have also looked a wreck had she not received so much help.
It’s to Sapphira’s credit that she could whip up such a beautiful look while helping out Mhi’ya, but she might have better spent her time on figuring out how to push the envelope on the design a little. She sold the hell out of it, but it was barely goth and she was standing next to some amazing costumes.
Nymphia’s look is breathtaking and the details are subtle and beautiful. Q would not have been our choice for the win, although we can see why the judges went for hers. It’s unique among the looks, an unexpected way to go in interpreting goth. The details are impressive but also a but excessive. That’s the difference between these two looks. Nymphia’s was a beautiful, elegant, and subtly sophisticated design while Q’s was more in the classic drag mode of being big, loud and a little weird.
We’re not mad at the win. We don’t even have much reason to argue against it. We just think Nymphia’s was better in almost every way.
On the one hand, it’s crazy to us that Plasma went home with two wins under her belt and Mhi’ya got saved after being in the bottom yet again, but Plasma’s look is an absolute disaster AND she didn’t exactly nail the lip sync. Having said that, it seems long past time for Mhi’ya to be packing her bags. We can’t imagine that she’ll survive another lip sync, although Ru and the producers tend to love a storyline about a queen coming out of her shell.
As for her, this isn’t too much of a surprise. Ru has a fairly low tolerance for the cabaret and Broadway queens. She was never one herself.
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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