In the interests of full disclosure and transparency: OF COURSE it’s sometime difficult to work up the enthusiasm to recap another episode of Drag Race after having done it hundreds of times. We’d look like the dumbest liars in all of creation to claim otherwise. That’s not a complaint; just a simple fact of the job. We still love the show and get excited for a new crop of queens, or in this case, a new combination of queens, when every season starts. We’ll never get tired of talking about drag. But when challenges like the Snatch Game roll around, we know there’s little we can say that we haven’t said before. There were, however, a few twists and surprises for us this time around, the most shocking being that we didn’t find the challenge painful to sit through.
But first.
There was another silly quick drag mini challenge. Notable moment: Kween claiming that everyone thinks Nehellenia is a creep when the cameras are off. We’ll just have to see how that will play out. Just to maintain our huffy and judgmental bona fides, as much as we love quick drag, we don’t like it as much when the queens go as clowny as possible with it. In our opinion, that’s gaming the challenge a little. The point of quick drag, as we see it, is to put your drag technical skills to the test. It’s illuminating to see who can pull off a decent beat in ten minutes. We understand the humor of the approach, but at this point, it doesn’t feel like anyone’s done anything new but “ugly slut” for a long time.
It’s kind of why we were happy to see Gala win it, because she really did look the best.
Next up was the Snatch Game challenge, of course. Complete with the requisite scenes of Ru alternately pumping the girls up or deflating them a little in the hopes of causing a spiral. It was ever thus.
Just to mention one oft-repeated opinion from us: we still think Snatch Game of Love, while and admirable twist on the original challenge, is a lesser version because the queens only have to work half as hard to keep the focus on them. It’s easier to command attention when there are only three other queens on stage with you, as opposed to eight or so. Anyway, Kween took a big risk, not just because of the character swerve, but because there’s always the chance that comedy involving a man of color in a gorilla suit might take a racist turn. He kept things funny and light, though. Gala looked fantastic and landed not one joke. While it’s clear that she’s not really a comedy girl under the best circumstances, it’s still a problem when the show expects non-native speakers to perform comedy or acting challenges in English, in competition against native speakers. You would have to be damn near a comedic genius to land jokes in a language not your own against trained and fluent comics. Speaking of which, while it pains us to say it because it only supports our previous point, Kitty nailed this one to the wall. She was hilarious. It’s honestly to the credit of Kween and, to our tremendous surprise, Nehellenia, that Kitty didn’t totally dominate the panel.
Vanity continues to be the girl with the worst instincts. She’s cute and funny and her drag’s pretty great, but she always seems to be tripping herself up. She had no jokes or game plan here. Blasphemy time: we think Alyssa’s schtick has worn thin. The dials are always at 11 with her. A little modulation or, at the very least, a surprise now and then would be nice. Everything she’s doing she’s done before. Tessa was brave to attempt to do a personal friend of Ru’s, but again, she had no character or jokes. Pythia was the shock of the episode. His transformation and costume design were so great that we seriously question the whole storyline about him making it at the last second. Even so, costume aside, the performance was hilarious and he was unrecognizable.
Category Is: Eat Me! ️✨ Which lewk do you want to take a bite out of? #GlobalAllStars pic.twitter.com/UofgVDEg1i
— RuPaul’s Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) September 20, 2024
The costumes were pretty great all around this time. While Gala’s body-serving can get a little tired at times, we’re impressed with all of the creative ways she manages it. Kitty’s English breakfast is hilarious.
Nehellenia looks like a confection and her cherry headpiece is perfect, although we think the volume of the look weighs her down. Vanity’s was witty in the way only drag can be, but we would have liked a more flattering fit.
Tessa’s idea was cute, but she needed to drag it up more. Just look to Pythia for how to do it. That bitch made spanakopita look like high fashion. We love that the green is the exact shade of cooked spinach instead of some glittering bold green. That’s a great little detail that elevates the sophistication of the design.
While the show’s streak of rewarding native English speakers and sending the non-fluent speakers home was upheld once again, we’re afraid we can’t really find fault with the outcome. We wouldn’t have had a problem with Pythia winning it, but we can’t get mad that Kitty did.
We felt like the writing was on the wall for Gala even before the song started, although Vanity’s been in the bottom a lot herself. At first we were annoyed with the selection of the Mahna Mahna song, because it really doesn’t lend itself to drag lip syncing. But it turned out to be a great way to get both queens to figure out an approach.
We’ll give credit to Gala for trying to mimic hand puppets, but Vanity proved that it’s not a song that asks for a lot of movement. All of the work has to be done in the face and she found the comedy.
Definitely sorry to see her go, if only because we think the competition prevented her from showing how much she can do.
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: Paramount Plus via Tom and Lorenzo, World of Wonder Productions, Inc./Paramount+]
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