I will be recreating this cake for every single member of my family’s birthday.
They often warn you to never work with animals or children, but I think we can add goths and black icing to that list.
Hasta Mandella, Baby
If we thought Joe Black’s elimination rattled the girls then Asttina’s hit them like a freight train and the nerves were JANGLED. Tayce is obviously a little bitter because she and Asttina were friends and seeing her unexpectedly getting served in a lipsync about Tia Kofi who everyone has a bee in their bonnets about because she’s a little basic on the runway (everyone conveniently forgetting she blew most of them out of the water in Rats! The Rusical). But she wasn’t the only one being a little tetchy, Lawrence obviously relies on humour a lot and the moment things began to get a little awkward around the mirror (and I’m not talking about Asttina trying to make ratbite fever her “thing”) so she cracks a few jokes that don’t land and Ginny is having NONE OF IT
While in the first episode Lawrence and Ginny did this same thing and it was very much playful jibing, this on the other hand was a declaration of war. And then it was A’Whora’s turn to make a bitchy comment that doesn’t entirley land but it did at least produce The Gif of the Series
It’s the new Cheryl Disconsolately Flipping Her Wig.
A’Whora could obviously see the writing on the wall for her in terms of being the villain and boy was she pressing the Emergency Redemption Arc Button as she comes to Tia’s aid when Tayce starts coming for her about being called basic, claiming she has noticed Tia’s growth within the competition, which isn’t entirely what A’Whora said
And Lawrence gleefully calls her out and points out that she said she was bored of Tia’s drag
She’s going to have to try harder than that to get Twitter to like her.
And just to diffuse the situation here’s Ginny Lemon looking like Kevin Nealon in the classically bad film Little Nicky
I hate myself for being able to make that reference.
The Gay British Bake Off
The mini challenge this week was for each of the queens to select a baked good and try their best to sell it it to the world. I personally love this challenges because they’ve given us such delights as Monique Heart’s “Hot and vivacious chocolate”, the absurdity of Joslyn Fox handling a melon with 4 inch nails and the exhausted frenetic energy of the Season 3 QVC mini challenge. Of course we only every remember the highs and certainly nobody is going to remember Ellie Diamond literally just describing a custard tart to us like someone doing the audio visual description for Bake Off
You have to somewhat admire someone that is that bombastically unfunny.
Sister Sister would have suffered a similar fate with her Hexy Sprinkle Cakes (because I suppose she has suddenly decided being a witch is her thing?) if it hadn’t been for Veronica playing her stooge with such vigour
Although vigorous fitting was pretty much all Veronica had to offer for this whole mini challenge
A brand is a brand.
Tayce went an interesting route by just shoving a viennese finger up her arse
and the editor choosing to cut to A’Whora because apparently we’re never going to let that whole storyline die a death already. Nothing Tayce did quite horrified me more than her saying the word “nummies” not once but twice. INSTANT ELIMINATION HONEY.
I can’t really remember a single thing A’Whora did other than mention Ginny Lemon several times and after this it really does come as a shock at just how good at improv she was in the main challenge. On the subject of Ginny Lemon, she was fine, the joke about the chocolate cookie actually tasting disgusting was very expected, as was Tia finding another opportunity to crawl along the floor
That studio floor must be the best swept floor in Britain.
Bimini was the obvious stand out with her perfectly delivered jibe at Brexit via the medium of Belgian Buns
And while Bimini went for nuance and intellect, Lawrence Chaney made a poo joke
As night follows day.
Bimini wins the Mini challenge and as a reward she gets first pick of the roles in this week’s main challenge in which the Queens must host a live television show called Morning Glory – a joke that apparently didn’t travel across the Atlantic judging by the confused Americans on various forums.
Morning Glory
The roles on offer for the challenge are Gen Z Main Hosts, Hippy Weatherwoman, Essex Moneysavers, Dragony Neices and Goth Party Planners.
Bimini without any hesitation goes for 1 of the two Gen Z presenters and Tayce pretty much instantly pounces on the second one before anyone could so much as breathe. The two Scottish queens remain inseparable and opt for the Dragony nieces – we’ll talk about these roles later because I am confused about them and their schtick. Ginny Lemon was predestined to be the hippy weatherwoman – she was not given any other option, it was that or death.
Tia Kofi then had a brainwave and played a masterfully tactical card and suggested she and A’Whora work together
It really could only go well for Tia, she would either outshine A’Whora by throwing her off her game, because lets face it – the only person that was bothered in this whole Tia vs A’Whora plot was A’Whora. The other option would be that Tia would just give a solidly comedic performance and be safe – it’s easy to parody an Essex girl, this was the lowest hanging fruit of the whole cast.
With the rest decided that pretty much gave Veronica and Sister Sister no choice but to be the Goth Party Planners, which neither of them are very happy with, least of all Sister Sister who think Veronica isn’t much of a comedy queen. DID SHE NOT SEE VERONICA AS DITA VON FLEAS?
The unabashed audacity of Sister Sister to call Veronica Green stiff and bad at comedy after walking into the Werk Room with a Titanic reference that not even the most ardent of Titanic fans clocked.
Live at Five
On hand to assist the queens during their live performance is Lorraine Kelly – not that she could really assist them because this was a live show and she couldn’t intervene. I’m really not sure why she was even there?
Bimini bon Boulash and Tayce
The show at least got off to a good start with Bimini and Tayce clearly being very comfortable on camera and able to cope with a degree of improv, but we knew Tayce would be good because she’s done TV work before, by which she means she was in an advert for TK Maxx – it’s the diamond in her CV crown. Do you know who else has done a TK Maxx advert? The dog that co-hosts Pooch Perfect with Sheridan Smith.
Bimini pretty much steals the show from Tayce with little details like having her prompt cards upside down
and slowly slumping down the sofa like Holly Willoughby after a night at the TV Choice Awards
it was superb comedy, well delivered and with a degree of nuance. Tayce, while good, did unfortunately feel like she was having to run to keep up with Bimini’s constant yes-anding.
Veronica Green and Sister Sister
Did I love that they looked like Noel Fielding and Paloma Faith? yes, I did. That’s pretty much where the enjoyment ends because they were both utterly lifeless – which I get was *somewhat* what they were trying to do with their dead pan gothiness. But what they needed to do was be way more hyperbolic with it, they were planning a birthday and they should have just opened by saying “What better way to celebrate another step towards your ever encroaching demise” – play it more like the goth kids from South Park.
There were glimmers of hope, Veronica just slamming everything down on the table like she was serving patrons in a medieval tavern
and Sister Sister saying “voila!” was Portuguese for “It’s done!” was delightful, but it wasn’t enough to forgive the mercilessly slow car crash that was the whole segment.
I am curious to know how much they overran by becasue everyone makes out that it went on for ages but they never played that up during the performance, and it was hardly [REDACTED PIE] taking an extra 17 minutes for her comedy set – I’m still mad about her not being in the bottom 2 for that.
But I did love the imminent fallout between the two of them because once the cameras stopped rolling Sister Sister IMMEDIATLY put those roses in the blender
and that was not acting.
Lawrence Chaney and Ellie Diamond
I’m more than a little confused about this whole segment, and it’s probably not very confusing and I’m being an idiot considering it took me a while to get to the fact “dragony nieces” were a play on “agony aunts” – which are apparently extremely important to British culture… Are they? Or is Michelle Visage pretending to be an Anglophile again?
These roles were specifically described as “pre-school kids presenters”, so I get Ellie Diamond dressing up as some sort of cursed anime child, but I’m slightly confused about Lawrence Chaney just looking like Lawrence Chaney
and then top of this, their segment was just being an agony aunt to Michelle Visage’s fear of looking like she has resting bitch face. No element of this was an even vague commentary on children’s entertainment because all that really happened was Ellie painted Lawrence’s face to look like Sister Sister
and then Lawrence sat on a child’s plastic motorbike until it crumpled beneath her
Am I overthinking it? Yes. Was this still incohesive and weird? Also yes.
Ginny Lemon
Apparently for this role Ginny was overtaken by the spirits of both *insert unproblematic Australian Kids Presenter Here* and Baga Chipz as she went down in a spectacular flame of one noted comedy in which she just said the word “Chakras” a lot in an Australian accent while looking like Ginny Lemon always looks.
The judges claim she coped with the improv and rapidly changing weather conditions extremely well, and I’m not so sure she did because at one point she just yells “IS THIS A WIG?”
Meanwhile Tayce has a cheeky nap on the sofa.
It was just a really bad outing for Ginny and I think everyone was beginning to realise that we had kind of hit Peak Ginny and the end was nigh.
Tia Kofi and A’Whora
What a revelation this was! I think Tia had intended for this to go a lot more along the lines of what happened with Ellie and Lawrence in that Lawrence didn’t do a lot except play the unwitting victim of Ellie’s facepaint. I think A’Whora was meant to play it more like Lawrence and just let Tia make her look like a fool (not in an entirely malicious way) but A’Whora instead got really into character and chucked out such iconic lines as “My favourite colour, pink!” while pointing at a grey piece of gravel and decalring that she loved superglue when Tia took out the duct tape. But truly the comedic highlight was the deadcut to Veronica Green’s 1000 yard stare as A’Whora completely stole the show
There’s murder in those eyes.
The whole routine was a Cock Destroyers inspired thrill. Tia was by no means completely bulldozed out of existence, but you can’t really compete with A’Whora being covered in glitter with her massive tit hanging out, can you?
All of this lead to the most spectacularly played Redemption Arc Reverse Uno Card I believe we’ve ever seen on the show as A’Whora decides that she can now let her guard down and allow herself to have friends after a lifetime of playing up her sour faced disposition to scare people off. And she and Tia both bond over their mild body dysmorphia and their mutual hatred of their faces – nothing brings the queer community closer than resenting the shape of your skull.
Despite the sweetness, and I believe there was a lot of genuine emotions in their discussion about shitty childhoods, I did enjoy A’Whora dropping the phenomenal humble brag about how all the queens tell her she looks amazing and that her makeup is beautiful. And then A’Whora hugs her and it catches Tia very off guard
Meanwhile over in the other corner of the work room and Sister Sister is still a simmering in anti-Veronica rage and getting into her own head about how she holds herself back because she’s scared of sounding silly. Honestly it was hard to concentrate on what she was saying because her shaving technique is skin crawlingly bad
I mean it’s good job she dressed up as a mummy this week because I’m 90% sure she must have cut herself several times while going all Freddie Kreuger on her face.
Do The Monster Mash-up
The runway theme for the week was Monster Mash-up in which the queens had to combine two iconic monsters to create a single look, which is a really cool runway idea and I hope we see it repeated on the veritable platter that this franchise has become.
There were some very obvious choices that could be made, I think the most expected was Tayce dressing up as The Bride of Frankenstein meets a vampire
The look is great and does have that level of polish that we have come to expect from Tayce, but once again her face just steals the show – the way her eyes flashes during Untucked is ICONIC
It’s like a leopard sensing a wounded wildebeest.
Sister Sister also broke out the Halloween staples as a mummified furry
I appreciate that she had the fur poking out to break up what could have been a rather plain mummy costume – I do think she could have been more wolf-like and that she certainly needed a ponytail thick enough to compete with her table. And I heartily disagree with Alan Carr about it being “just another another mummy costume” because I think he was referencing Brooke Lynn’s mummy ballerina on Drag Race season 11 but Sister Sister managed to make this her own.
Ellie claimed that her costume was part werewolf and park goblin, but my immediate thought was that she looked like she had combined Shrek and one of the Ents from Lord of the Rings
The fur is so untreated and solid looking like she’s a tree in a junior school play. And while we’re talking about debatable creature mash-ups, I have zero clue what Ginny Lemon was going for other than Toxic Kate Bash
She said something about witches but nothing about this is registering as witch and then she kind of walked down the runway like either a zombie or Frankenstein’s Monster.
There were some other less… usual choices. Bimini for instance combined iconic monsters Satan, king of the underworld and that extremely famous monster… Pamela Anderson
First of all, the prosthetic forehead was bad and looked like a slice of angry red velvet cake and her wig was out of control, but I think as a concept this is absolutely genius and makes me very happy that Bimini survived those first two weeks of dubiously terrible runway looks. Is it another semi-naked look? Yes, but I think this is elevated beyond her previous showings.
Bimini wasn’t the only one making weird mash-up choices as Veronica chose to combine Medusa and a pig
which I find suitably terrifying because I very strongly remember the Squeal of Fortune episode of Goosebumps. The moment Veronica walked out I knew she was safe – nobody wears that headpiece and ends up in the bottom two, AND THE PROSTHETIC
Horrifying and yet strangely glam at the same time, and certainly made for one of my personal favourite moments of the entire series as Strangely Glamorous Pig Demon Veronica Green wipes away a single tear
HANG THIS IN THE LOUVRE.
She wasn’t the only Medusa on the scene as Tia Kofi took to the stage. I must admit, I dreaded Tia’s runway this episode because of all the challenges this could have ended up being the most Party City of them all and I fully expected her to come out in a shop bought vampire cloak and a little black witchy dress, BUT THEN
I’m not sure I have ever been happier for a queen than when she walked out as her Voodoo Priestess Medusa, just the utter glamour of it – the perfect skull makeup and THE BONE COBRAS
I could talk about just the bone cobras for weeks!
Her partner in Crimes Against Essex, A’Whora also had a very good showing as a Glitzy Lobotmoized Elvira
It is a little crapped up, and hard to workout what’s happening on her torso, the boob cups are at a weird height and the silver party string is not really doing it for me but she shone on that runway.
And lastly we have Lawrence Chaney as Buffalo Bill and Sweeney Todd
This is also very good but I don’t love it – I think I’d have preferred just a really fuck off glamorous gown made out of the skin pieces, and then maybe the shall with her own face on the end of it would have made sense, because I can’t really work out why it’s just wrapped around her arm? And there’s something just a little awkward about how the skin apron is fitting over the Sweeney Todd shirt – but bonus points for the ear on her tits but something about this just wasn’t working for me.
A Monster Mash-up Runway Ranking
- Veronica Green’s Medu-sow
- Tia Kofi Finally Serving Lewks
- Lobotomised A’Whora
- Tayce Being Tayce But Spoopy
- Mummified Sonic the Hedgehog
- Lawrence Chaney’s The Tits Have ears
- Ellie Diamond as Fuzzy Shrek
- Bimini’s Satanic Pamela Anderson
- Ginny Lemon’s Toxic Witch?
Lawrence Chaney somehow manages a win despite not doing a lot in the main challenge except crushing a child’s toy – it very much felt like a win for her in order to send a threat to Ellie Diamond for asking Ru why he never says Ellie’s name in a Scottish accent, and I think the response finally made Ellie realise that she’s a filler queen, if you pause at just the right moment you can see her heart break
This is now the 2nd week out of 4 that A’Whora could have reasonably been given the win and was snubbed in favour of Lawrence Chaney – in the words of Asttina Madella: “Rude.”. I really can’t work out why A’Whora didn’t win, she had by far the best performance in the main challenge and her outfit was very strong despite its small issues. I’M NOT EVEN AN A’WHORA FAN AND I’M MAD AT THIS RESULT.
The bottom three are inevitably Sister Sister, Veronica Green and Ginny Lemon with Ginny and Sister Sister finding themselves in the lip sync, and nobody was more shocked to see Veronica safe than Veronica herself
Bless her, especially after everyone in Untucked told her that she would be going home, although they were more all just saying she’d be in the bottom 2 and easily slay a lipsync against Ginny Lemon and Sister Sister. Especially as Ginny Lemon was emotionally checked out
and Sister Sister was coming to the crushing realisation that she too was a filler queen
I think Sister Sister has a lot of potential, her entering Untucked like a galumphing weremummy and then saying “only me” like Barney the Dinosaur filled me with an intense amount of joy
but I think she’s just not made for TV.
Hang On, What Just Happened?
As established Sister Sister and Ginny find themselves in the lipsync and you could tell something was up just from the smirk that Ginny gave just before the lipsync started
and then You Keep Me Hangin’ On by Kim Wilde started playing and Ginny Lemon just waltzed off that stage and left Sister Sister to prance about to her heart’s content
An iconic power move if I ever saw one.
But also slightly disappointing because for WEEKS the press have rumoured that one of the queens stormed off the set after throwing one Hell of a hissy fit and telling RuPaul to go fuck herself and all it was was Ginny Lemon committing lipsync seppuku.
Sister Sister still turned out a good lipsync, it was a little sloppy in places
and she maybe she shouldn’t have drawn quite so much attention to the tiny little ponytail
and a part of me might secretly think it would have been HILARIOUS if Ru had made her sashay away, especially as what I mostly remember about it is Veronica applauding her and Bimini standing absolutely stock-still
but it’s good to know we have a buffer queen for next week’s elimination.
And so, 8 Queens remain
