I’m not sure there’s much in there to unblock.
This week the queens all too politely read one another and take on an abundance of trash for a sewing challenge in which the theme is utterly abandoned by the time they hit the runway.
#TiaWozRobbed
Tia doesn’t get much of a send off from the girls, I think by the time the third lipsync comes around it’s more of a relief than anything and I think they could all smell a design challenge brewing – it must be hard for production to hide 6 giant inflatable flamingos and an entire Blackpool gift shop’s worth of beachballs from even the least observant of queens.
Instead talk very quickly turns to who the queens think will be the next to go because A’Whora brought it up AND DEFINITELY NOT THE STORYLINE PRODUCER HIDING BEHIND THE SOFA.
Of course A’Whora is still heavily gunning for Sister Sister because she basically just wore a tiger print dress and called it prehistoric – no mention of the bone mask which let’s face it is still eating A’Whora up inside.
Sister Sister on the other hand can’t really tell anyone other than Ellie that she thinks she’ll be going home next because she is coasting in the competition which is kind of fair but also Ellie had 2 high placements right out of the gate while Sister Sister had one purely by default because she was competing against Ginny Lemon trying to be sexy and 2 low placements and a lipsync appearance so Queens in glass houses… Neither of them have won a badge after all and Ellie seems destined to be The Cheryl Hole of the Season.
After being unanimously panned by her entire series 2 sisterhood Sister Sister vows to make them all wake up and realise her talents
Which as we know is the death knell on Drag Race.
Burn After Reading
I’m a little upset that they did the reading challenge right after they eliminated Tia Kofi but we did all see how her Snatch Game went so I can’t guarantee that she would have been much better than this lot.
It’s always a concern when they do the reading challenge and there is only one comedy queen left – Lawrence’s status as a comedy queen being in some dispute considering 90% of her jokes have been poo jokes and the other 10% haven’t landed. Her reads were however very good, I enjoyed her calling A’Whora soulless and telling Ellie she was so thick she studied for a Covid test was funny even if the joke has been done a million times since March. But Lawrence might have been good purely because she followed Ellie who took the Farrah Moan at a Roast approach and just told Bimini she deserved the electric chair
And a very long, rambling read about Lawrence being like Lady Bunny and in desperate need of a personality – we can fault Lawrence for many things but the one thing she really has going for her is her personality.
Ellie was on the receiving end of many “you’re thick” jokes including Tayce’s in which she called her Ellie Zirconia which suitably Ellie did not understand
A’Whora continues to uphold her brand of hating Sister Sister and this time publicly accuses her of stealing her looks in front of RuPaul – it’s one hell of a power move. She also realised the pool of Tayce/A’Whora fanfiction is drying up and drops a casual read about them having fucked once. Or twice. Or quite a few times. Who knows at this point.
It wasn’t the best of reading challenge and when I first heard Sister Sister’s reads about Lawrence being fat, Bimini being so thick she ordered a side of (vegan) mayo on the side of her Government Issued Covid Microchip and telling Tayce to go jump in The Thames to some very tepid and polite British applause I thought she was doomed to be absolutely roasted but as it turned out she was the winner of the challenge, and in the words of Tayce
Oop.
Sew Me.
This week’s main challenge is another design challenge in which the queens will have to turn themselves into Lockdown inspired Superheroes using only the left over crap from last year’s design challenge
Spoiler alert, the steel wool is a trap.
Also don’t worry, the specification of being “a superhero” goes completely out of the window within seconds of the challenge starting because apparently none of the queens have ever seen a Marvel movie or so much as a read a Nemi comic strip in The Metro.
As a reward for winning the reading challenge Sister Sister is granted 15 extra seconds to rifle amongst the trash before any of the other queens – a pleasure that she is absolutely giddy about and dives into head first looking like me in every PE class
And she fully uses the 15 seconds to her advantage (debatable) by grabbing literally everything she could
and the other queens were helpless to stop her as she tore the display apart like a rabid raccoon which only really exacerbated the absolute chaos that ensued when the 5 other queens were allowed to join in with the looting
And I’m so mad that A’Whora looted the giant flamingo and then never used it, but something about her running away holding it made my CACKLE
I don’t even know quite what the theme of the trash was considering that most of it was obviously beach stuff and then a lot of household items like plungers, steel wool and feather dusters but then you have Tayce running around with an entire bungalow’s worth of insultation
Honey, what do you think you’re going to doing with that?
Tayce fully fell into every pothole that she possibly could as she grabbed the abundance of steel wool because apparently Baga Chipz didn’t use it all last time
Although at least Tayce had materials because all Bimini seemed to grab was two palm leaves, some toilet paper and a cushion
Was the rest of the stuff not vegan?
While Bimini tried to summon her design inspiration from the depths of despair, A’Whora was trying to build up a blue, white and red colour palette so that she could go Full Union Jack and she was desperate to get her hands on a pair of red throw pillows that Sister Sister had
and I don’t think there has been anything more delightful this series than A’Whora trying to sexily saunter up to Sister Sister and tell her that she loves pandas because she’s wearing a panda jumper
My only complaint is that she didn’t say it in the same accent she used when she said “Oh My God, I love super glue!” during the Morning Glory sketch.
Then when Sister Sister tells her to compliment her all she said was “I know everyone said my chips look was better but it was a close race.” which is a better read than anyone managed in the reading challenge. What a delight A’Whora has turned out to be this series,? I entirely written her off in the first two episodes but by God she has been given a fantastic edit – so much so that she has an entire stan army wreaking havoc on the Drag Race Series 2 Wikipedia page – “LAWRENCE FAVOURITENEY”
A’Whora is obviously shot down because Sister Sister will at this point do anything to stand in someone’s way and A’Whora is forced back to her work station where she languishes like royalty posing for a portrait because she went to ~fashion school~ and is currently the only person not in a frazzled state of simmering panic
meanwhile over in Tayce’s corner she is shredding her fingers to ribbons while untangling the wire wool and has to seek medical attention
but at least they learned their lesson and she was forced to wear a glove like that task in Taskmaster when Aisling Bea cut herself numerous times while trying to slice bread with a tin can
Towards the end of their first day RuPaul comes for a walk around, just to make sure everyone isn’t being incredibly basic, and he is joined by eternal runner up Raven
She’s lost twice, four times if you count Naomi.
And we might as well address it now, Raven out of drag is a white man and in drag is just about the same colour as RuPaul – ma’am, that’s more than a tan, that’s baking a cookie at 250 when the recipe said 180.
If you’re wondering why Raven was brought along for a sewing challenge, which she has never overwhelmingly succeeded in, it’s because Lawrence Chaney needed an eyebrow intervention and Raven is essentially the Drag Face Prototype and so spent a good few minutes pointing out exactly why they were bad and how Lawrence should fix them so that she’d maybe at least look slightly less like a very upset owl, which she did, mostly by gluing a few orange balls into her crease
But progress is progress.
As for her outfit, she was originally trying to do something silvery and quite sculptural because someone on the procurement team got a bargain on some radiator heat reflecting material
You could build a whole space station out of that!
As it went that idea sunk without a trace and Lawrence instead, rather impressively, wrangled a few bags for life into a corset and a leotard
See what I mean about the fact the superhero theme went out the window?
It may not be the most imaginative silhouette (or appealing colour palette) but the construction on it is very good and Lawrence always has her figure down. I think a cute pleated skirt might have been more fashionable, and she tried with the little train at the back
While they completely trashed Lawrence’s eyebrows, Raven has nothing but good things to say about Ellie’s makeup – which we have to take into account is flawless and one of the few beats that can actually hold-up in the terrible untucked lighting
How does she do it? (the wig lace is a recurring issue, it’s fine.)
The plan for her costume is to remain true to her girly aesthetic and thankfully isn’t going to be making the leotard and a chapped gown that I would have betted my life on her making. Instead she’s going for an overtly pink and flouncy little dress bedecked in marshmallows and looking like a Candyland Nightmare. The amount pink combined with the fact the post-covid half of the season decided to have terrible lighting meant this was the best quality screenshot I could get
I don’t think I’ll ever love this sort of thing but it is incredibly well made and she fully deserved to be in the top, I’m mostly just sad she didn’t manage to incorporate the child’s bike that she grabbed for some reason
I find the idea of 6 foot 7 Ellie Diamond dressed like Princess Bubblegum trying to ride that bike down the mainstage to be a delight.
Ru and Raven both take exception to the fact Tayce is using the wire wool sponges because lest we remember Baga Chipz as though Baga Chipz wasn’t safe in that episode despite wearing a wire wool nappy
Don’t you try and re-write history Mr. RuPaul Charles, you were perfectly happy to let that slide last time when The Unsinkable Baga Chipz wore it.
With her hands visibly bleeding Ru is forced to ask how Tayce plans to wear the death trap that she is constructing and apparently Tayce has no plans to wear a corset and is perfectly happy with walking down the runway in what is essentially just a trap from the Saw films. Don’t worry, the health and safety officer very quickly intervenes and Tayce does end up wearing a very visible corset
Don’t try this at home kids!
I didn’t hate Tayce’s outfit, it looked quite cool on the mannequin
If only she had made even a simple skirt to really play against the volume and almost fur-like texture of the top it would have been a million times better but the moment she said “I’m just going to make a wire wool thong” you knew she was doomed
And while she can serve you face for days there was nothing that could be done to hide the fact the outfit was very 1 note and slowly falling apart as one of her wire sponges makes a bid for freedom at the end of her runway
Genuinely shocked Ru’s Kill Bill sirens didn’t go off again.
She actually might have genuinely been off just wrapping herself up in a garden hose
Given that the bells were tolling for Sister Sister, Ru asks her how she thinks she’s doing in the competition to which Sister responds “I’m getting really good feedback!” – HONEY, WHERE? You got told your Gingham dress was nice during the UK Hun? episode and beyond that it’s been “You’re a little rough.” Raven does offer her some advice on her aggressive beard stubble, and sadly doesn’t tell her to stop shaving like she’s de-weeding a patio. She happily accepts Raven’s colour correcting advice though
and is now planning on showcasing her evolution with a child friendly Garden of Eden outfit, and if she was aiming for unhinged Sunday School teacher then I fully believe she succeeded in that respect
I don’t think there’s any way to save this outfit – I think you just have to give into and accept the fact it looks like Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men on acid and maybe that is what we needed during lockdown.
While Sister Sister had had to give Raven and Ru an hour long lecture and Q+A session to take them through her mount of materials, Bimini merely brought over her mannequin dressed up as a Palm Sunday stripper
I don’t for a second believe that Bimini was being serious about this outfit but I do love that it was only after this meeting that she mysteriously found the abandoned curtain fabric as though RuPaul himself had ripped it from his hotel room and told production to give to Bimini because he was not having someone walk down that runway looking like Victoria Secret does a Handmaid’s Tale theme runway. And so Bimini began furiously draping the miraculously appearing curtain into something vaguely resembling a Vivienne Westwood piece
I really do like this, I almost wish she had gone for a black or very deep red wig – I know Bimini almost exclusively does blond but I think it would have looked a little more sultry and sophisticated, which sounds like I’m calling blondes cheap but I’m not, I promise!
And lastly we have A’Whora who may not have been able to wangled herself a pair of those throw cushions but absolutely managed to create perhaps the best outfit to come out of a sewing challenge across the franchise
This could honestly be worn by a Queen that is about to be crowned and you wouldn’t bat an eyelid, it’s so well made and bold. And the way the ruffled arm pieces BOOFED when she flexed a certain way and made her look like a very glamorous Dilophosaurus
It was A Moment.
That would have been the biggest gag of her runway if for the fact she wasn’t wearing Sister Sister’s signature blue circle with red lips on the runway in front of the judges before Sister Sister ever got the chance to
Deliciously petty, and yet not a single thing was said about it as though this wasn’t the perfect final point to A’Whora and Sister’s stupid little feud about stolen looks, instead untucked is dedicated to Tayce saying that she didn’t think her outfit was *that bad* and nobody appreciated that she sacrificed the use of her left hand unravelling 200 steel wool sponges and Ellie sporting an aggressive wig line and being salty about the fact everyone thought she was coasting
We’ll see how she fairs in next week’s comedy challenge shall we?
A Covid SuperSHEroe Sewing Challenge Runway Ranking
- A’Whora’s Fashionable Dilophosaurus
- Ellie Diamond the Candyland Nightmare
- Bimienne Westwood
- IKEA Chaney
- Wisteria Wisteria
- Tayce’s Health and Safety Hazard
A’Whora manages to win her first badge after putting herself under an inordinate amount of pressure to win at least one sewing challenge, while Ellie and Lawrence are both obviously safe. It’s a near miss for Bimini, although it absolutely wasn’t considering she had made a full outfit that could actually be looked at for more than 10 seconds without causing a seizures. Predictably this means that Tayce and Sister Sister are battling it out in the lipsync.
Here Today, Glynne Tomorrow
As a punishment to both the queens and us they will be lipsyncing to Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself by Jess Glynne and it’s hell of a hard lipsync to even parse because not only does the lighting make it look like you’re watching an episode of SpongeBob in the midst of a school disco but Sister Sister is waddling around the stage looking like Samara from The Ring emerged from the TV in the middle of a Play Days episode and Tayce is flapping about like an ostrich doing a mating display
Besides being an ostrich Tayce is also coming for Olivia Lux’s gig and doing a good old mime smile
while Sister Sister pretends to stumble when the lyrics say “Everyone trips, everyone falls”
which I get but it will always just make me think of school talent shows that are agonisingly long and you have to sit through at least 3 girls singing their own versions of Amazing Grace and 4 boys performing sub-par stage magic.
For a good chunk in the middle the edit seemed to completely forget that Tayce existed because she was at the back of the stage doing a back bend that I don’t think was as impressive or stunt-y as she thought it was
Or at least it might have been better to do it further up the stage where everyone can see your properly, and I was a little worried because Sister wasn’t doing a bad job, her lipsync was spot on, but then Tayce came back up did one hell of a dubious fall
and revived the classic Kameron Michaels’s Dying Cockroach Yoga position
Which everyone will tell you is a stripper move but to me lacks any sort of eroticism but if killing insects is your thing, I’m not here to kink shame.
As far as lipsyncs go on a UK season this was very good and I think it was fair that Tayce won and that Sister Sister was eliminated with an on brand weird mirror message
Was calling everyone “camp cow” a series thing, or is Sister stealing from Tia Kofi too now?
And so, only 5 queens remain
