Just popping to the shops, anybody need anything?
Another week, another outcome decided almost entirely by throwing a ferret into a ball pit but this time with interpretive dance and pies.
Maxi’d Out
with Maxi eliminated and signing herself off with a benippled M
the queens have much to celebrate as they’ve reached The Top 4 (Plus Art Simone) – I’m mostly just glad the queens seem as mystified by her return (and subsequent mediocrity) as we all are because to be eliminated, brought back and not win a challenge in the three subsequent episodes should be a pretty damning track record and yet you can see the effort the show is putting into dragging her all the way to the final. Or you would if you weren’t blindsided by the redemption arc they’re ill-advisedly handing Scarlet on a silver platter. Art is however clinging to the fact Sasha Velour won her season without having a solo win (importantly she did have 2 wins though, and a wig full of rose petals.)
As for Kita, she’s happy to finally be well and truly proving herself and everyone has clocked her as the biggest competition because of the fact she’s never been in the bottom, which makes how this episode went feel VERY shenanigansy.
The Variety Hour
For the main challenge this week the queens have to put on a talent show and because we’re skipping the mini challenge, Kita gets to decide the order because she won the previous episode. This is obviously turned into a bigger issue than it ever deserves to be, mostly because Scarlet wants to go last but Elektra has other plans because she thinks her So You Think You Can Dance audition tape is a more shocking close than Scarlet sliding down the pole looking slightly like Brigitte Nielsen for some reason
Don’t get me, wrong, I’m happy to see Scarlet not get her way in any capacity, and I did love the fact Kita spelled Scarlet’s name with 2 Ts, just after the whole Elliott debacle it was *poetic*
but as far as following her routine goes, it was clearly a mistake because it was incredibly (frustratingly) impressive
I will say though, for her to say you don’t usually see queens doing pole was a bit weird considering there’s entire shows dedicated to it and Shea Coulee did it for her own talent show performance in All Stars 5 was a bit weird and kind of just speaks to the forest fire of an ego that she has.
Elektra’s interpretive dance routine was very good, she had gone for a very simple look
I think it would have worked better had she just pushed it further, go full Lady Gaga in the Applause video with the makeup
as for the wig, well it was an Elektra Shock classic: dark roots and a dry disposition, which suited the vibe she was going for with the piece but just gave everyone ammunition and a reason to completely ignore the fact she’s a very impressive dancer
which you would think would be the most important component IN A TALENT SHOW and yet Michelle offered this critique up to Art Simone “I don’t know what the fuck that was but most importantly you looked stunning!” which is true, she looked great
but I’m not sure “I have a big mouth and can hold a small to medium sized pastry in it” is a talent
Like, it’s just sitting in there, IT’S NOT EVEN ALL IN! I can eat a Mars Bar like a duck, I would never consider it a talent, it’s a curse that never goes down well at dinner parties.
I think I’m also mostly mad she wasted an entire tray of lamingtons for the goddamn thing too
They are an elite level cake that deserves more respect.
It was Karen who got the dubious honour of opening the show as well as the pitfall that is being the Maybe You Should Try Being Sexy Contestant as Ru coaxes her into letting loose from the (debatably) comedic façade that is Karen From Finance. Which Karen interprets as Ru wanting her to dress sexily, but I thought was more of an effort to try to get her to not make her entire talent show routine about her making one (1) balloon animal. But it did mean we got treated to the single sexy outfit that Karen brought, or what Karen believes is sexy
it’s not not sexy, but I just think the choice of fabric to go under the bondage gear is a strange choice
it’s an assortments of prints the likes of which I haven’t seen outside of a bus seat.
It was never specified how long the queens had to put their act on for, which is usually a big part of these line-up based challenges and maybe that’s the fault of the producers that Karen thought she could walk on stage, lick a balloon and then turn it into a dog and call it a day. At least tell them they have to be on stage for 5 minutes.
Lastly we have Kita Mean who was doing a magic act, unfortunately for her RuPaul hates magic – we’ll just ignore the fact there was AN ENTIRE MAGIC THEMED CHALLENGE in Season 11 – although, that could have been the catalyst for Ru hating magic – I still think about Yvie’s team theming their show around a BBQ and Vanjie badly making mustard and ketchup disappear and reappear… Sadly, Kita’s quick changes weren’t much more successful as you frequently got glimpses of whichever new outfit was coming
and the big final change where she dunked the confetti all over herself didn’t go quite as successfully as she would have hoped
but I still think she put on a very good show despite the fact it took her 26 seconds to get to the first dang outfit change because for some reason the first third of her routine was just her jauntily walking across the stage with a cane looking like Alan-a-Dale from Disney’s Robin Hood
peculiar choices were made throughout this episode and to me it seems like the queens were given a severe lack of guidance, even though they got a whole sit down with Ru and Raven during her now mandatory cameo because she has a WOW show of her own coming out.
Getting Ahead(piece)
The runway prompt for this week’s runway was to wear a headpiece. I personally am very fond of a look that goes as far as to include a headpiece, they’re dramatic, they’re silly and they can just cap off a look nicely. I will say though, I was a touch disappointed with this runway and the amount of queens that just decided to wear as much crap on their head as they could without any care for the silhouette
Is it impressive that Karen managed to find a centre of gravity while balancing a headpiece that makes her look like a Gigantamax’d Furfrou? Yeah it is but it’s just not well shaped enough, I think shrinking it by about 30% wouldn’t have harmed the impact but would have absolutely helped with the clarity of it. Also, weird to have a poodle headpiece and then in no way carry the theme through to the outfit? I also hope Dita von Teese sues her for mentioning her as being in any way associated with this, marabou feathers does not a von Teese make.
Art Simone was once again dipping into the apparently undrainable source of panniered gowns
it’s very pretty and as the judges say, does look straight off the runway although I don’t get Vivienne Westwood from it so much as Jean Paul Gaultier – this could absolutely have walked in the 2005 Russian folklore inspired Couture runway.
While the outfit was gorgeous, her makeup this week was a little lacking, something about the eye shape just looked off
it gives her a real sullen look that isn’t really helped by the complete disappearance of her eyebrows and just seems jarring with the exuberance of the outfit.
Kita was next as a cybergoth spacebimbo
I think it’s a really impressive outfit, so often a look that revolves mostly around there being LEDs incorporated into it can fall flat on the runway because of the aggressive lighting but Kita pulled it off, or bribed someone enough to get them to dim the lights a little bit.
And the fact she managed to walk in those massive moonboot platform while wearing the milky eyed contact lenses should have been an free pass to the finale AND YET…
Scarlet kind of fell into the same trap as Karen, although her outfit was considerably more well rounded
I think I just prefer something with more of a concept than “I’m dressing up as one of the Ziegfeld girls!” – there’s no cheeky wink, it’s just a google search and money to burn.
And Elektra closed out the runway with this delightfully stupid look
this is what I mean about the cheeky wink because in essence this is just the outfit from the Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend scene in Moulin Rouge but I just find the fact Elektra was sitting on a sing hanging from her own head to be exactly the level of campy nonsense I want from a drag queen.
A Headpiece Runway Ranking
- Art In The Garden
- Kita The Visually Impaired GothBot 3000
- Elektra Swinging Into Third Place
- Scarlet’s Wealth
- Karen’s Lofty Poodle
As we have come to understand is normal, the judging is utterly bonkers once again as Elektra gets praised for her talent but read to filth for daring to *checks notes* not wear heels for an interpretive dance routine and Art just gets a free pass for looking good while she spent 2 whole minutes desperately trying to become a meme. I can’t tell you quite how Karen avoided being put in the bottom 2 when all she did was create 1 singular balloon dog but she pulled it off and the bottom two are Kita and Elektra whose biggest sins were actually doing a performance worthy of a talent show but looking a little hokey while doing it. Also Scarlet wins, BOO.
How… Untouching.
This was not a very fun lipsync and with a song like Untouched by The Veronicas it really ought to have been but the fact that Kita and Elektra were up against one another was kind of a massive bummer. That and the fact Kita was not going to budge an inch under any circumstances because of those damned platforms
she’s the most threatening wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man you’ve ever seen. Meanwhile the edit is being VERY unkind to Elektra by completely cutting out her 10th splits of the series and bothering to caption in Karen’s gossiping at the back of the stage
We all knew where this was going from the beginning, I mean the edit during their entrance into the Werk Room when they completely cut out Elektra was kind of telling
and thus Elektra doesn’t quite manage to survive her 3rd lipsync and is eliminated
I think she deserved better than to be cast on this season and I hope she remains booked and blessed and comes back with one hell of an All Stars run.
And so, we have our Top 4
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