How nice of Michelle Visage to come dressed as Elektra Shock dressed as Moira Rose.
It’s Drag Race Down Under finale, so get ready to be thoroughly whelmed and relieved that we’re finally free from this curse.
Why For Art Thou?
Less of this re-entry into the Werk Room is dedicated to Elektra’s elimination (and her signing off by writing “the only person that could beat me is the winner”) and more of it is significantly dedicated to justifying the fact Art Simone is still here despite the mediocre showing since her re-entry that in any other season would have seen her eliminated within at least 2 episodes. Even weirder is the fact it is Karen who has to monotonely read off whatever scrawled note the producer handed her
Karen, blink three times if this is a hostage situation!
It’s pretty obvious that within the bubble of the show that the queens thought Scarlet was the out and out winner with three wins and 1 bottom placement, which did make the whole conversation funnier knowing that she could absolutely, in no way be crowned if the show wanted to avoid some sort of international incident on a scale that reality TV hasn’t ever seen before, except for maybe that time the Malaysian prime minister and Gregg Wallace had a Twitter feud over chicken rendang.
And in the conversation about winning it’s very much “4 for you Scarlet! You go Scarlet! And none for Karen From Finance.” – the fact nobody even entertained the idea of Karen winning despite her winning more episodes than Art Simone (and not having been eliminated) is just sublime. A toast to the field of ponies that are producing this show.
And then, just because the show is really invested in us apparently not liking Elektra Shock, the queens have a flashback bit where they remember her entrance look and scream in terror. After a week of Elektra doing countless interviews and speaking about how shit she was made to feel during the filming, they could have just… not. THE LOOK ISN’T EVEN THAT BAD
there’s some really good work in that eye makeup, her lips are even and well shaped (WHICH IS MORE THAN I CAN SAY FOR SCARLET!) Sure the bottom lashes crapped it up and the wig is very Paris Hilton 3 days into a farming job on The Simple Life but in the grand scheme of Drag Race entrance looks? It’s barely a blip.
A Collaborative Effort
The final maxi challenge is the standard “write and record your own verse to one of Ru’s songs that sound a lot like all of Ru’s other songs” and as well as that they’ll have to navigate the treacherous waters that is the Ru and Michelle Armchair Psychology Hour, which I shall not even be dignifying with a recap because I cannot believe in the year of our Lord 2021 that we are still having to go through with RuPaul “just do yoga 6 times a day” Charles and Michelle “lowkey antivax” Visage diagnosing queens in incredibly unhelpful and damaging ways and then ending each segment with the same fatphobic, eating disorder jokes EVERY time. So fuck that.
In the grand traditional of the Bespoke Verse, the queens are obviously expected to write a verse that is in no way coy about the fact it is essentially a desperate, grovelling, vaguely musically inclined plea to be crowned the winner. Karen however had other plans, and I imagine was sensing her ever decreasing odds and was going to go the route of doing a motivational speech for the queens who had been eliminated – although she wasn’t actually going to mention them or even slightly allude to anything that happened on the show. Nope, she literally just… talked with no regard for the auto-generated keyboard beat of the song. She literally walked from one side of the stage, to the other while talking. And thus we reach the peak of what has to be one of the most mediocre journeys to a Drag Race finale. SHE WALKED AND SHE TALKED. I cannot stress that enough. Even after going through the whole rigmarole of the choreographer teaching her how to pretend swing a baseball bat? For her motivational speaking monologue?
also, a quick aside, I adore the choreographer and his assistant purely because together they look like a sitcom couple created on Tumblr that spiralled out into a massive $60,000 scam
it’s very “All Or Nothing” energy.
The choreographer was entirely wasted on this challenge because, as I think we proved in the Girl Group Challenge and in a few of the lipsyncs, three quarters of the cast aren’t exactly proficient in the art of moving one’s body, as the wide shot where everyone is doing something different will illustrate
Scarlet however, is a dancer – as she has let us know countless times before, and she’s not just any dancer, she’s a dancer who wouldn’t belittle herself by being a backup dancer for internationally famous pop superstars… Whatever helps you sleep at night Scarlet.
Her verse was very Drag Race paint-by-numbers – she sang about the crown, she spelled her own name and of course dropped as many Wizard of Oz references as she possibly could because it’s now common knowledge that it’s Ru’s favourite movie. We can all blame GiGi Goode for that one lads. Although at least she wasn’t literally dressed as a Wizard of Oz character, unless I’m forgetting the dominatrix who really wanted her libido back
it’s really annoying how polished her drag is and yet how utterly trash she is.
Kita Mean was also bucking the trend of Your Standard Talk Rap and wanted to sing her verse, a plan that had me worried since the last time we went through this it was with Coco Jumbo who could barely sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star without sounding like a parrot imitating John Travolta. Kita’s was A LOT more successful, while I can’t say I remember her verse except when she tried to rhyme “advice” and “eye” – KITA. THE WORD “EYES” IS RIGHT THERE! But she looked good
and the fact she managed to get through the whole routine and not end up like Monica getting her braids trapped in the shower rail in Friends is nothing short of a miracle.
Out of all of the verses, Art’s had the most energy and was distinctly the most Drag Race as she dropped every Australian pun and reference she could in the 4 lines they were given. I also think her look was my favourite
or at least it stood out the most, as you would expect a Lisa Frank nightmare would. Her verse did however feel a little reductive, there was a lot of things we’ve seen before from numerous other queens and a large part of it just felt like a tribute to Alaska.
And The Rest Is Best
As ever, the final runway is basically just Wear Your Best drag, which most of them seemed to do, or at least go for the big expensive designer numbers and then you have Karen From Finance who just wore whatever she had left
I get that Karen isn’t “fashion” and she was going the very camp route, but even then it’s just not a great look, the fabric choices are HORRIBLE – even if she had just taken off the green tulle that’s eating her neck the look would have been 5 times better.
I was surprised by how big and princess-y Art Simone went, I was expecting something slightly more modern than this
It’s big and striking, there’s no denying it but after Ellie Diamond’s big, frothy pink Glinda dress it’s going to be hard to find a ball gown that tops it. I also found the slight plasticky sheen to the dress to be a strange choice of fabric that didn’t play brilliantly under the lights. But I liked her hair and makeup, despite how matchy-matchy it all was
I’m not in love with the low, puffy ponytail, it ends too abruptly and feels like it was attached on as an afterthought. I think the updo would have been fine all on its own.
When Kita Mean first came out, my heart sank, I was VERY confused as to why she was dressed as a sad, sexy unmade bed
AND THEN, she just goes full Courtney Act
remember the rumours that Courtney had to wear her eagle wings during her flight because they were too heavy to put in her luggage?
As for Kita, yes of course Courtney has already done it but it doesn’t stop this being a thoroughly good look, even if the wings do look like they’re made out of lolly sticks. It’s also been 7 years since Courtney’s eagle look so it’s about time we had working wings again.
And lastly we have Scarlet in her most subdued look
it’s very Princess Grace, if slightly bland and not at all very interesting beyond maybe the back of her wig, I just just liked the flowers in her hair
Her best look by far was last week’s headpiece look, which even then I didn’t overwhelmingly love. Had this been in a really rich green with gold beading? Yes, I’d have loved it, but as a soft pink dress? Nah.
A Best Drag Ranking
- Kita Mean’s Angels in Australia.
- Art Simone is Blue Da ba dee da ba di.
- Scarlet’s Pretty Flowers, I Guess?
- Karen From Finance as Tammy Faye Baker as The Joker.
She’s a Winner Baby
Apparently the judges are completely unable to whittle our quartet of finalists down to a final 2 – not even a final three despite Karen being a glaringly obvious 4th place and so all four of them have to do a solo lipsync to Physical by Olivia Newton John and it’s just not a very interesting experience and it’s horribly edited together. So in many ways it was the perfect way to see the show out.
And then it’s time to announce the winner and there really was only 1 possible option here because Karen had flopped since episode 2, the audience were still pissed about the shenanigans over Art returning and crowning Scarlet would have caused absolute havoc so the only logical winner could be Kita Mean!
Good for her, it does feel a little like it was because they were backed into a corner after a whole series of gunning for a Scarlet win but I’m happy for Kita, she was the least Bad Vibe-sy of the final lot!
And so, we have our winner!
TOP: Anita, Art, Coco, Elektra
MID: Etcetera, JoJo
Bottom: Karen, KITA, Maxi, Scarlet