Say hello to my sleep paralysis demon.

I’m impressed that it took 9 episodes for RuPaul to begin mining for trauma, that’s quite some restraint.

Kerri Col-bye

Obviously after Kerri’s elimination, Jasmine was taking it a little hard and given that she was having to give this heartfelt monologue about sending one of her icons home, she didn’t want to look a bit of a mess so she was valiantly holding her wig into her head as it desperately tried to make a bid for freedom

which is a delightfully Kerri-esque move given that she was not going to give anyone half a chance in seeing her in half drag at any point. But in more positive Kerri Colby news, this week Willow announced that she had begun her transition, now going by Willow in and out of drag and using they/she pronouns – truly Kerri is the gift that just keeps on giving. Willow’s post about her transition is really worth going to read, she details a lot about what it’s like transitioning with a chronic illness, and if you want to read it you can find that HERE.

While Jasmine comes to terms with eliminating her fairy transmother, Daya is living up the life of luxury with her win – my favourite moment though was Jorgeous very pointedly saying “Finally Bitch!”

well, it wasn’t that pointed, but it was about as pointed as I think Jorgeous could possibly be.

And because we might have reached the midpoint of the competition – it’s only been 84 years – the queens do of course tally their wins with Jasmine and Deja being the only ones who haven’t won a challenge while Angeria leads with 2 wins – although Angeria could quite honestly have feesibly won just about every single episode by now, with the exception of the Daytona Winds episode.

Photobombs Away!

This week we did actually get a Mini Challenge, although it was my least favourite of the recurring Mini Challenges: The Photobombing Photoshoot, which I am 90% sure only RuPaul finds funny. But while I don’t find the end results funny, and I’m more just annoyed that they paid to license out a photo of a Shawn Mendes concert or a very timely Borat reference instead of investing that money into shots from Jennifer Lopez films to make the JLo runway a little more interesting, I do always love 15 minute quick drag – highlights this time include Daya Betty looking one of Maddy Morphosis’s runway characters landed on hard times

Jasmine Kennedie looking like a velociraptor got cast in a production of Xanadu

Bosco’s ass-eating shark puppet

Angeria’s absolutely insanely padded ass

the fact Willow just happened to have a replica of Mary lou Retton’s 1984 Olympic costume on hand

was this one of her Snatch Game possibilities? Because I might have loved that? Especially given that by the looks of things, based on the preview, she’s doing a very bad Drew Barrymore…
But my favourite piece of quick drag was of course Deja, who really took the prompt to “make use of the Snag Tights Wall” and ran with it, coming out the other end looking like someone had put Kyubey from Madoka Magica in drag

I can be Meduka?

Willow does go on to win the challenge, although personally, my favourite photo was the one of Jorgeous and Leonardo DiCaprio because, well… Jorgeous does suit his type the best

and I like to think that was a purposeful read.

Everything In Moderation

This week’s Maxi Challenge was the return of the Drag Con Panel Challenge, with the topic this time being focused on Men, or if you’re RuPaul that’s “Menzeses” which always sounds far too much like Menses and there was a brief moment of horror that I did think they were asking 8 drag queens to talk about menstruation and the very thought of Jorgeous trying to come to terms with the fallopian tubes when she didn’t know what a moderator was turns my blood cold.

Due to the fact she won the Mini Challenge, Willow did get to choose who she wanted to be on a panel with and like Kennedy Davenport choosing to eliminate Milk, Ru had barely finished telling her this before she leapt on the chance to work with Deja, Angeria and Lady Camden. I was surprised she didn’t take Bosco over Lady Camden, but it was nice of her to leave the other group with something of a chance as Bosco ended up working with Jasmine, Daya and Jorgeous.

The first thing they needed to do was pick a moderator, or explain what a moderator is to Jorgeous, and while Willow’s team all unanimously looked to Deja as their leader, Team The Others ran into a temporary roadblock as Jasmine decided she was interested in the moderator role and Daya Betty saw her entire life flash before her eyes

do I think Jasmine would have been a terrible moderator? Yes, I have every faith that there is an alternative universe where Jasmine was the moderator and she conducted a 6 minute conversation with herself while everyone watched on in agonised silence. But I find Daya’s weird beef with Jasmine to be as uncomfortable as Jasmine’s run on sentences – especially because it stems from the design challenge which Daya still doesn’t seem to understand that Jasmine was in the bottom for? Like, she lipsynced in that episode… If anything, your beef should be with Jorgeous!

Jasmine does concede the moderator role to Bosco, and I think handled it really well by admitting that she was just trying to stand out after being in the bottom last week. And Bosco excelled, right out the gate she had RuPaul in stitches with the good old Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo reference, and I loved that every time she said it, she pointedly looked at RuPaul, knowing the joke was going to land because it referenced a movie from 1984. And I simply adored the fact she introduced Jorgeous with a joke about RuPaul saying that she was born to do drag

it puts my mind at ease that the other queens are very likely making fun of the whole RuPaul’s Drag Messiah thing behind the scenes.

While this group did struggle a bit, it certainly wasn’t the worst version of this challenge they’ve ever done – it did also help that one of them wasn’t having to apply a glitter lip while another tries to dry their lash glue with a hairdryer – season 10 had some truly nightmarish challenges. Jasmine and Jorgeous were quite obviously the weakest links though, Jasmine was clearly so petrified of talking too much that you could see the fear in her eyes when she began to think of a way to wrap up her thesis statement about male privilege. The moment you truly realised that she was undoubtedly going to be in the bottom 2 though was when she said she was really into gamers, and RuPaul looked at her like she was having to watch Willow Pill eating spaghetti with her hands all voer again

it also might have been at this point that RuPaul realised that for some unknown reason Jasmine had decided to dress up as the ghost of a Victorian woman who now works as a dance instructor on a Silversea cruise ship

also shout out to Daya and Jorgeous, who both had better shoulder pad looks for this panel than they did for the should pad themed runway they were going to have to do in an hour’s time.

Jorgeous was definitely the most uncomfortable with the challenge, she’s clearly not the most confident person when it comes to talking and she fumbled her sentences a few times and her interjections were always a little bit cringe – the bit where she challenged everyone who exhibits toxic masculinity to a fight in a car park did make me pause the video for several seconds – I have a very low tolerance for failed attempts comedy. But I will say, she never really let it stop her, she always recovered and continued very well, so props to her for that. But Jorgeous’s wigline does continue to push me ever closer to attempting to blot out the sun

the cut around the ears is very odd, but I think the bigger issue is that this hair colour just doesn’t suit her particularly well – it’s too similar to her contour so it does make her look like she has some wicked sideburns, but I did like her blouse and I would like to know where I can get it.

Bosco definitely had better chemistry with Daya than she did the other two, which is understandable given that they’ve worked together for just about every group challenge that they’ve done so far, which I suppose also explains why Willow was so keen on getting Lady Camden on her team because she knew that she and Angeria get along really well. It also meant that it gave the editors an opportunity to cut from Angeria talking about how her friends call her “a drag lesbian” because she likes to date other drag queens to Lady Camden seemingly giving her a very coy look

I would never have picked these two as being the main fanfic fodder of the season – the doors Rosé and Denali have opened.

A big talking point of the episode was about Lady Camden and her shyness – I’m not sure how much of it is shyness so much as she’s just… British? And I love that her solution to this was to shout “HELLO YOU SEXY BITCHES!” when Deja introduced her

and then she spent the rest of it mostly being very quiet, but well spoken when she talked about her relationship with her father. I personally loved the bit when she slipped up and said her celebrity crush was Blake Lively instead of Blake Shelton, mostly because I really loved the way she made fun of it and referenced it later

I think the fact she was dressed like an evil British exchange student that shows up to ruin Blair Waldorf’s life for one season of Gossip Girl made it that much funnier.

This group definitely put more of an emphasis on being humorous, which did occasionally make them sound very rehearsed – Deja struggled the most with that – you could tell she had practiced the introductions of everyone and the segues between topics in the mirror for hours the night before, but I can’t blame her for wanting to be overly prepared for the challenge, especially knowing that you were going to have to talk about some quite heavy topics, with a large part of their talk being focused on the their relationships with their fathers. But all of them still managed to find the humour, which Willow was particularly good at and I think the fact she was so good at making it all feel like a natural chat between friends is a large reason that Deja didn’t win the episode – that and the fact that RuPaul clearly didn’t have a Deja win on the cards right from the moment Deja finished telling him about how her father had left her family and her mother suffers from Bipolar and Schizophrenia and then RuPaul just said, barely acknowledging Deja’s story, “So, who’s been the Drag Con!?”

absolute savagery.

Likewise, Angeria handed her chance of a win or a top placement because she has a good relationship with her father and as we know, if there’s no trauma to be mined there, you’re as good as dead to RuPaul – I’m sure she’ll dig up something to make sure that Angeria gets to the final. She’d better, I refuse to have an Angeria-less finale, it is simply unacceptable.

A Chip on Your Shoulder (Pads)

The runway theme for this week was of course Shoulder Pads, and only Deja truly embraced the theme – everyone else was kind of just wearing various shoulder adornments – I don’t think too many Ork Berserkers would take to too kindly to you calling their obscene spiked pauldrons “shoulder pads” but there was no denying that Deja in her Marge Simpson-esque Chanel two piece was shoulder padded to the core

for a look that is so ridiculous, she still managed to keep it very elegant and well styled – I don’t know if she needed quite so many pearl necklaces though, I would have just kept the chunkier one that matched the earrings, but I’m not mad at them.

It wasn’t really a surprise that Jorgeous read the theme briefing and said runway theme? What runway theme? And just walked out in puffy sleeves, which to be fair on someone that isn’t as small as she is, might have filled out to looking more like shoulder pads

it is a great look and it looked pretty damn phenomenal under the runway lighting but it just didn’t meet the theme, and if I didn’t know that Jorgeous couldn’t sew for her life, I would have assumed that she made this in the Werk Room the night before.
Willow also kind of skirted the theme – she’s definitely wearing shoulder pads, but because the rest of her look is so stylised, they don’t feel like the main event

but I do love this look – I’m a big fan of the whole pop-punk scene and this look just speaks to my soul, she looks like she’d slot right into a Set It Off music video

any chance to reference My Boys™.

I do have a theory that Daya’s panel outfit was going to be her shoulder pad runway, but then Jasmine showed up with a neon yellow look for the same category so she took the hit and did her Mad Max cosplay instead

I like this, it’s always nice to see something a little different on the runway – sure there’s not a lot of fashion to it but as far as military-inspired looks go, I’ll take this stylisation over Baga Chipz just raiding an army surplus store and calling it a day

will I ever stop being mad at that look? Unlikely.

As for Jasmine’s neon outfit, I really liked it and I liked seeing Jasmine looking quite modern, she has a tendency to look much older than she actually is

there is also something very Gottmik about the outfit. But if I were Jasmine, I would have worn a slightly less pageant earring – just snap that dangling bit off and keep it as a button

with the outfit already having the turtle neck and shoulder pads, she didn’t really need anythign else competing for space around her neck, and in fact both her earrings vacated her earlobes during the lipsync and greatly improved the sleakness of the look

sometimes a runway roadkill is for the better.

I really wanted to love Bosco’s look a lot more than I did – I like every element individually, but when it comes together, it’s a bit of a hodge-podge

and I am growing a little bored of her tendency to just wear a few pieces of TV friendly fetishwear and calling it a day – it’s very Violet Chachki in season 7, which as we know according to The Book of Jasmine Masters, did indeed fuck up drag. I genuinely think this would have been a lot better had just worn the coat and belted it to give herself more of a shape because the coat, which admittedly does look a bit like she stole it from a log flume kiosk, and the glasses work really great together.

I did really like Angeria’s houndstooth look though

it would have been quite easy for her to do this runway and keep it in that very pageant aesthetic, and while she could have pushed the whole Club Kid vibe a little further, it was still one of the more impactful and memorable looks on the runway.

And lastly we have Lady Camden as the nightmare you have after you’ve eaten far too much novelty festive cheese on Christmas

as terrified as I am by the giant leering face of the nutcracker, the sinister vibe of that unmoving face did remind of of the 1964 Russian version of Jack Frost

which in turn reminds me of the Mystery Science Theatre episode that covers it, which is my favourite episode, so I appreciate that – I quote “Every man I meet is either gay or a bear!” on a nearly daily basis. I also love how carefully she had to remove the head so that she didn’t mess up her very large wig while taking it off, and I’m not entirely sure how successful she was

my favourite part though was when she just kicked the decapitated head off the runway

while I’m not always wild about Lady Camden’s outfits on the runway, I do love that she always puts on a bit of a show with them.

A Shoulder Pads Runway Ranking

1. Deja Skye Understood The Assignment
2. Angeria’s Rather Polite Club Kid
3. Willow Pill or Blue Pill?
4. Jasmine Kennedie Looking 22
5. Daya Betty’s Personal Apocalypse
6. Lady Camden, Nutcracker Extraordinaire
7. Bosco’s Sexy Log Flume Ride
8. Jorgeous’s Loose Concept of Shoulder Pads

Only Angeria and Lady Camden were safe, which I can’t disagree with, they had fine performances and their runways were both good but nothing to warrant overt praise from the judges. The top 3 were Deja, Willow and Bosco and from those three with Deja being praised for her role as the moderator, if perhaps being a little stiff, and being the only queen to truly serve RuPaul’s idea of shoulder pads on the runway, I thought she was the runaway winner of the episode – especially with Willow and especially Bosco, getting very lukewarm receptions to their costumes. However, Deja didn’t win and it was instead the win went to Bosco, which even she seemed slightly shocked and surprised by

I like Bosco, so I’m happy to see her win things but I really think Deja should have won and I can only imagine it’s because next week is Snatch Game so they want Deja, who is the best chance of a great performance, hungry for the win.

As for the bottoms, it was quite clearly a bottom 2 of Jorgeous and Jasmine. Daya was more there as a formality of needing a bottom 3 and apparently the Daya Betty torture experiment has been rebooted, I’m honestly surprised they didn’t find a way to have her in the bottom 2, just for a real kicker. But RuPaul wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to watch Jorgeous lipsync again, especially against fellow dance titan Jasmine.

No Chocolate Before Bedtime

We all knew we were in for a good lipsync with these two, if there’s even one place where they’ve excelled it’s in the adrenaline fuelled Lipsync For Your Life scenario – and they really did turn it out and as much as I think they gave great individual performances, my favourite part was the more collaborative efforts

I always love it when two queens interact during a lipsync.

I do think that as the lipsync progressed Jorgeous kind of ran out of steam or just didn’t know where to go with it, whereas Jasmine, from beginning to end, felt a lot more engaged and gave us a lot more with it

so in my mind, Jasmine was a pretty obvious winner in this lipsync, it wasn’t a bad performance from Jorgeous but I think she got outshone and I’m not really sure she has much more to give this season – I think we’ve seen the best of Jorgeous whereas Jasmine feels like a much more solidified member of the cast and has social dynamics with a lot of the other queens – not necessarily for the better but Daya needs someone to feud with.

RuPaul however had a different opinion and instead we got a double shantay, so nobody goes home which is just… exhausting. We’re 9 episodes deep and only 6 queens have been eliminated, one of which was just because she hurt her ankle! It’s also BIZARRE to do this when you’ve got the looming threat of the Chocolate Bar of Shame at the end of every episode, like you could have just orchestrated it so that Jorgeous opened the golden chocolate bar, proving that The Drag Gods have her back. So maybe Production are being legit and it’s genuinely that Jorgeous doesn’t have that damned golden chocolate bar? I imagine we’ll find out next week when I will bet £20 that it’s another Jasmine vs Jorgeous scenario.

and so, somehow in week 9, 8 queens still remain…

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