I’ll take whatever clickbait-y looking header imagine I can get.

I’m really sorry this got so delayed, blame the BBC for scheduling MasterChef by using a blindfold and a dartboard.

A Clean Break

Not much really happens in the beginning of the show because so much of it has to be dedicated to Bosco reading Jasmine’s university essay of a mirror message

and of course because Jasmine’s gone, Daya Betty has nobody to aggressively roll her eyes at whenever they so much as breathe – I’m sure she’ll somehow manage to pick an argument with one of the Werk Room mannequins by next week.

Gay Paris!

There’s no Mini Challenge this week because that would have meant the winner would have been allowed to delegate roles in Moulin Ru, this week’s Rusical, and it was much more fun watching Bosco and Lady Camden have a gladiatorial showdown over the lead role of Saltine because apparently we’ve still not learnt that under no circumstances do you want the role that has the most lines or screen time because it just means the probability of failure increases tenfold no matter how much of a raging theatre kid you are. Instead they should have all been fighting over the Green Fairy role – which I *always* forget is played by Kylie Minogue in the film (and was apparently meant to originally be played by Ozzy Osbourne?????) But while Bosco and Lady Camden barked and snarled at one another, Willow swooped in and scooped that role up and the rest of the queens, for some unknown reason, squabbled over Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent who were a sort of Lady Marmalade quartet – the role of Talent being particularly desirable entirely due to the name because the few lines the part got had no discernible personality. Jorgeous eventually got the role and I thought it would be because the part got a dance solo because you know, she’s called Talent so she should probably have a bit where she shows off? And then… it just didn’t happen. Instead the Green Fairy got the big comedy solo number, which Willow nailed and was clearly the highlight of the entire show

the only moment that rivalled it was DeJa walking the very hot backing dancers out on leashes

DeJa looked INCREDIBLE in this number – I could perhaps have lifted without the chainmail crotch cloth. But as hot as she was, I am afraid Hot Male Dancer No. 2 was stealing focus from both her and everyone else

The only other memorable member of the chorus was Daya Betty who was leaning into the Lady Marmalade of it all the hardest and giving me all the P!nk that she needed to

but she had one of the only solo bits in which she got to act a little bit drunk – which is indeed the scraps we had to fight over in terms of “stand out moments” in this rusical.

I did really enjoy the musical numbers in this Rusical, I thought the adaptations of the Ru songs to fit the Moulin Rouge numbers were actually quite clever – and there were some fun references in amongst it all

I did think the whole thing was a little heavy on the talking side, which made the decision to have it be a lipsyncing Rusical a little weird – I always enjoy the live rusicals a lot more – if you haven’t seen Canada’s Under The Big Top Rusical, I thoroughly suggest you seek it out, it’s a masterpiece of utter batshit insanity

and it being live would have allowed the Queens to give their characters more life, because the voices they used for the Moulin Ru characters were all so over-produced sounding – especially the role of Saltine which made it even more baffling as to why Camden and Bosco were so desperate to get it while treating the role of the Narrator as the worst role imaginable despite the fact Zidler is one of the more memorable roles of the entire musical, even just on a visual level. I also think Zidler’s ringmaster aesthetic would have leant itself very well to Bosco, not that Camden didn’t look great

but after a vote from the other queens, Bosco managed to bag herself the weirdly prized role of Saltine

and it was only a matter of time before Bosco’s brows came to bite her in the ass, and sure enough Michelle Visage was entirely taken out of the realism of of the ~performance~ because of Bosco’s horned eyebrows – personally I was more taken out by the fact Bosco seemed to be playing the role as though she were a blow-up doll that had been granted sentience and in order to remain amongst the mortal realm had to find true love – enter the role of Christian who was being played by Leland wearing whatever had been left on the WOW Productions coat hooks over the years

Had they expected to do this Rusical with 8 queens? Because you cannot convince me that this role wasn’t originally meant to be a Christine and a sort of Cloud Atlas style sequel to the MAXIIIIIIINE-ness of The Daytona Winds.

I think this was one of the better Rusicals in terms of overall production – it felt glitzy and well staged, it’s also always fun to have a guest star show up, even if Leslie Jordan kind of stole everyone’s thunder

but there certainly wasn’t a really dud performance from anyone, just obvious roles that were pretty much exclusively designed to give a queen a harder job at standing out but that’s Jorgeous’s fault for willingly stepping into that sandtrap.

Time to Reflect

The runway prompt this week was “Mirror Mirror” – sadly not a prompt to crib directly from Tarsem Singh’s extremely weird Snow White adaptation, although Alyssa Hunter did and she won the whole episode from the comfort of her own home

Honestly, Alyssa’s unseen runway looks have all been knockouts and we were ROBBED of getting to see them in all of their glory. I hope she gets to do All Stars (not likely given her second boot status) just so she can wear all of these looks.

Instead the queens all took it as a prompt to look as shiny as possible – which shouldn’t be a tough ask for drag queens amongst whom sequins and leopard print are considered “nude” and yet…

The first to hit the runway was Lady Camden who looked alarmingly like Hank Stone as the world’s most cursed Jack Frost in the TV movie Santa Girl

I was surprised that she was the only one to go for the frosty, winter look. I think that would have been my go-to if I were to do this runway. I did like seeing Camden in a very different, much more stylised makeup and I think she did it really well. The costume I’m a little… colder on. I really like the fitted jacket, but I wish the pants were a little more interesting, they just have nothing to them which makes them look like a pair of jogging tights

I think a pair of really well fitted cigarette pants in an embellished pinstripe would’ve elevated the look a lot, but probably make her look even more like Hank Stone’s Jack Frost.

Next up was Bosco who was steadfastly still doing Bosco

at least this is probably the best of Bosco’s corset and lingerie sets? It’s certainly the most interesting with it’s sort of 80s sci-fi robot sidekick meets Metropolis vibe, and her mug as usual is phenomenal

I’m not sure it entirely gels with the outfit, it all looks a little like her face is hovering in front of her head like Clara Bellar as the nanny robot in AI: Artificial Intelligence

which, who knows, might have been the effect she was going for.

Willow was next in a sort of 70s glam rocker meets imminent 4th of July disaster outfit

I don’t get “mirror” from it and I think she should have just gone the whole hog and given us a full firecracker turkey tail because the whole thing feels a little sparse and slightly lacking in that distinctly Willow flair. But I did enjoy her hair and makeup

especially the little wispy devil horns she’s styled into the wig.

Following Willow was Angeria who again, I’m not really seeing mirrors so much as I am the bottom of a pool in a very luxurious hotel

I think it’s a stunning outfit and the shapes of it are really cool, and of course she looks beautiful, it’s a tough ask for Angeria to not look beautiful on the runway, but it’s about as “mirror mirror” as DeJa’s was.

But before we get to DeJa, Daya took to the runway in her best glam metal look

I love this and I think it’s a much more successful play on the whole 70s glam rock aesthetic than Willow managed – I also like that she managed to avoid just doing purely KISS cosplay, the punkier hair and the lip shape all make it very much a Daya Betty look

and I do have to appreciate the fact that every time Daya has come out on the runway, she’s had a different mug on.

And then we come to DeJa whose outfit I really did not like very much

the bunching up of the dress aside, something about the shapes really just remind me of the Ice King from Adventure Time

and then, I imagine because she realised that the holographic fabric wasn’t particularly reflective, she brought out this little hand mirror with which she was giving us a whole ~performance~ with

I get that she was obviously trying to do the whole Evil Queen obsessed with her own beauty thing, but if you’re going to do that you’ve kind of got to do the makeup to match it, you can’t just do it with your regular beauty makeup because now you’re just sad DeJa looking in a mirror.

Lastly we have Jorgeous who was also doing the sort of ribcage dress, although I think with a much more cohesively pulled together aesthetic

I really, really like this, especially the hair and makeup, it’s a very welcome change of pace for Jorgeous. I’m not sure the sequin fabric was the best choice of material for this look – I get that it added to the mirror-ness of it all, but I think it bulked up the ribcage effect which meant we lost a lot of the negative space between the “bones”. And as is want to happen, it all got a little weird looking around the ass

I’m convinced that between having several of her outfits made and getting on the show, Jorgeous made herself some new hip pads which is why a lot of her outfits have very weirdly placed pants or ass details.

A Mirror Mirror Runway Look Ranking

1. Daya’s Heavy Gunmetal
2. Cursed Jack Frost
3. Angeria’s Hotel Swimming Pool Gown
4. Jorgeous’s Beddazzled Ribcage
5. Willow’s FireWERKs
6. Bosco’s Best Set of Pants
7. DeJa’s Community Theatre Production of Snow White

The runway certainly made it easier for the judges to pick a winner with Willow and Lady Camden very much being the best performances in the show. Although I love that Ross said DeJa could have won based entirely off the 2 erotic seconds of her walking the dancers out on leashes – someone is very lockdown horny. Splitting the difference between Camden and Willow ultimately came down to their runways with Willow’s not being on-theme enough, but I do think Camden deserved the win even without the runway, she’s a great theatrical performer and her balletic moves were stunningly fluid throughout

as for the bottom queens, it was pretty much just Jorgeous and Bosco for their Moulin Ru performances with DeJa thrown in for having a bunched up dress on the runway. The queens are however asked to assist with the decision and are asked the dreaded “Who should go home this week?” with everyone except Bosco saying that Bosco should go home for underperforming in a role that she fought ridiculously hard for. BUT, Bosco says Jorgeous should go home “based on track record” (sigh.) and as tiring as I find that, it did give us this iconic moment

and as someone who has wanted Jorgeous to lean into the whole bratty Young Queen whomst RuPaul wants to nurture and slowly drain the life force out of, this is enough for me to forgive most of Jorgeous’s subpar performances – it’s deliciously savage, and did lead us into a wonderfully tense bottom 2 because Bosco and Jorgeous were deemed the worst of the week.

Heartbreak Hotel Chocolat

They were lipsycning to a remix of Whitney Houston’s Heartbreak Hotel and I think both of them did very well in very different areas – Bosco had the lipsync down to a fine art, hitting every run with absolute precision – she just doesn’t seem to do well in anything with a moderately high tempo because she once again kind of defaulted to strutting around the stage like a frustrated robot chicken

while Jorgeous, who has phenomenal control and understanding of her body, really performed the Hell out of the song

but she was barely lipsyncing – she needs to faux-enunciate a little more, it always looks like she’s whispering the lyrics to herself while she waits in line for her coffee at Starbucks – and it was particularly noticeable this time because of her black lipstick.

They could have feasibly thrown the win to either of them and it would have made sense but because Ru seems to have financially invested on Jorgeous’s Drag College fund, she wins while Bosco is forced to open up her Chocolate bar AND FINALLY, WE’VE STRUCK GOLD!

I’m really happy that Bosco had it and I hope this really lights a fire under her ass, because her season progression is beginning to look a bit like that horse drawing meme

which is frustrating.

And so, we’re still stuck on 7 queens with not many episodes left so RuPaul better start eliminating people during Mini Challenges.

And if you’ve enjoyed this (slightly delayed) recap of Drag Race and would like to support the blog, you can leave a small donation via my Ko-fi HERE.