Therapy sessions in Hell seem to be going well.
In good news, this season continues to right the wrongs of last season!
Snatch Game
We were forgoing a Mini Challenge this week because it was of course this season’s group of queens’ turn to take on Snatch Game – and I did feel a little bit bad about it because we’re fresh off the back of Drag Race Canada’s Snatch Game which is honestly one of the best ones we’ve had in quite some time – Giselle will go down in the Hall of Fame for her Marie Curie
and they already had the not particularly well received Season 1 Snatch Game hanging over their heads – but for what it’s worth, I actually thought they did pretty well, with a couple of exceptions, and even then, they wouldn’t even be in the top 30 worst Snatch Game performances
This is also one of the few Snatch Games where I think I knew who everyone’s character was – I think the most niche was probably Beverly doing Val Garland who was very much going all in on the props to distract from the fact there’s not a great deal to do with Val Garland as a character
although I imagine the crossover between Drag Race and Glow Up is something of a perfect circle. And if you didn’t know who Val Garland was beforehand, you’re probably still a bit mystified because it was rather terrible – the funniest part of it was the fact that you were just waiting for her to say “DING DONG!” at some point and she only managed it right at the end, after Rhys had already beaten her to it and Ru had very much already decided she was in the bottom by then
and you could tell that Beverly was just desperate by the last half of the game and at some point she had blacked out one of her teeth
which she had not started out with and did own up to the fact it was a last minute dental Hail Mary because Val is British, which was honestly one of the parts of the episode that made me laugh the hardest! God bless her, she was spiralling this whole episode after she and Minnie had the most minor of minor tiffs because Minnie had dared to tell RuPaul that Beverly and Pomara hadn’t got along in the challenge last episode. Quite why Beverly cared so much given that A. Pomara had been sent home and B. If anything, having a feud with a queen on the show helps you stick around for a little longer as they milk you like a drama cow. And making it so obvious she was bothered by Minnie was only ever going to lead them to being in the bottom 2 together, which production was going to make happen by any means necessary. And by “any means necessary” I do mean that Ru was going to stitch Minnie up like a kipper because Ru uproariously laughed the entire way through Minnie doing her best-worst Ellen DeGeneres impression in the Werk Room but the moment she put on that sensible long-sleeved polo shirt she was DEAD TO HER
and I’m not about to claim that Minnie’s Ellen was a piece of unsung comedic genius because it really wasn’t – it was mostly just doing a thumbs up and saying “I’m Ellen!” like a broken Animatronic
and a lot of her answers that never really went anywhere which never does anyone any good – you don’t have a follow up story to your answer, DON’T USE IT
and quite why given the fact we know so much about Ellen and the drama that surrounds her she didn’t lean into the fact Ellen is actually a horrible person to work with, she didn’t lean into that I don’t know – this was basically Blair St. Clair 2.0 and nobody wants to be Blair St. Clair 2.0
But I do think Minnie had more of an angle and concept than Molly as Orville Peck as The May Queen
the thing that confused me most was the utter lack of a reveal – like the whole point of being someone that we don’t know who they are is the fact you can reveal them to be someone else, bonus points if they’re a dead somebody! (Although 5 seconds of Wikipedia and you immediately know who Orville Peck is – you can’t have such identifiable tattoos and maintain a secret identity, that’s Secret Agent 101) had she whipped off that mask and revealed she was Judy Garland? Ru would have lapped it up and she would have been able to play off Hannah who was playing the role of The Obligatory Liza Minnelli this time. Instead the only reveal we got was Molly showing us she had assless chaps on
and I really thought she was heading straight to the bottom 2 based off the VERY RUDE sound effect they played over it – it was like someone was shaking a jiffy bag full of raw meat, the sound mixer is a shady bitch.
Hannah’s aforementioned Liza Minnelli was very good but I do think we’ve run the Liza Minnelli well dry at this point, although I did very much enjoy her doing an acapella cover of Sissy That Walk, especially after Jinkx had just done a Judy Garland version of Drag Race theme song on All Stars 7. And Hannah had the look down in a slightly not very flattering to Liza Minnelli way – it’s very Liza Minnelli selling scarves on QVC
the voice did occasionally drift into Donald Duck, but what is a childhood Donald Duck impression but a gateway drug to the perfect Liza? And Minnie was certainly having a great time watching Hannah and enthusiastically applauded her after just about every answer
whether that was a character choice or not, I cannot say.
It wasn’t much of a surprise that Hannah was very good, and I’m almost positive she must do her Liza quite regularly, but even though Yuri won last week’s challenge alongside Spankie, I was a little worried about how she would cope with a more solo effort in Snatch Game. But she was REALLY good as Courtney Love
I thought this was utterly inspired – it was a very Adore Delano as Anna Nicole Smith approach in which you could pretty much say anything with a drunken slur and Ru would probably cackle, but God if I didn’t love the moment she needlessly whipped out a shoe and talked about how it was her favourite shoe if she even wore shoes
as Michelle said, she was funniest when she was just the most stupid and she was the most stupid for pretty much the entire Snatch Game, which might have somewhat worked against her because it was harder for other people to play off her or with her given that she was just so random and nonsensical.
Kween Kong was also a bit of a surprise this week, I think if she hadn’t have had the Drag Brunch challenge last week, she would probably have struggled a lot more but her Nene Leakes was pretty good
mostly because RuPaul didn’t have to draw a “Bloop!” out of her like he was drawing blood from a stone as he did with Peppermint on season 9. I’m not entirely sure her transformation was the best – and it might just be down to the subpar quality of the BBC Iplayer upload (1080p my ass) but when they first cut to panel I honestly thought someone was playing P!nk
but I thought comedically she was good – I enjoyed her interactions with Raven and I think she did a really good job interaction wise, she was still a little bit reserved and didn’t quite fully let herself go but it was a thoroughly deservedly safe performance.
Lastly we have Spankie who was Dame Edna Everage credited as Barry Humphries because the show still has terrible copyright lawyers
this was perfectly good – she had the voice and the look down, although I’m not sure there’s a single person out there who can’t do the Dame Edna voice. I didn’t find many of her jokes to be very funny, I think she fell into the trap of telling jokes that Edna has already told and so most of the humour and big laughs she got were from her reaction faces
I think maybe we stop doing other drag queens on Snatch Game? They’re already larger than life characters, there’s not really much room to push it any further.
Clowning Around
It was another really good runway theme this week with the Queens having to don their best circus themed outfit, which does make the fact nobody came as 2008 Britney a crime
I don’t know, I always loved that campy little ringleader outfit – but I too would have thought everyone was going to come as a ringleader.
It would be remiss not to mention Ru’s outfit this week because it was SO GOOD
she looks like a Disney witch crashing a party, so Beverly better watch out or she’s going to have the youth sucked right out of her.
But on with the Circus! And first up was Minnie Cooper in a really cute little clown outfit
I really loved this, I think it perfectly treads the line of being almost fashionable and clearly a clown – the choice of prints and colours are really interesting and aesthetically pleasing. I did think she was going to get read to filth for the flat shoes when she first came out, because they were rather egregious with the rest of the outfit, but at least they were Heelys (a phrase I never thought I would say), and it was rather endearing to watch Minnie having so much fun just wheeling back and forth on them
this would prove to be a bit of a crutch in a few minutes.
Kween Kong was next as the Bearded Lady in an outfit that the far too blue lighting completely washed out and robbed of a lot of the details
but the coat was really pretty when you saw it in more neutral, less offensively blue lighting – seriously, it’s like they’re lighting an under the sea themed prom
and she did of course have the reveal to the pubic hair
and I appreciated that she didn’t play it for laughs and just kept it a very sexy runway, I’m kind of over the whole “LOL pubic hair!” schtick, it can die a death alongside randomly thumping a breastplate.
Spankie was next in an almost Galiano-esque clown, it was really hard to get a full body shot of her look, imaginably because she was wearing capris length tights
I do think this was a nice change of pace for Spankie, it feels a little more ~fashion~, I do however think it’s all a little too small, the peplums and the ruff really needed to have more volume to them, but I really loved her makeup and the hat she was wearing
I just wish the actual outfit had as much detail, even if just the buttons had been black or white pompoms to add a little something extra to barren expanse of holographic velor.
Yuri’s outfit suffered much the same fate as Kween’s in that the lighting didn’t really show off the details because when she first came out I was very underwhelmed by the fact she was honouring the circus with a white leotard
but the pearl details on the corset were beautiful
much like Spankie I think she could have made more of the outfit, even if the fans she came out with had just been a touch bigger but the main part of the outfit was the reveal down to the tattooed bodysuit which was quite cool and I really loved the makeup she did too
I’m a big fan of the personalised eyebrows.
Giving us the most high concept look of the night was Beverly Kills as a tamed lion leading the anti-circus rebellion
I like the concept, I think her hair and makeup are great
but I’m not sure I’m a fan of the dress, it’s like all of the furnishings in a vaguely Moroccan themed restaurant are having a fight and none of them are winning. But hey, she got to get her whip out again
and I do enjoy Beverly’s runway presentations, she’s always got a concept and sells a garment as much as she can.
Molly Poppinz was another clown, theming hers around candyfloss which was a cute detail that I think she possibly could have pushed a little further
there’s just something ever so sparse and ungenerous about the outfit – although I do like the pastels against the black and white bodysuit, there’s something very Tim Burton-esque about that combination. And I loved her makeup
I thought the tiny little red nose with the sequin on the end was really cute and unique, if a little pimpley, only for Hannah to then come out with the exact same makeup
and it was another great outfit from Hannah this week, who also had something of the Tim Burtons about her (mostly because her head was absolutely just Helena Bonham Carter from the Alice in Wonderland films)
Hannah just has a very good eye for details and knows how to coordinate an outfit, nothing about her looks ever feels undercooked or careless, I think she’s my frontrunner at this point with Spankie, Yuri and Molly all following close behind.
A Cirque du So-gay Runway Ranking
- Hannah’s Burtonesque Clown
- Minnie’s Wheely Good Clown
- Kween’s Furry Good Showing
- Spankie’s Unshown Capris Pants
- Yuri’s Pearly Whites
- Molly’s Burtonesque Clown
- Beverly’s Roaring Unsuccess
With Kween being the only truly safe queen, it was pretty obvious that Spankie, Hannah and Yuri were in the top with the latter two being the clear top 2 – I don’t mind that Hannah ended up winning but I might have been tempted to lob it Yuri’s way purely to watch the comedy queens spiral as Yuri cements herself very accidentally as the comedic elite amongst the cast. This left the bottom three as Minnie, Molly and Mandy Beverly. Beverly was an obvious shout for the bottom 2 and between Molly and Minnie, I personally thought Molly was the weaker of the two and should have been in the lipsync but clearly production had decided that Minnie was getting a bit exhausting and were wanting to pack her off as soon as they possibly could so it was Minnie vs Beverly in the lipsync and oh what a lipsync…
RuPaul’s Drag Disparity
So Minnie and Beverly were lipsyncing to Lady Gaga’s Dance In The Dark, both in VERY different cinematic universes though. It’s been a hot minute since we’ve had a lipsync this WILDLY disparate – nothing has ever really touched Latrice Royale soulfully singing Natural Woman to her fake unborn child while Kenya Michaels did the splits while also sporting a fake unborn child
and sure, we had Kimora Amore chasing Gia Metric around the stage like a crow trying to eat a lizard
but that was mostly just upsetting, so weirdly upsetting in fact that the judges had to actively address it straight afterwards
Beverly and Minnie however touched the same divine as Latrice and Kenya for me – straight out the gate, Beverly was going to be serving you fierce drama – she was out for blood
Minnie however, was going to be going full children’s party circus clown – and I swear to God if this isn’t what Lady Gaga looks like in Joker 2: Harley Quinn’s Italian Accent Boogaloo, I DON’T WANT IT
the whole thing was like trying to watch a CBBC show and a Ryan Murphy melodrama all at the same time – you had Minnie wheeling about the place, desperate to get her money’s worth out of those Heelys, meanwhile Beverly is trying to do her best club performance while simultaneously trying to keep track of where the menace on wheels was, which was a hard task because her peripheral visual was completely obscured by the MASSIVE wig she had on
I also don’t think Minnie’s lipsync was actually *bad*, she was kind of trapped by the fact she was dressed as a clown, but she was a better dancer and mover than I had anticipated, but really there was no way she was winning this the moment Beverly dramatically dragged her eyeliner down her face
I think it made her look look about 5 times more interesting too and somehow amped up the lionine nature of it all. Meanwhile Minnie was doing the Bees Knees like she was doing the cursed Strictly Halloween Charleston
by which point Rhys’s brain had completely melted
And sure enough Beverly was saved and Minnie’s alleged reign of terror in the Werk Room came to an end
I’m a bit sad, I really quite enjoyed Minnie on the show, everyone else seems to think she was exhausting and a little bit Jan in her enthusiasm but I don’t know, I thought she was endearing and I would have liked her to stick around for a little longer.
And so, we’re down to 6 queens!
