Does this count as a step towards Lala Ri’s EGOT status?

Get your custom Laducas, we’ve got a Rusical to recap.

Lipsucking For Your Life

With the group unanimously voting for Kahanna she really has a lot to thank Heidi for – not that she’s ever going to because the two of them have been having the messiest Twitter drama since James Corden vs The Entire Catering Industry – somewhere along the line Kahanna started branding herself as “The Devil” while using a Tengu emoji which I personally find *very funny* but I think Heidi won the moment she said the shit she did in a Glasgow car park got more press coverage than Kahanna…

the girls are FIGHTING fighting and the fact it all started because of a fake treasure map is exquisite.

With Kahanna not wanting to let everyone dwell on the fact by all means she should have had to pack her things, conversation IMMEDIATELY moved on to Jimbo’s angst over her title as a Lipsync Mass Grave

the cynic in me wants to believe this is all an elaborate ruse to get the girls comfortable with the idea that they’d easily beat her in a lipsync for the crown and she has something big planned if she makes it that far but… if that’s the case a three year commitment to dancing like the wardrobe from Beauty and the Beast is unhinged even by Jimbo’s standards. Not that that actually counts for anything in a final lipsync because we all saw how they butchered Monet’s Swish Swish lipsync in All Stars 7.

All For Joan and Joan For All

For this week’s Main Challenge, the queens were starring in JOAN!: The Unauthorised Rusical – and when I first saw it on the episode listings I immediately thought that it was a Joan Rivers rusical and I was very excited to see that particular Jimbo reprise

and I was also hoping that someone would have to be the official Joan Rivers Twitter account that tweets from beyond the grave, but we’ll have to save that for another time because the Joan in question was in fact Joan Crawford – or in truth it was more a case of the queens playing Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford. Fun fact, a guy on my university course thought Joan Crawford was a fictional character because of Mommie Dearest, which I think speaks a lot to the general perception of the Joan Crawford legacy.

Each of the queens were playing Joan at a different stage in her career, with three of the roles being INCREDIBLY Mommie Dearest coded and were absolutely the easiest route to a top placement so I was surprised there weren’t more fights for them, the only argument was for No More Wire Hangers – the incredibly obvious winning song, The Black Chyna of the Joan Crawford Oeuvre if you will, both because it’s the most iconic reference and the song slapped beyond all necessity. The only queens vying for it were Jessica and Kandy who had to have the Obligatory Drag Race Werk Room Audition of the episode with Jessica flubbing lines left and right and Kandy singing like Cookie Monster mid cookie binge it was… well, I was worried but come the recording session, Fred from Scooby Doo had really worked his magic

and Kandy sounded really great and performed the everloving shit out of this, motivated I’m sure by the fact she got Fake Eliminated during her last attempt at a Rusical – the fake out being worth it just for Gottmik’s awkward hovering because she’d gone in for a hug and didn’t know what to do with herself and Kandy somehow aging into century old Rose DeWitt Bukater before our very eyes

remember how that was episode 8 and they’d only eliminated 4 queens? Cursed season.

I do think it was probably slightly easier to embody the unhinged character of Mommie Dearest Joan Crawford in a disco bop

than it was to be… Sexy Girlboss LinkedIn? in a Mrs. Kasha Davis brand pencil skirt and a wig that wanted you dead

Kandy getting the part didn’t exactly leave Jessica in the lurch as would usually be the case with the last remaining song being Bring Me The Ass Axe, which would have been the song I’d have gunned for given that it’s main selling point was that you had to over act and RuPaul loves nothing more than a queen chewing more senery than anyone in a Tom Hooper musical. There was a little concern over Jessica’s pronunciations – she could not say “Bring Me The Axe” without sounding like she was requesting a platter of butts – and I’m not *entirely* sure how much the final vocals were actually Jessica, it just doesn’t sound like her at all to me, but I did love that Fred From Scooby Doo asked her if she could do a rock song as though she didn’t win the Rock Chick challenge in season 2

and pulled off this performance and brought enough manic energy to it but I felt like it could have gone a little harder

but TS Madison looked like she was in the front row for Oppenheimer and could feel every inch of that nuclear explosion, so perhaps it was better in person

it also may or may not currently be on my running playlist… To be honest, most of the songs were really good, the only obvious dud amongst them was the opening MGM Queen number – both because it didn’t have a single pull-string Joan Crawford catchphrase

and it came with quite a complex vocal and choreography package, but it was more than easy to palm it off on Kahanna

truth be told, I don’t think anyone but Kahanna could have done this role – I can’t see any of the other queens looking this graceful in this spin

although you better believe Alexis and Her Custom Laducas™ were waiting in the wings to put on their own one woman production of this entire Rusical if the need arose

Alexis made a beeline for the patter song “Not My First Rodeo” because it was absolutely the most musical theatre-ish of the bunch, and she’s been in Oklahoma! (twice)

and of course she did as well here as she did in her Kardashian Rusical but she does have a natural advantage in that she possesses the ability to become anyone born before 1945 which does make her one of the less useful X-men on the roster

she’s the Koh the Face Stealer of niche queer reference points and nothing was funnier than when they would cut to her in the background just lackadaisically doing the choreo

and given how often they cut to Alexis and how well she coped with the hardest vocal performance of the night I was baffled by her only being safe – they couldn’t even blame it on a bad runway this time

Neva4get.

Alexis was inarguably the most Joan of the all the Joans, but somehow Lala Ri was giving her a real run for her money (we’ll ignore the lace that’s visible from space, the wigs were given to the queens)

it might just be the wig and the fact Mildred Pierce is a go to visual reference point for Joan but I really bought her as Joan, and her number was incredible – I was nervous for a Joan Crawford inspired Vogue Number but Lala excelled, she was in perfect sync with her dancers

and hit all of the slap accents so damn well

which could have easily gone wrong and sent the entire routine to hell in a handcart real fast. While the accompanying dancers enhanced Lala’s performance, I think Jaymes having to perform alongside a professional dancer did her more harm than good, especially because her fellow dancer, as Christina, was also performing a character

although I still LOVED her performance, the character heavy performance suited her well, I’m not sure her sinister Mother Gothel-esque delivery of “call me… Mommie Dearest” quite came through in the final product, but she was still selling the whole performance and I think was one of the most fun to watch

and I think Michelle would agree given how many times she magpie-cackled through the entire number.

If Kahanna was the only queen that could open the show, then Jimbo was the only queen that could really do the Hollywood Hag Superstar closer – both because she could sit down for quite a bit of it

or stand in one spot and mostly grind on a man in a gorilla mask (she did not move an inch from the middle of that stage)

and when you look at the line up of queens, who else is going to do the Hagslpoitation anthem? Although I fully believe Alexis could have hamstrung Kahanna with it by challenging her to do something risky and outside of her comfort zone.
It was a definite Rusical improvement for Jimbo, I mean she wasn’t covering her entire face with a picnic basket for most of it this time

but it was still extremely Jimbo and I’m surprised she didn’t want the Bring Me The Axe number which was kind of the same as this one but had more “pure rage”

I know the whole psycho-biddie/hagsploitation films were born out of ageism and sexism but I am a little fond of the genre and God bless Isabelle Huppert for trying to bring it back with Greta, a film I will needlessly defend with my life.

RuPaul’s Drag Grace

This week’s runway was the obligatory Night of 1000 [insert diva of choice] which is never my favourite runway category because most of the more iconic, drag friendlier looks are off limits because the queens are reduced to a game of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? style Fastest Finger First on Getty Images, because apparently they have finally learned to let the queens call dibs on looks. Allegedly one of the queens reserved 4 of Grace’s really cool looks and by “one of the queens” I mean Kandy because Heidi has been burning bridges all week. Although I imagine Kandy did it in the event that the look she brought didn’t come together because it could easily have looked like something from the Lala Ri Gift Bag Collection but fortunately she looked incredible

I think this is undoubtedly the best thing Kandy has worn on Drag race – it’s conceptual, it’s couture, it looks slightly like the box art for a video game called Extreme Tetris for an 80s console you’ve never heard of. It also helped that she stood out against everyone else with there not being that much colour, as you would expect from a runway honouring The Patron Saint of Black Leather, so the main runway really could have done with Kasha Davis walking out looking like all the Christmas hats you tore because your head was too big coming back for revenge

I love this and somehow it showed more ass than her look for an explicitly ass themed runway

good for Mrs. Kasha Davis.

Darienne also went for more of a gown and looked really quite incredible as Harley Quinn’s eccentric aunt

I am choosing to believe the glasses were a nod to her outfit during her attempt at being a 90s rapper

Big girl, why you all in bare feet
Walkin’ down the dirty city street?

Keeping with the Fame Game queens, I HOWLED when Naysha said that she’d had this bodysuit made to replicate Grace’s

she’s telling me that she, Naysha Lopez, the arbiter of the sparkly scuba suit, did not just have this in her closet ready to go and she just had to make sure she got to the Grace Jones outfit that looked the most like it first?

I just wish Naysha was better at accessorising – I like the crown, it reminds me of Giratina

but some really fuck off gold nails and boots that didn’t feel like a last ditch effort would have helped make this feel a little more fully realised. Hell, give me a cape, part of the drama of Grace’s original outfit was her hair

it’s a hard task with someone like Grace, but you really can’t let the subject matter out drag you.

With Heidi not participating in the Fame Games the last of them is of course Monica who had the most “I’m Grace Jones for Halloween” of the lot

I don’t really think I would have guessed this was Grace Jones if I didn’t already know, it’s a bit more Ariana Grande with a questionable perm

it was absolutely an Ariana Grande costume that she King Solomon’d, wasn’t it?

With any sort of film and music video looks strictly off limits due to licensing fees, Jessica apparently scoured Getty Images for a look involving a hood to get as close to Grace Jones’s Bond character, May Day, as she could possibly get

she looks damn good, on the less damn good end of the hooded spectrum was Jaymes Mansfield who looked like she’d been involved in the decades long Motorised Weasel Ball War and was showing off her war trophies

I like the makeup? It’s fun when a queen tries to do something new with their face. But the outfit is Golden Boot worthy and as per her YouTube video about the look, she had lumped one designer with several of her looks and this was the last one he finished which kind of shows but props to her for finding the one Grace Jones look that looked like it could have been in a Russ Meyer movie.

Much like the judges, I was excited to see what Lala Ri would do because out of everyone she could easily pull off any of Grace’s looks and I like the look she chose and I think she looks very fashionable

but it does just lack a bit of texture and volume and she kind of wasted the impact of that mask by removing it too quickly – potentially because the makeup on it looked like me practicing eyeliner and immediately washing it off because it always looks like a 4 year old did it during an earthquake

I guess at least then you can’t be disappointed by the makeup you reveal to.

It didn’t help Lala that Alexis Michelle had a look that also sat in the dramatic leather with a headpiece that can receive freeview television area of Grace Jones’s outfits

the fact she wasn’t in the top is a mystery, this is front cover of W magazine worthy

and that’s not really something I thought I would ever say for Alexis “Lovely Gowns, Beautiful Gowns” Michelle.

The last of our Black With a Hat group was Jimbo who had taken it upon herself to make said hat out of hair

which from certain angles really made her look like Yubaba from Spirited Away

Jimbo has done a few looks this season that have distanced herself from the clownier Jimbo persona that we’re used to and of them, I think this is the most successful. I miss her more absurd looks, but I think what she’s doing is smart because inevitably marketability is a factor in the All Stars game.

Lastly we have Kahanna who I think did a great job of making a Grace Jones look feel like a Kahanna look

however, if you’re going to do the look that Grace Jones infamously hula hooped for 4 minutes in, I do want to at least see a little bit of hula hooping – at least bring one out and throw it at Michelle like a game of quoits.

A Grace Jones Look Ranking
1. Geometry Jones
2. The Dark Salad Spinner
3. Not May Day
4. Low Angle Yubaba
5. The Christmas Hat Revenge
6. Harley’s Crazy Sister, Darienne!
7. Grace Jones sans Hula Hoop
8. A Mask Off Moment
9. An Exploration of Sparkly Scuba Suits
10. Monica’s Half a Grande
11. The Great Weasel Massacre of ’86

Judging

For me, the top three were absolutely Kandy, Lala and Alexis – they honestly could have kept everyone on stage for a critique this week but they called Alexis and Jimbo as just safe and then purely by process of elimination Kahanna and Jaymes were the bottom 2 – Jaymes more for her look and Kahanna because, well, she had the dud number. The win however was always going to be between Lala and Kandy – their numbers were the most dynamic and memorable with their runways breaking the tie and Kandy geting the chance to lipsync for $30,000.

Go With Grace

It was fun that we got a Grace Jones lipsync and it was nice that Kandy had borrowed Monica’s Grace Jones costume for the event

and extremely relatably, immediately popped a nipple when she put her arms up

and the assassin Kandy was facing off against over I’m Not Perfect but I’m Perfect For You, was Season 14’s Angeria

who is an incredible performer but she didn’t really get the groove of the song and she was doing this weird thing of performing to one very specific spotlight throughout

she so was looking up the entire time, whereas Kandy was serving sexy directly to the judges

and Alexis Michelle was having a wonderful time in the horny corner

at least I think it was for Kandy and not Angeria looking like an injured velociraptor

the real nail in the coffin though was the moment Angeria brought out the, I don’t think it was even an air-guitar, it was more of an air-banjo

ANGERIA PARIS MAXIIIIIIIIIIIIINE VANMICHAELS, YOU PUT THAT DOWN!

and in a true case of How It Started

and how it’s ging, Kandy won the lipsync and the $30,000

which did mean that it was up t her to break the news that this week it was Jaymes Mnasfield leaving the competition

which surprised me quite a bit considering that everyone had literally just voted to unanimously eliminate Kahanna so I’m sure there’s some juicy drama there. I’m sure Jaymes is in with a decent shout in the Fame Games though, she has an entire YouTube audience to weaponise.

And so, 6 queens remain

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