How many lifetimes do you have?

Let’s get this roast a’cookin’!

Lala For Now

For some reason Lala’s Elimination Wall refused to load at the end of the last recap and it won’t let me add it later (is every platform falling apart?) and I am but a single blogger with an I-media BTEC whose entire knowledge of coding was creating 1 barely working Flash game about a cat trapped in space in 2011

and I’m too nervous to contact WordPress about it because I once subjected a poor web engineer to 20 minutes of Matt Goss gifs with no context

I think about him every day. The engineer, less so Matt Goss dancing with the bodily awareness of a baby.

So, let’s try this again, and once more because I think she’s worth it, sadly we said goodbye to Lala Ri while she was dressed as every Scooby Doo character all at once

I fully expect we’ll see her on a Vs the World format within the next two years.

Horsing Around

This week’s Maxi Challenge was the Roast Challenge with the subject of the hour being Carson Kressley (whose name I have finally learned how to spell!) The stand up comedy challenges are never my favourite to recap because I often feel like I’m just recanting the queens’ jokes and saying whether or not they were funny – but for the most part, I think everyone was funny! Nobody pulled a Utica and decided to perform comedy like they had 5 kilograms of nitroglycerine strapped to their chest and a list of demands

Alexis did kind of set everyone up for success as she was given the privilege of deciding the order of the roast – deciding to put herself first, Jessica Second, Kandy third and Jimbo last. If she wanted to screw some people over she could have thrown Jessica on first, taken second for herself then make Kandy follow Jimbo as the closer – but Alexis had a very strong, extremely faithful and unbreakable pact going with Kandy so she wouldn’t dare do that…

no wonder she spent all of last week on Twitter saying she’d rather have sent Kandy home.

The only queens that had any experience doing Drag Race roasts were Kandy and Alexis – Kandy having won hers and Alexis landing in the bottom against Farrah Moan who walked so that Utica could self-combust. So Alexis had a little to prove, but really all she had to do to make it better was to come out not dressed in green

the thing that still REALLY gets me about that look is the fact it looks like she’s smuggling a pair of Great Gazoos out of the building

so Alexis was off to a good start when she came out looks like Madame Medusa instead

she does however do this thing where as soon as she has to tell a joke, she’ll slip into this really thick Long Island accent – which is her regular accent, but it becomes so much stronger and it’s only when she’s telling a joke – it’s like Stewie Griffin emphasising the H i “whip” but only in Cool Whip. I think that has a lot to do with why, as Michelle said, it sounded like she was doing a wedding toast – she constantly sounds like that, she is a long-distance mistress of ceremonies – the marathon runner of speech givers.

A big part of the Carson Kressley story is his love for horses, as you can tell from this display of patriotism

I do have to wonder if they were explicitly told they were not allowed to make any horse fucking jokes because I refuse to believe that Alexis Michelle did not have 20 pages of Equus jokes ready to go *adds another hanky to the kink dress*. The De-Equusing of the evening would possibly explain why Jessica was so hung up about him appearing on Dancing With The Stars – she told a couple of (the same) jokes about that and I largely believe that’s why they had to have a picture of him on the show

they really had to splash out for that too – that’s not a Getty image, Disney owns DTWS! That’s Money.

Jessica was distinctly Jessica – it’s a good time whenever she opens her mouth, she did have something of an advantage though because she did have her emotional support Pekingese on her head

but I do think the thing that made me laugh the hardest was Kandy thanking Jessica when she came on afterwards

only because apparently the subtitlers were having a really difficult time with Jessica if this is anything to go by

she CLEARLY said “extra blush!” – I would love to know why they thought everyone was laughing at “extra blood!” though – only someone with an above average IQ would get this incredibly smart haematology joke. There was also the Sparky incident, where they captioned it as “bunny” despite it being part of a joke about loving horses

and then 6 minutes later Jimbo also talked about Sparky and suddenly they knew he was a pony

the Drag Race subtitlers are a menace to the hard of hearing society, but nothing thrills me more than when they treated the first season of Drag Race France like it was a completely untranslatable text from ancient Mesopotamia

although, Kandy apparently shouldn’t be throwing stones in glass houses because the subtitlers ruined one of her punchlines

and no, nobody called her out for straight up stealing Gottmik’s best joke from the roast THAT KANDY WON

We all know that Drag Race is the snake that eats its own tail, but that was barely 2 seasons ago, that’s just chowing down its own neck! I realise this implies that I think snakes work like toenails.

Seeing out the show was Jimbo, although that’s technically not true because they brought on Thom Felicia, fellow Queer Eye Gay and contestant on Super Top Secret, Burn After Reading, Celebrity Masked Singer Drag Race, a show fuelled entirely by extremely bad drag names

although, Jackie Would is actually really good compared to Milli von Sunshine, Electra Owl(?????) and Miss Mimi Teapot. Anyway, there was a long discussion in the Werk Room about whether you should do a roast as yourself or a character with everyone except Jimbo deciding to just play it as their own drag personas – the money I would have given for Jessica to reprise Haystack Wig Rupaul is not a lot but it should be enough

As for Jimbo’s character choice, she was riskily reprising her first Snatch Game performance as Joan Rivers

both a risk because it was so good the first time it would be hard to better AND Joan was obviously an insult comic and a dab hand at roasting, but that also makes it a very shrewd choice because as long as you can look and sound enough like her, you kind of have carte blanche to say whatever you want – had she not been Joan, I think there were a few jokes that may have got more nervous “ooh”s from the crowd – the only person who got that treatment was Kandy

I mean, she wasn’t wrong about Jimbo’s lipsyncing but you can’t really say “you’re talentless” directly to camera like you’re Farrah Moan trying her darndest.
Jimbo really did kill it though – the voice occasionally ever so slightly slipped into nervous Canadian but she did really well to keep the whole act going for so long, whereas Snatch Game you at least have time to breathe and collect yourself – the funniest part of it, for me, was Alexis’s own reaction to the “more full of shit than Alexis at Folsom” joke

*adds another hanky to the kink dress*

Snow Laughing Matter

This week’s runway theme was Snow Bunny and for a runway that could have been quite boring, I think most of the queens managed to be at least a little bit interesting – there was a lot less fur bikinis than I was expecting, I expected a lot of Marcia³ 2: Chilly Bikini Boogaloo

in fact the only lingerie that came down the runway was Kandy because if there’s one thing Kandy Muse is going to do, it’s wear a garment that looks marginally unfinished

as far as the whole 2 things a corset goes, I don’t mind this – I think the chains and sparkle at least manage to make it interesting – but the whole thing does remind me of the time Kandy peeled herself like a boiled egg during the Season 13 finale

I do think that it’s quite telling that Michelle explicitly praised Kandy for the minimal look and the moon boots because I’m not sure many other queens would have got away with the flats – although Kandy’s did at least feel like a bit of a statement shoe, Mrs. Kasha Davis was in off-brand Uggs

couldn’t have glued on a few citrine flatbacks to at least *try* to match them to the outfit, huh? The rest of the outfit? Kind of cute! Kind of wish it wasn’t the crapped up bikini top, but it does look like something a character in The Flintstones would wear for their Christmas Special

Why were they celebrating Christmas in the Year Before Our Lord 10,000 BC? Who knows.

Kasha was the only real splash of colour that we got on this runway – the fact it was all white and blue was to be expected, but Monica tried her best with her outfit that she described as “the colours of the Trans Flag” but the intense Drag Race lighting had other plans

the quilted texture is nice though and I think this is genuinely one of Monica’s more interesting, fully realised looks – the proportions are fun and make it look more like DRAG than some of her other stuff.

Jimbo has actually basically done this runway before on Canada’s first season during the ball’s Apres the Apres Ski category

and because she looked like Rainbow Brite having the mandatory public breakdown that follows an exit from Children’s television, she couldn’t really do comedy again so she went more high fashion as a novelty chicken breed

many a queen has tried to the whole Iris van Herpen aesthetic and failed, but Jimbo continues to do it justice without ever actually explicitly mentioning it. I am also very curious as to how you safely transport something that looks a bit like a series of deep sea creatures picking at a whale carcass all the way to LA

apologies if you’re squeamish but the “Bone-eating worms!” arrow pointing at absolutely nothing really tickled me.

Naysha also went quite high fashion, with a sort of nod to the significantly more famous Lopez: Jennifer’s Edition’s Met Gala look

it’s cute! But the placement of the head piece is taking it to distinctly Phantom of the Opera territory

and also looks ever so slightly like she has an octopus sitting on top of her head – great week for the deep sea, they deserve some good news after… well.

Keeping up the Andrew Lloyd-Webber trend (both because he wrote the music for Phantom of the Opera and because he’s a malevolent sea creature who we must return to the cold abyss), Here’s Lala Ri as Bad Cinderella

I think I only don’t like it because I was fully on board for the gown she first walked out in

it’s beautiful, it’s dramatic, it feels opulent! Quite why the skirt had to come off I don’t actually know – although was it even attached? Because if there’s one thing Lala does love, it’s to cling to a piece of fabric and the just flop it to the floor

I might have come back around on that one – the sheer lack of effort while everyone tries to out think the audience’s expectations when it comes to reveals was a little bit genius.

Also going down the Icey Royalty™ route was Jaymes Mansfield as, in her own words, “Tilda Swinton as The White Witch in Narnia” which.. sure, they both have crowns

couldn’t have given us a comedic dead badger puppet, huh?

Tilda also wore an outfit where the whole thing was held up by a dead grouse and it awoke something inside of me when I was younger – one of the first stirrings of “Yes, this is how I need to dress” I ever experienced. Sadly my wardrobe has remained grouse-free.

It may be lacking a badger, but shout out to Jaymes for having the good sense to not wear the dreadlocks they gave Tilda and instead going with the distinctly Mom-shaped beehive

I’m not sure I’m entirely sold on the makeup, the pale lip that makes her look like The White Witch is about to have to go on an apology tour for licking a sugared doughnut is a tough look to pull off and I’m not sure anyone ever truly can.

Kahanna also went the more explicitly wintery route as a non-politically charged snowflake

it’s as ornate an opulent as any of Kahanna’s other looks, and I do rather love that this makes Luxx’s snow fairy made entirely out of glue fumes and her determination look a bit like the version of Kahanna’s that someone makes at home for their cat

make them fight at the Drag Race: Las Vegas Ru-vue: The Non-denominational Holiday Spectacular and Open Buffet Dinner. I’m talking about Luxx and Kahanna, not the cat wearing nipple tassels.

The last of the Fame Gamers is Darienne in a look that I am still quite confused by

I do at least know now that it’s not the blade of a butcher’s knife stuck in her head, and it is in fact a platinum credit card that she hadn’t cleaned before hand so you could see every fingerprint on it and barely read the 80085 joke on

DID NOBODY HAVE A TERRY CLOTH ON SET?
I still don’t know what the things hanging on her coat were, but the whole thing reminds me of the scene from Monsters Inc. when Sulley has all of Boo’s belongings hanging off him

(toy ducks squeaking) is an excellent, top tier subtitle.

Back over with the still competing queens, Jessica was the only one that dressed like she was actually at the ski slopes pretending to ski and about to find herself in a million dollar court case

I wish the actual ski suit was a little more interesting – it’s just a bit too lycra-y, but the coat is dramatic enough to get away with it, I think.
Lastly we have Alexis whose exaggerated sleep cap look I really loved

and my God was she going to swing that ball around like an ankylosaur that was rebelling against its own bedtime

I also really loved her styling – the giant rich bitch ruffled collar and the massive pearls that automatically make you look like a character in The Flintstones were perfect. Big night on the blog for The Flintstones references apparently.

Judging

Nothing particularly controversial in the judging this week – Jimbo was the clear winner and the other three were all up for elimination – had there been a safe spot, it probably would have been Jessica? They probably would have spared Kandy a bottom place two weeks in a row though.

Freaky Deaky

With Jimbo winning and about to face her 7th lipsync and threatening to turn her Lipsync Mass Grave into a Lipsync Black Hole, desperate times called for desperate measures and so she was resurrecting the vengeful ghost of Beluga Whales past

and it was a good thing she had the big guns ready because she was facing off against Silky and Silky’s Desperately Trying To Escape Feet

there’s cliffhangers and then there’s base jumpers.

The song they were facing off to was Freak-a-Zoid by Midnight Star, which did seem much more up Jimbo’s street than anything they’d previously thrown at her or she’d thrown herself at…

with the song lending itself quite well to the style of physical comedy that Jimbo favours

and wherever Jimbo goes, the sticky lumps of bologna are sure to follow

and so she once again began to litter the stage with deli meats like Kandy tossing away cue cards

and I imagine everyone is at least 1 of the 4 default judge reactions to having body temperature processed pork sausage slices flung at you like Frisbees

it’s a good thing Ru is such a fan – she can’t for the life of her watch someone eat food, but she will gladly watch and reward them attempting to give an entire room salmonella, as Jimbo brings in her first ever lipsync win

so I guess we’re getting the full Pennywise come the finale.

As for her decision come the elimination, apparently she, Kandy and Jessica were all on the same page and it was Alexis going home in 4th place

the way they edited this was unhinged – Jimbo fumbling with the bologna birthing zipper, three rapid shots of the queens looking tense and then BAM! Jumpscare Jimbo with the lipstick in hand – no slow turn to reveal it, just standing there holding it, grinning like a demon from Insidious. Perfection.

RuPaul was doing NOTHING to quash the rumours of Alexis being her last favourite child by just blankly staring at her as Alexis thanked her for letting her be “part of the family”

SHE DIDN’T EVEN FAKE GASP AFTER JIMBO PULLED THE LIPSTICK!

And so we have a Top 3 and given the episode descriptions released by WOW, a better understanding of how this all works – next week is makeovers, then the week after that is the talent show that EVERYONE takes part in and the voting for the Fame Games begins – and imaginably they’ve just filmed everyone getting to act like they won the Fame Games – I hope Lala wins it because I want to know how bored RuPaul sounds by the time they hit the seventh recording

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