RuPaul’s Drag Race is, ultimately, a comedy. It’s other things too: An exploration of queer identity, a showcase for remarkable talent, an infuriating example of production meddling, etc. But recall that the show began as a parody of reality competition programs like Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model. These days, Drag Race can sometimes fall into the trap of taking itself too seriously, partially due to the queens understanding what being on TV can do for their careers; the competition may be arbitrary, but the results are legitimately important to the lives of the contestants. And yet, the bones of the show are silly and stupid, and when Drag Race remembers that, it can make for a deliriously fun episode.
This week is like that. The best part of the episode is the girls comically failing, the challenge is mostly bad, but in a way I found fun (see this week’s UK vs. The World for a version that was much less fun), and ultimately nobody goes home. This is the acknowledged halfway point of the season — they even put out an extra episode of the Pit Stop this week to emphasize that fact — and the show marks it by taking a break from the intensity of the competition to do what I would call a “charm episode.” In musical theater, the charm song (a term coined by Lehman Engel) refers to a number that isn’t designed to make the audience laugh or move the plot along, but is pleasant enough to endear us to the character singing. This episode does the same (though it is actively funny). It’s a break from the season, making us care more about the girls without really changing the stakes. The non-elimination makeover challenge on season 12 did the same thing, giving the whole episode over to the girls enjoying themselves, which made the top six queens (really five, not including Sh**** P**) more lovable.
This episode is certainly slight, but I also think it’s effective. The recording and rehearsal scenes are absolutely hilarious, and while the resulting number isn’t great, it did make me reassess at least one girl’s talent level. The downside is that one of the biggest subplots of the season, Plane’s immunity potion, is rendered entirely toothless. That’s unfortunate, especially because it had turned into a pretty high-drama situation. Is that a mark against the episode? Probably. If they wanted to do a charm episode at this point, they probably shouldn’t have scheduled the potion to expire at the same time. The producer manipulation levels feel pretty off-the-charts, which can be largely excused given the lack of consequences, but is still annoying. Essentially, I give this week a thumbs up, but not a cheer.
The episode begins with the Miami girls sniping at each other, probably because they know they’re the most disposable queens at this point. One thing I love is that Mhi’ya came out of her shell, and what we got was a bitch.
Quickly and efficiently, we are shuffled over into the political challenge they do every election year. The first time, it was a confusing debate that Dan Savage tried to take seriously and was then judged as a comedy challenge, then, both seasons eight and 12 used it as a comedy challenge. This time, it’s a political anthem, which is a bit of a disappointment — we’ve had a shocking dearth of comedy challenges this season. (Is it to protect Nymphia?) This must be remedied ASAP.
The writing session is most notable for Nymphia’s utter inability to write lyrics. This is funny, because she is floundering so hard, but I’ll reveal that I have become severely less bullish on the idea of her as a winner. At some point, she will need to write something successfully, because Sapphira is out here killing every single challenge that is laid in front of her.
The recording sessions — hilarious. Mhi’ya’s session in particular had me in stitches. “eQuaL!” is the line reading of the season, and the fact that she says it as a rhyme for… also “equal” is the kind of unintentional drag absurdity that I need in my life. Equally good: Leland attempting to see Mhi’ya’s unique interpretation of the word “rhyme” as a positive. “It’s such a choice that you have to sell it.” Mhi’ya’s response? “eQuaL!” Between this and the Cher impression, my ideal drag show is now Mhi’ya being asked to do random voices and giving it her best shot for about three hours straight. Drag queens are better at catastrophically failing than any other category of people. Also failing in a fun way is Nymphia: “Aspire. To. Community!” Other people managed to fit entire poems into that time. Nymphia simply shouts words. Some other highlights: Q believing she can sing (she cannot), Dawn believing she can sing (she also cannot), and Sapphira knowing she can sing (she can).
The dance rehearsals — also hilarious. I love Morphine’s chicken head, I love Sapphira appearing to want to bone her cousin, and I hate Q’s outfit but I love her Barbie hands. On Nymphia: “What the f*ck is she wearing?” was the right question.
On to the performance! I unfortunately found this to be a laugh riot. It’s so frantic, the structure is so strange, the overall idea of it so misguided, that I just started marveling at it as a work of sheer kinetic energy. Choosing Dawn to kick off the whole thing was probably a bad idea — her complete inability to dance in any way that could even be misconstrued as “funky” made me confused as to the goal of the challenge overall. Then comes Mhi’ya, “eQuaL” intact, dancing perfectly with a complete stoneface the entire time. Finally, it’s Morphine, whose signature move appears to be lifting her completely straightened leg in the air, arcing it, then stomping. She did that in the girl group challenge too! Why is that her thing? The first segment ends with the three girls dancing, and that’s where Morphine takes the lead — I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, and the hair is so gorgeous on her that she should get an infinite number of those wigs.
The next group begins with Nymphia, who says six words, raps two lines that don’t rhyme, throws some confetti, then destroys Plane in the dancing. Her outfit is great for this challenge, with the bananas shaking all over the place. Plane doesn’t really stand out. She’s not bad, but she’s definitely the most boring of the week. Michelle chalks it up to nerves, which, maybe! All I know is that I was bored, and, for a drag queen, that’s way worse than being bad.
Then it’s Q, who is given no choreo and still manages to be bad at dancing. Also, I hate her outfit. What is with that wig? Awful. Sapphira goes off like a bomb hitting the stage. The challenge is basically catered directly to her, but she uses that as an opportunity to rise to the occasion. The fact that Q and Sapphira don’t have to dance next to each other like the other groups had to is obviously a setup to make Q look less terrible. Imagine if they’d made those two do that. (They should have.)
Finally, the group comes together for a truly awful bit at the end, and just when you think you’re free, they do an encore. Really bad stuff, guys. I was thoroughly entertained.
The runway this week is monochrome. Mhi’ya looks fine. The judges eat her up like she’s taken a thousand steps forward, but I don’t see much of an improvement between her rose look and this, and her performance in this challenge was at the same level as her winning girl group performance. I’m sure some people will be over Nymphia’s banana obsession. I mostly am too, but also imagine if she didn’t choose yellow. The issue is more that she keeps talking about it. Plane’s look is ugly. These nude illusions always look underwhelming, the shapes are indelicate, and the roots don’t blend with the geometric element. Sapphira looks incredible. How did she pack? HOW?! Dawn’s is adorable and fun. The tiptoeing is a great touch. I like Q’s hat and pants, but the bra is underwhelming. Morphine looks great. One thing: I know she loves her BBL, but, as notable as it is out of drag, in drag she does such heightened proportions that I think she could still pad it more. The shape in drag isn’t as va-va-voom as her face deserves.
The big moment is Plane giving Nymphia the immunity potion, and it does not hit. This episode is so light on plotting, and, in retrospect, the fact that nobody goes home means that the stakes are completely dashed into the ground. It’s too bad the show wasted that moment; could’ve been an all-timer. But then they’d have to send home Plane or Q, and that would probably be a bridge too far. (You guys will be shocked to hear that I would have been fine with Q going.)
The girls generally get positive critiques, because that’s what you need for a non-elimination to happen. The judges could have gone in way harder on Dawn, Mhi’ya and Q if they wanted. Plane is the only person they really harp on, but that’s just because it helps move along what plot the episode does have. Sapphira and Morphine are, rightfully, praised as the top two, and after some brief confusion on their parts, learn they will be lip-syncing for the win.
And now I must end this recap with a confession: Drag Race chose not to include the lip sync in this week’s advance screener, so I unfortunately cannot comment on the specifics of Sapphira’s presumably deserved win. Please fill me in and discuss among yourselves in the comments. They did, however, tell me song, to which I say: There are a multitude of interesting/iconic pop performers who have never warranted a lip sync on this show (Marina and the Diamonds, Kacey Musgraves, Ciara, Caroline Polachek, Brandy, Björk, Azealia Banks, SZA, most musical theater people, etc.). How do we have multiple Meghan Trainor lip syncs?
Untucked
• Crazy that the wig Morphine performed in was not her wig. Seriously, she should buy ten of those first thing when she gets home. Also, Plane lending out that many wigs is sweet, even if she is delusional about her placement.
• This week is hard to compare to others, especially without a lip sync. I chose four stars but the ranking is largely arbitrary. I toyed, at various points, with giving this episode both three and five stars.
• Morphine’s boot-cut jeans!
• Trauma Makeup Corner: Dawn talks about therapy a lot this week.
• Predicted top four: Same. Nymphia, Sapphira, Plane, Q.
• Gay Thoughts Thots from Gay People: I asked around for some opinions on the hottest queens of the season. My friend Jake says, “PJ if she stopped shopping at the Gap for boy clothes.” My friend Noam says, “I’m thirsty for the size of Sapphira’s closets, both drag and otherwise.” My boyfriend says, “I don’t care if the queens are hot, I want my out-of-drag queens to be weird little freaks who live to do drag and would be doing drag even if there wasn’t a popular TV show about it (e.g. Detox, Jinkx) – not pretty boys who do drag because it’s the hip thing to do (or they don’t know how else to use their BFAs). That being said, Xunami is hot.”
• UK vs. The World report: That number was impressively terrible. Gothy was just sad, and the judges being that nice came off patronizing. She just isn’t there. Marina ate. Marina also ate the lip sync. Tia was… fine I suppose. I wouldn’t have put her in the top. Each week I believe that La Grande Dame has worn my favorite runway yet. This week was stupendous.