Vulturinas, my grief is colossal. Amanda Tori Meating is no longer with us, and my world is smaller for it. I was not expecting Amanda to go this early. Yes, her drag was unpolished. Yes, she was the messiest girl there. But also, she has star quality; this show loves a Cinderella story when it can get it, and she was handing the producers story lines left and right. Amanda seemed like a prime candidate for the Heidi N Closet treatment. Now, Amanda (and Mirage) are gone in the first three weeks, and we’re left with a crew that includes more than a few queens I am completely confident will not be making the top four or even the top seven. Quelle tragique!
Still, I can’t complain too much this week. While I’m sad when I look ahead at the Amanda- and Mirage-less season we have rolling out before us, it’s really a good episode. It plays out like a tragedy: The edit builds up Amanda so much as a performer before her Achilles Heel (messy) takes her down. Plane and Amanda are pitted against each other, and it seems we’re heading toward an Amanda success, only for Plane to be proven right, likely leading to an even larger villain arc (hopefully with an iconic downfall) ahead. Ultimately, what’s great about this episode is that, following four weeks of setup, it’s our first payoff episode, exploding small parts of the powder keg that has been building up.
The episode caps off two major story lines. One comes through Amanda’s downfall, which leaves Plane out in the lurch, but the seeds of further plotting are already planted through a new rivalry with Q and a conversation about the potential downsides of her bitchiness with Sapphira. The other ends with the “bottom†girls’ (Mhi’ya, Geneva, and Megami) unexpected success, ending a story line for each about the judges not responding to their work. Those queens now have a chance to plot a new path or go home, having completed an arc. Finishing those story lines was exciting — I was gripped for the whole episode, first happy, then cursing the way it was leading. But being sad or mad is not a flaw on reality TV; it’s a sign that the season has cast members who are worth our time and that I’ve connected to them. I wanted more for Amanda, of course, and have trepidation about the rest of the season because of the continued presence of a few girls whose work I am less invested in. But in terms of the episode at hand, it’s great stuff.
The other big story of the week is Q’s whole deal, which begins with her complaining about being at the top so much but never scoring a win, then ends with her finding herself at the bottom. It’s a Drag Race classic by this time, perhaps to the point of feeling stale, but watching Q’s monologue in the opening segment was more fun than it should have been, all because Plane was there — that’s the added value of a character like her. Sometimes you can just feel Plane chomping at the bit to say something rude. It’s delicious when it finds the right target, like a girl complaining about not winning a challenge just three weeks into the competition. She’s not quite as witty as we may want her to be, but she is just so willing to be a CharismaUniquenessNerveTalent that it heightens the stakes on all group conversations. Q’s feelings are hurt, but for the viewer, she has already cried about how hard she works in the premiere critiques. There are diminishing returns on feeling bad for a queen doing well and crying about how hard it was to get there. Plane swooping in to say, “I’m not going to complain about being in the top. I’m not going to sit here and cry and sulk all day. I feel great,†promptly sending Q into a tailspin, is ultimately entertaining.
After the couch convo, we get something I’ve been sorely missing from the show — a mini-challenge! It’s a photo shoot but, thankfully, not the “photobomb†mini-challenge that they’ve used far too many times. Had fun here. Sapphira’s win seemed random, but I have no better choice for it. These are carnival games; just let it slide over you.
The challenge is girl groups. Good by me! Any week when the queens are not forced to read scripts is a win in my book. The teams:
QDSMÂ (underwhelming name):Â Q, Dawn, Sapphira, Morphine
Lovah Girlz (fine name): Plasma, Jane, Xunami, Amanda
Thicc and Stick (best name by far): Nymphia, Geneva, Megami, Mhi’ya
Obviously, the girls immediately discount Thicc and Stick, but I didn’t, mostly because their assigned song is “ASMR Lover,†which is by far the best thing RuPaul has put out in years.
Rehearsals are notable mostly for Amanda Tori Meating eating up the goddamned stage. Turns out she’s a great dancer who easily picks up on choreography and worked on the international tour of Kinky Boots. At this point, I fell for the feint, deeply believing Amanda would be in the top. There’s also Q, who, it turns out, is awkward in the body. We also have a continuation of the “Nymphia is a secret strategist plot.†It seems likely that she and Sapphira are the top two of the season, so having Sapphira narrate this section is a smart framing.
We are thankfully deprived of Trauma Makeup Corner in favor of a Drama Makeup Corner. Much betta! Q goes to Plane and tells her she thinks Plane was a bitch to her. Plane gives a clearly insincere apology and shades her teammate Amanda in the process. Amanda asks why Plane is such a CharismaUniquenessNerveTalent. The stakes! They’re so high! Sapphira tells Plane she should be less mean; Plane says that’s just who she is. To this, I say: Good, don’t let the mature people get you down, Plane Jane.
Anyway, on to what really matters — the performances. More than any challenge other than “Snatch Game,†the girl groups have built-in tension because they’re the performances that fans rewatch again and again after the season is over. An iconic verse can wildly benefit these girls’ careers, getting them booked around the country and the world to give what they gave on the show. These are the performances quoted with ease among the Drag Race fans I socialize with. How many times have my friends said the words “Get Krystalized at Christmastime†to each other to fill silences, you ask? Countless, I respond.
QDSM is the first group up, and their rewatchability is severely hampered by Q’s performance as Slay Frankenstein with a P!nk wig. I repeat: She is awkward in the body. It is slightly uncomfortable to watch at times. Dawn is great. Sapphira is also great, but I agree with TS Madison — you can see her thinking. Morphine’s lyrics are great and her flow is the best of the night, but her performance didn’t punch through as much as her words. QDSM is also hurt by their song, “Star Baby,†which doesn’t have much of an idea behind it. The other two groups get to have fun with their songs’ central conceits.
The Lovah Girlz are next. Plasma is good but not great, which seems exactly right for a vintage queen with a good voice in a girl-group challenge. Plane is legitimately fantastic. More than anyone else in her group, she is “on†at every moment during that challenge. Xunami is the biggest positive surprise of the episode. She has some trouble picking up choreo during rehearsals, but that doesn’t show up at all during the performance. Also, that look is spectacular — so chic and sleek but still absolutely appropriate. Her fashion bona fides are in check. Amanda is, it must be said, a real disappointment. Her dancing and energy are fantastic, but the judges note terrible padding. Still, the real issue is one that didn’t get harped on as much as it should have: She chose unstructured hair that constantly got in her face and hurt her ability to fully emote. That’s the kind of mistake nobody else makes, and it shows off exactly why her greenness is such an issue for the judges.
Finally, it’s time for Thicc and Stick. The queens nobody thought much of have their day in the sun, and while it’s no “Bing Bang Bong,†it’s certainly the best-choreographed and most cohesive number of the night. Every queen brings at least something to the group. Mhi’ya still has trouble emoting through her face, but her flips are fun and her verse is ferocious. Geneva is a bit of a shock to the system. After two weeks in the bottom, this performance is a reminder of why she was in the top that first week. Megami looks like a suburban mom, but after a week of getting picked last for teams, crying about it, and picking up chores very slowly, she rallies and keeps up well. Nymphia remains a star, and her little wink at the end of her verse proves why.
Pussycat-wig runway critiques at a mile a minute: Morphine looks great in a clearly very expensive outfit. Q looks great in an outfit she made herself, but the thick-ass blood spatters on her chest look bad. Can’t we have dainty blood spatters? Sapphira’s outfit is the wrong color, but her literal pussycat wig is funny. Dawn is not wearing a pussycat wig, and her outfit seems like Dawn on autopilot. Plasma is showing “versatility,†but I prefer my Plasma to be more distinct. Michelle’s happy, though. Amanda … looks bad. Still, I applaud the ambition! That’s why she’s fun! Xunami looks sexy, and seeing a girl using boy modeling experience on the runway is fun. Plane’s sci-fi look is fun. Geneva does not look good. Also, her claiming, “I wanted to show it’s not all big, Texas hair,†is very funny, given that the challenge explicitly called for a small wig. Mhi’ya continues her crusade to simply wear outfits without concepts that she already had in her closet, and I support it. Again, funny. I’m into Megami’s “Staten Island Tinkerbell†situation. Staten Island is a much more interesting drag persona than either “cosplayer†or “social-justice queen,†but the fact that she vacillates between the three does not bode well for her time on the show. “Pick a lane†is kind of Drag Race’s thing. Nymphia looks the best.
Ultimately, the episode ratchets up a notch when Thicc and Stick are declared the winning group, which means six of our seven main characters of the season are up for elimination (I don’t include Morphine or Xunami among that pack yet). A note on Thicc and Stick sharing the win: I prefer it when they choose one standout performer, but I think that standout would likely have been Nymphia, and two solo wins this early are too much.
Everybody gets good critiques except Amanda, who gets notes for her messiness, and Q, who is told she cannot dance. This is all accurate, but as it solidified into a Q vs. Amanda lip sync, my heart rate went up. When Ru asks, “Who should go home tonight and why?†the answers follow suit, with those two being the only answers given other than one stray Xunami vote from Q.
If the episode has a dour note, it’s the lip sync, which isn’t the battle it could have been. To my mind, Amanda does a better job, but she’s messier and would have to deliver a near-flawless performance to kick out Q. Q is better in the lip sync than she was in the challenge, but the girl quite simply cannot dance. She’s going to have a tough route to the finale without any dancing ability.
Also on Untucked …
• Given the “Who should go home tonight and why?†situation, it’s a disappointment that Untucked didn’t boil over into any real drama. Xunami is a fashionable girl (whom I’ve really warmed up to), but she seems pretty unlikely to swallow someone whole, like her mother would. The winning team is pretty high on their own supply. We can abolish the “guest judge coming into Untucked†thing any day now, please.
• One guest-judge thing I did like: Icona Pop consistently speaking as one. “We loved you,†they said.
• Some people asked why I didn’t mention Mirage’s breakdown this week. My screeners don’t show the elimination, so I didn’t see it! It was sad, and I wish we could have seen Mirage compete in this challenge.
• Predicted top four: Still the same: Nymphia, Sapphira, Plane, and Dawn, but this is probably the last week I can get away with including Dawn without her doing something notable.
• Gay thoughts from gay people: My co-worker Rebecca Alter notes, “When Plasma was giving the girls their first instructions during choreo, I literally thought I was watching on 1.5 speed.â€