This week, we get our third sewing challenge of the season, none of them a full unconventional-materials challenge. I’m of two minds about this, so let’s run down the pros and cons.
Cons: This episode does not do much to shine a light on the queens’ abilities. We are so well aware of these eight queens’ sewing capabilities, and sewing is the kind of hard skill that the judges’ critiques cannot improve in this short period of time. In late-stage comedy challenges, girls can be brought out of their shells or directed to performances they might not have been able to give earlier on. When it comes to sewing, you’ve either got it or you don’t. Look at the previous sewing challenge: Q won, as she does again this week. Plasma and Mhi’ya were in the bottom three, and they make up the bottom two this week. Sapphira, Nymphia, Dawn, and Plane, who have all been positively critiqued in sewing challenges before, are called safe. Morphine, who has not been positively critiqued on sewing previously, is in the bottom three. The results are as predictable as possible.
Pros: This episode functions as a sequel to the doll challenge, but also a heightening. The higher stakes at top eight make it feel like an interesting return. Sapphira helps Mhi’ya, but more, and now the queens are viciously upset about it. Plasma flounders, but worse. Nymphia again attempts her “woe is me” schtick, but the other queens are even less impressed by it. Dawn really wanted a win before, and now she’s positively desperate for it. The “third sewing challenge” of it all has the girls at wit’s end, and it keeps them on their toes. None of them expected this, and it raises the stakes, further justifying a shocking but exciting elimination by the end.
Another pro: You might as well play to your cast’s strengths. This season is chock-full of good-to-great seamstresses. Dawn, Q, and Nymphia are the best, but Sapphira and Plane are no slouches in this department. All of these queens are at or beyond the level of the best seamstress in multiple other seasons. Watching them create looks is exciting because it’s how their minds work best, and it’s hard to argue with the results — the overall runway is the best sewing-challenge result we’ve had in years.
Ultimately, I come down on this sewing challenge being worth it. The episode was entertaining. Sending home a front-runner with jaw-dropping looks (when she can just pay for them) because she can’t create them is dastardly in an era of Drag Race that’s become an arms race on the runway. Season 16 has refocused the runway back to a competition of skill, rather than money, and it’s exciting. Moving forward, we’ll need a hard-hitting comedy challenge (or two) to put these queens through their paces, and I’m honestly hoping they elide the makeover altogether. But, for now, the abundance of sewing has gone from a bug to a feature.
Another thing I’ve welcomed this season is the return of mini-challenges. They’re not in every episode, but they’re more common than they once were, and I’m happy that they’re here to add some levity to the proceedings. This week, it’s a very stupid spit-take challenge. Nymphia wins it as an attempt to convince the audience that she is funny, actually. I love Nymphia, and I am unconvinced by a singular spit take that she is funny. The challenge is too slight to warrant much critique, but, for what it’s worth, I’d have given the win to Sapphira for her Niagara Falls of a spit take.
RuPaul announces a fashion goth sewing challenge, going as far as to name several fashion houses that the queens should be inspired by. The queens largely disregard this part of the challenge and just make the best looks they can, which is par for the course.
The A-plot of the episode centers on Sapphira and Mhi’ya’s relationship (slash mentorship). Sapphira helping Mhi’ya may rub some of the girls the wrong way, but, not to be too results-oriented about it, the story line ultimately kind of fizzles out. It adds a lot of tension to wonder if Mhi’ya could somehow end up praised for a garment she could not construct on her own, but, if we’re being honest, when Sapphira says she could have made Mhi’ya’s outfit in two hours, it’s a tip-off that the final product’s best case scenario is “passable.”
This plot progresses nicely on the day of the runway due to Mhi’ya gaining an entirely unearned sense of confidence on the back of a “Snatch Game” high placement (notably not a win) and a serviceable look courtesy of Sapphira. Watching her strut around the Werk Room high on her night of full sleep, psyching everybody else out, is deeply funny. Mhi’ya has fully come out of her shell, and the result is a cocky bitch who cannot walk the walk. Great! Happy to have her!
The Plasma plot is equally good, if not better. Dawn’s counseling of Plasma is interesting because, on some level, she’s right: What Plasma’s been doing in design challenges hasn’t been working. But I think, on another level, the recommendation that Plasma entirely change her vibe is fueled by Dawn not connecting to Plasma’s drag. Dawn’s made it very clear that she’s not here for musical theater and she’s not here for “shtick.” Musical-theater shtick is what Plasma has to offer, and the judges have never told her she needs to change up her look. Plasma’s insecurities and ability to spiral are well documented, and watching how it happens this week is, sorry, fun!
On the runway, Plane starts it off with a look that owes more to rocker chic than goth, but then again, most of the looks don’t have much to do with “goth.” Plane looks good enough to not need her immunity potion, which now ensures her a spot in the top six. Not that this was in question. Mhi’ya’s dress would be cute enough to get her through an early-season sewing challenge, but this late in the game, and with these sewers, it’s not enough. Even without the question of Sapphira helping, the look is just too bland. She is not a visual conceptualist, and it’s been dragging her down all season.
Two things that are true about Dawn: (1) She has my favorite look of the episode — the chandelier detail is gorgeous and I’m obsessed with her makeup — but also (2) She’s floundering. She doesn’t really have anything she’s the best at, she has yet to completely blow away the judges, and she doesn’t quite have the chops that she’s been yelling that she has increasingly loudly as the judges continue to look the other way.
Morphine does well enough. She’s not a seamstress, but her look is clean and it’s smart for a queen who’s known for her makeup to heavily feature her beat. Plasma’s look is a crater of bad taste. Just hideous. The pants are inoffensive, I suppose, but they aren’t pretty, either. The top, the shrug, the wig, and the makeup are all legitimately terrible in a way that we’ve never seen from her previously. Even if that is Plane’s Cher wig, which I liked at the time, it looks like nobody’s brushed it since that challenge. Sapphira does great work this week. Goth isn’t in her purview, but she creates a full character and the gown is beautiful.
The top two of the week by the judges’ standards are clearly Nymphia and Q. I like Nymphia’s! She can’t walk in it, but she still mostly sells it. The veil is a great idea. On the runway, it turns out she studied to be an atelier in Britain, because of course she did. Here’s the thing about Q’s outfit: I don’t like it. It’s impressively made, with tons of detail and enviable craftsmanship. It looks more expensive than what most of the girls brought from home. Still, I think it’s ugly. I don’t like her cracked-egg makeup or the little dollop of hair, the outfit looks costume-y when it was supposed to be high-fashion, I hate the frilliness, and the bare chest throws me off. Do I get why she won? Sure! But I would have ranked it after Dawn, Nymphia, and Sapphira, in that order.
Mhi’ya and Plasma wind up as the rightful bottom two and lip-sync to the sped-up TikTok version of Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary.” I did roll my eyes. Plasma’s a mess: Her hair gets in her face, the moves are sloppy, it’s all too frantic. Still, it took me a long time to believe that Mhi’ya was actually winning. For one, she begins by doing a rose-petal reveal to … nothing underneath but a wig cap. Still, as when she threw off her shoes, she does the messy thing early enough in the lip sync that you have time to be like “No!” and then realize she’s still winning. Mhi’ya, who has been in the bottom two three times now, absolutely wallops two-time challenge winner Plasma. And now, Plasma is gone. Gasp. I’ll miss being annoyed by her each week, but I do think this will increase the drama in the Werk Room significantly, so I shall simply thank Plasma for her service and move along.
Also on Untucked …
• Kaia Gerber was cute as a guest judge, but utterly useless backstage. Still, it’s not like she interrupted much — there was no real drama this week, only simmering tensions.
• I hold to the fact that Plasma being eliminated will shake up the queens, which is good. Still, she was always a bit more … disposable than the challenge wins would lead you to believe. Ru never fully fell for her, just believed she was talented. She’ll be fine.
• Predicted Top Four: Sapphira, Nymphia, Plane, Q
• Gay Thoughts From Gay People: My roommate, upon watching the episode, commented that “on this night, I have experienced both great despair (Plasma’s outfit) and great mirth (watching Drag Race with friends),” which is beautiful. He also noted, “By winning this week’s maxi challenge, Q has righted the cosmic wrong engendered when fellow annoying white hipster Utica also made an overly large coat.” And finally, “There’s been a long-running theme in Drag Race lore that helping other people puts you behind. This is self-evidently insane, and I was thrilled to watch Sapphira turn that trope on its head tonight.”
• U.K. vs. the World Report: Again, it’s disappointing when the top group for every comedy challenge is just from the three English-speaking countries represented. Hannah Conda must have been hopping mad when she saw the Shirley Temple that Jimbo did over on U.S. All Stars. Hannah’s was cute, but Jimbo’s was an all-timer. I think the Family Feud framing was a bit of a bust; no format has ever been better than just pure “Snatch Game.” La Grande Dame’s look this week is an all-timer in terms of chic, and I love Marina Summers more each day, but … does Tia Kofi win this season?