I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Of course there was going to be a double save. That’s just math. There are ten episodes in a season. This is episode eight. There are five queens remaining. Most seasons of Drag Race now finish with a final four. That meant, either this week or next, no one was going home. Yes, the lip sync is amazing, with both JB and Peppa going all out, but I knew even before they started (fake) singing what the score was. That’s the thing about reality TV: As soon as your audience knows just what you’re going to do, it gets boring.
And I especially hate an episode where no one goes home. After this we’re in the exact same position we were after the last episode. Nothing changed, nothing progressed, we’re just sitting here. It’s like you got on a bus, took an hourlong journey, and then the driver told you that the only stop you’re allowed to depart at is the one where you got on. Then why did I sit on this bus for an hour and pay £1.75? Okay. Okay. Sometimes, when there is an especially electric lip sync or some other extenuating circumstance, a double save does feel like a surprise, but this time, it did not.
In fact, most of this season hasn’t felt at all surprising, and I have a feeling that is going to continue right into Danny Beard mugging with that crown right on her head. The same challenges, the same stunts, the same double-saves. This franchise has been on autopilot for quite some time, and I think this season of DRUK in particular, things are starting to suffer.
Speaking of which, this week is the acting challenge, which isn’t nearly as fun when you have only five girls left, most of whom definitely studied GCSE Drama. (Basically, they were theater kids in high school.) This time the gang has to be in The Squirrel Games, which is like Squid Game but everyone on the show is a reality star and they’re also on a show called Big Mutha which is like Big Brother but it’s also Squid Game. I don’t know, sis. I’m just the recapper. I have no idea how many doses of M-Kat the producers were on when they came up with this. Same with the set designers, who locked our queens in a room that looks like it was designed by a Polly Pocket that became a real girl. None of it made sense and, like so many of these parodies, not a single one of the jokes made me laugh.
In the skit, Danny plays Divina Dickall, the host of Big Mutha, which is clearly a parody of Davina McCall, the “presenter†of Big Brother. Pixie is Kimmy Booburn, a take on Kim Woodburn, a mouth-cleaning guru from the telly. JB is Sassy and has a dog named Fugly, which is a sendup of Britain’s Got Talent winner Ashleigh Butler and her dog Pudsey (which adds some clarity as to why JB kept calling her dog “Pugslyâ€). Cheddar is Minxie, the trout-lipped amalgam of every woman from Essex who has been on Love Island, but the character seems based on no one in particular. I’m also at sea about Peppa’s Bev Growls, which seems like maybe it’s a lady version of Bear Grylls? I don’t know. None of this even makes sense anymore. Is this just an Ambien dream? Am I going to wake up naked from the waist down eating a blueberry pie out of my fridge? (The answer is no. A blueberry pie would never be in the fridge because I would demolish it all in one sitting while perfectly awake.)
Filming goes as it always does: Some are good, some are bad, some need their lines, some don’t. It gives us no indication of how this will all turn out. In the werkroom, everyone is talking about their dads, and there is nothing that gets me crying like straight dads supporting their gay sons, so hearing about all of the dad love got me all worked up. (Hearing about daddy love, however, gets me worked up in a whole different way.) My heart also broke for Peppa when she talks about how she doesn’t talk to her family much and instead has a whole chosen family in Birmingham.
Later, when the queens are untucking, everyone gets a visit from their loved ones and the shocking thing is … um, how can I say this … just how hot everyone is. When Pixie pipes up and tells JB, “Your brother is fit,†she’s speaking for all of the mustache lovers in the audience. Or what about Danny’s partner, Joe (who was apparently wearing Danny’s shirt), or Cheddar’s partner, James? If being a drag queen means you pull guys that look like that, then I need to get myself a lace front.
Anyway, back on the runway they watch the film and everyone gets their critiques and it is just what you’d expect. Peppa, who says she’s not an actor, didn’t do well, and neither did JB. The only place where screaming the whole time makes the experience better is on a roller coaster, so unless this was an amusement-park challenge, they were never going to be great. Pixie is in the middle, and Danny and Cheddar are once again in the top for hamming it up.
This seems like one of those runways where the judges weren’t going to give anyone negative critiques, but I think I’m going to. The category is “Ruff and Ready,†a celebration of ruffles. Danny has ruffles all over her sides and her shoulders on a dress that looks more like a burgundy turtle shell than it does a sheath. Is it gorgeous? Yes. Is it giving me ruffles? Kinda. What it’s really giving me is stiff. The whole thing just looks stiff.
JB looks like someone yassified one of the Three Musketeers and then smeared them in mint-chocolate-chip ice cream. She has on a huge white hat with a huge white flower, a mint-green leotard, and then a giant dressing gown over it. She does look amazing, but I will also take up Cheddar’s criticism from last week: I have no idea what JB’s drag is. Everyone else has a signature, a viewpoint. JB just seems like some kind of drag amoeba. She always looks good, but you never know what shape it will take. Yes, this dress is great, but where are the ruffles? On the gown? I couldn’t see them. This was not Ruffles, this was Lays. Just flat and crunchy, and I’m salty.
Cheddar looks like, as Ru says, a new strain of COVID. This wins the Bimini award for taking a challenge, accepting it, and destroying it by doing something totally different. Cheddar finally gives us ruffles, but they’re all balled up in black and yellow and it makes her look like a glamorous blob. Her makeup is snatched, her legs are longer than Michelle’s stay on Big Brother, and the whole thing is absolutely genius.
Peppa gives us ruffles all right — denim ruffles. She is Bozo Strauss, the clown sibling of Levi Strauss, and she has ruffles on her clown hat, ruffles on her short skirt, ruffles on her bulbous shoulders. Ruffles everywhere. I thought I wanted ruffles, but was I wrong? I hate these ruffles. I also hate that she’s wearing a “facekini,†which is just a mask that also seems like a way to skimp on doing makeup. The whole thing is like a blue blur, and I hate it. The judges, on the other hand, love it. Ru says that both JB’s outfit and this are some of the best she’s ever seen. Um, really? Did Ru get amnesia after her absence last week and forget the existence of Asia O’Hara, Shea Coulee, and Bimini?
Finally Pixie comes in on an utter fail. She is in a dollar-store Queen Elizabeth dress that is not up to par with the competition. I get it, Elizabeth is known for her neck ruffle, but this dress had one as limp as a twice-boiled spaghetti. If this is about ruffles, then center the ruffle. There shouldn’t be one flimsy neck ruffle; there should be one so big that it engulfs her whole body. That is how you do drag, and thank the nondenominational deity that Michelle calls her out on this.
But know what? This is all moot. The challenge, the outfits, the lip sync. All of it. No one was ever going to go home, so this was just an hour of my time wasted. Next season, if you’re going to take me for granted like that, at least do it with a new challenge.