The season lacks real drama, and this week’s middling episode isn’t helping.
Does anybody else feel like they’re in limbo this season? I have a vague sense of who’s out ahead and who’s not in the star counter, but the precise numbers regularly escape me. Who is technically in the lead? No idea. I have no sense of how far we are into the competition. Of course, all that can be solved (and regularly is) by a quick search on Wikipedia. My point is not that I can’t do research, it’s that I regularly forget the facts soon after I have learned them. The whole season has a smooth feel to it — moments aren’t sticking out, and the lack of eliminations causes a lack of texture. It just kind of slides off my brain. On All Winners that wasn’t an issue because moments of pure, unadulterated talent made the season have texture. There was Jinkx’s Snatch Game (and her roast and her graduation speech, etc.), Monet’s opera, the spoken-word lip sync, Raja’s final ball look, and Jaida’s personality increase, etc., etc., etc. Has anybody fully killed a challenge this season? Roxxxy, Angeria, and Plastique have become the de facto front-runners, but, other than Plastique’s ball, I wouldn’t say any of their performances were legendarily good. And, in the context of this season, those kind of performances are necessary. What else is making me watch?
Certainly not the drama, because, after one operatically good moment from Roxxxy (how many episodes ago, I couldn’t tell you), everything else has just been simmering tensions. The episode opens with a bunch of passive-aggression from Roxxxy over being snipped by Angeria and a sad Nina. Plastique is pretending not to know how well she’s doing, which is cute. It’s all nice enough, except that most of this does not feel “of consequence.”
During the “Next day in the Werk Room” segment, Jorgeous says “We are more than halfway through the competition.” Oh! Okay!
Plastique then begins the strategy talk for the week. If there’s a high point in this episode, it’s the thread of Plastique coming up with an objectively correct strategy (if you’re trying to make it into the top three, you should block girls with a similar amount of badges to you, rather than the front-runner), most of the girls shrugging it off, then Angeria ultimately executing it. That’s great stuff.
The girls do a mini-challenge where they have to run with stuff between their legs. Nina wins, and she gets immunity from being blocked. Cute!
The challenge this week is an acting challenge in which the girls play roles specifically written for them that are vaguely inspired by movies (but not really), and hew very closely to their real personas. Which is to say: It is not an acting challenge. They do not have to act. They must memorize lines, but otherwise, the girls play roles that are, in the very literal sense, just themselves. Nobody, ultimately, does poorly, largely because they are not allowed to.
The biggest hurdle of the week is that they’re acting opposite Ru. Between this and the photo-shoot challenge from the end of last season, it’s nice to see Ru get more involved with the girls on a seemingly regular basis. She’s a good director, and she understands what “drag acting” needs to look like. With the girls regularly being recruited to act in commercials and TV shows and theater outside of Drag Race these days, acting challenges remain a necessity to see who has the goods. At the same time, they’re extremely painful to watch. So it’s nice to have the added component of Ru there to at least give some stakes to the proceedings.
A note on the fact that their individual scenes were supposedly inspired by movies: No, they are not. The scenes are virtually identical. Also, the idea that these girls are supposed to have seen The Mirror Crack’d is a bit silly. No, they have not.
One thing that’s interesting is that, because the wins are the only real results of the judges’ feedback, multiple girls have incomplete arcs in this episode that are … supposed to feel good, I think? Jorgeous has had a big thing about not being funny this season, but I believe we’re supposed to think that’s complete based on the roast and her work this week. But since she hasn’t won a comedy challenge yet, I’m not sure that I buy that arc finishing up. We’re also, I believe, supposed to think Gottmik’s big arc in this episode (about not feeling like she’s in a good place and also feeling like that is feminine to show) is over. But, again, she didn’t win this week, so it doesn’t feel like she overcame anything. In normal seasons, getting good critiques can be notable enough to move along somebody’s story (see Mhi’ya Iman Le’Paige’s Snatch Game critique in season 16). Here, it’s the default.
Onto the runway. The category is “Widow, Weep for Me.” Nina pulls out her best look so far this season with a very Disney-fied version of an undead widow. The reveal is not necessary and the second look is much worse than the first. Roxxxy looks really great in a wedding dress with bedazzled blood spatters and an axe. I’ve had some issues with her paint this season, but not here. Here, she looks perfect. Angeria does a black-widow-spider look. She looks good! It’s her best-sculpted wig of the season so far. Plastique wears a stunning áo dài. It’s breathtaking. Nothing more to say about that. Shannel does a reveal, but the first look is mostly just a black tarp. The second is nice, but she’s gonna need to be a bit higher concept if she wants to stand out. Jorgeous’s is hopelessly basic. It’s tough to be Jorgeous in this lineup. Gottmik’s latex bride is absolutely fantastic. Next level! Vanjie has another of my faves this week — there’s a New Orleans feel to her umbrella-and-lingerie number, and that version of “Gothic” is a bit more fun than the Disney stuff.
On the acting challenge: By my estimation, four queens actually do well, as in “they sound like they are delivering lines in a way that is human but also heightened.” They are: Nina, Roxxxy, Angeria, and Gottmik. Angeria is my least favorite of the successful group, Nina is the most professional but least memorable, Gottmik is not as grand as the others and falls back into a Valley Girl thing, and Roxxxy has a few false notes in there. Still, they’re all castable, which is what the show wants. Of the rest: Shannel’s scene is the weirdest, but she makes it out intact. Jorgeous gives it her all. Vanjie is legitimately funny, even if the question of how much control she actually has over this performance still plagues me. And Plastique is just terrible. Every line she delivers is delivered wrong. Based on her video performance, it seems like she’s fine when she has written the lines, but nobody should ever ask her to read a script again.
Ultimately, Vanjie and Nina win. Sure, I suppose, although it’s becoming a little weird to me that, as the show is progressing, Gottmik is trending toward not being in the top three. They lip-sync to “Lovergirl” by Teena Marie. Great track. Nina gives by far the best lip sync she’s ever given on this show but a wide berth. I’d have given her the win, but Ru goes with Angeria. Okay! In the best moment of the episode, Angeria takes Plastique’s advice and snips Mik. Mik is pissed, but the strategy is airtight. Fun!
