by Chris Feil
After last week’s shocking fall from grace and resulting elimination for Valentina sent the RuPaul’s Drag Race fandom into such a tizzy, it’s a relief that this episode was largely all love.
For all the quibbles and bitching among fans of the show and the drama that inevitably comes between contestants, the show always comes from the heart. From the cruelest villains to the most resilient champions to the sad queen learning to accept herself, Drag Race loves every competitor who crosses its gates. Its a major reason why it elicits such a passionate response.
But Drag Race’s love extends far beyond the competition, and this episode showed us a little bit more of Mama Ru’s extended family. Past queens have mentioned in interviews how tight knit they become with the crew as well as their sister queens, but this challenge allowed that affection to be featured onscreen: for this season’s makeover challenge, the queens had to dragify a crew member.
What made this one of the best makeover episodes in the show’s history is the very effusive enthusiasm from chosen crew members. Even the more chill guys seemed pretty stoked to participate, certainly moreso than a lot of the makeover participants in past seasons. Perhaps their closer daily proximity allowed them to get more invested in seeing these queens succeed. Bonus points for resisting showering congratulations and gratitude on these straight guys for participating in something queer!
Great Moments in Baby Shadethrowing:
Each queen was paired appropriately to personality - thanks, last week’s winners Shea and Sasha for sparing the drama. Except Shea herself, perhaps at her first disadvantage of the season with her awkward new drag sister (Shea is decidedly not Team Portman, fellow actressexuals). Meanwhile Nina found a kindred spirit in her sensitive artist partner, and actually seemed to listen to his perspective on her self-loathing routine we’ve heard ad nauseum all season. How many times can this be the topic of conversation? Nina always wants to talk about it like Ru always wants to talk about Squarespace.
Trinity Taylor is dubbed The Tuck for a damn reason and her poor teammate should’ve known what he had coming for him before our pageant queen even pulled out her duct tape. Trinity was one of the few contestants not overshadowed by her partner, so she took that tuck (“Took That Tuck”, there’s your single, Trinity!) straight to her third win. I sense a MAJOR threat to snatch the crown, especially with Shea slipping this week.
The standings on the runway were fairly predictable based on the workroom struggles, with Shea and Nina being the fairly obvious bottom two. I’m guessing Shea was working overtime to shove some grace into her crew member and that’s the reason for a lot of sloppiness like visible bra straps and flimsy wigs. The judges were way too tough on Alexis and the expected nature of her space hooker looks - the two were adorable and among the strongest family resemblances on the runway.
C’Mon Season 10 - The episode’s unrivaled MVP was Peppermint’s crew member Sarge AKA Winter Green. Girlfriend was serving face and jokes, completely bringing the judges panel to a standstill and possibly rescuing Pep from another appearance in the bottom 2. While we don’t support pulling the attention away from the queens (unless you’re Ru herself or Michelle Visage), this was a real treat and season highlight. You busy next season, Winter Green?
The lipsync between Nina and Shea went as you might expect. A now three-time lipsync queen against one of the consistently top performers? We know what’s coming. While Nina threatened to “pull a Charlie”, she delivered a defeated version of her focused chill. Shea was as precise as usual, but a little encumbered by her dress.
It was the sad girl and her biggest champion facing off, Shea stifling her tears and Nina dejected, But at this point it is underwhelming to see Nina go. She had been a bottom-dweller for weeks both in attitude and performance, a shame after such a wowza of a debut. Like her doting, patient competition, I think we’ll always believe in Nina and know the sweetheart underneath the constant self-doubt. Like Ru said, she's part of the family now.
This week on Untucked, Nina showed how much she had really given up while the girls were giddy about the challenge. You get to see a little bit more of the crew's investment in doing well for the queens, sweet and sad in equal measure. My biggest burning question: why did Nina walk half her runways in corsets and bodysuits if she had such colorful dresses??
While this episode was very thin on story, it was a lovely and light bit of world-building under Mama Ru’s “everybody say love” umbrella. The next two weeks will be very crucial to help deciding a quickly narrowing race, one I’m not sure Alexis can turn around for herself. Will Shea end her run as strong as it began, or will Trinity continue to ascend? Can Sasha stand out from her bestie Shea, and can Peppermint maintain the polish she’s finally achieved in recent weeks?
Current Ranking:
- Shea Couleé AND Trinity Taylor (We don't usually support ties here at TFE, but in the words of Nina: Sue me.)
- Sasha Velour
- Valentina OUT
- Peppermint
- Eureka O'Hara OUT
- 🔻Nina Bo'Nina Brown
- Farrah Moan OUT
- Alexis Michelle
- Aja OUT
- Cynthia Lee Fontaine OUT
- Charlie Hides OUT
- Jaymes Mansfield OUT
- Kimora Blac OUT
Gif as Episode Grade:
