by Chris Feil
“Shady Thorgy is so shady, she causes drama even after she ______”. Sis, it’s the Snatch Game!
The lead up to this week’s episode was quite understated compared to the hype machine of previous Snatch Games, perhaps a sign that the fanbase has wisely lowered their expectations. But it’s not any celebrity impersonation that made this an episode to remember. What’s the best thing Drag Race could hope for when its fan favorite challenge continues to experience such diminishing returns each season? A mountain full of drama to distract from another underwhelming end result!
Granted, Snatch Game does still deliver some brilliant moments, most recently with Sasha Velour’s Marlene Dietrich and Alaska’s Mae West. But by Drag Race terms, the challenge remains the most prestigious win of the season, and poor performance can spell a bad fate for your chances later in the competition. It still has the power to change the course of a queen’s trajectory - for better and worse.
It took no time for Snatch Game to take the back seat to the drama. Before the queens could digest Milk’s controversial elimination, Shangela spotted a note from bitterly departed Thorgy Thor hung up in Trixie’s station. It was a sudden confrontation so tense and juicy, it had me doing affirmation exercises: “I am Aja’s gagged expression. I am the sunglasses on Chi Chi’s shirt. I am the struggle that is real on Kennedy’s end.”
Now: was Trixie genuine about no ill will meant by displaying Thorgy’s farewell note? Surely. Should she still have removed the offending portion? Duh. But was this played up by Shangela for our benefit? Mhmmm. While her persistent need to find drama where it doesn’t exist (see: Ben’s disposition) continues to be grating, this moment had the kind of shockwaves that has so far eluded this tension-free season. For better or worse, it unleashed an episode almost entirely of Shangela’s orchestration.
Game of Thrones CliffNotes by Shangela LaQuifa Wadley
Listen - I don’t watch Game of Thrones, I don’t understand Game of Thrones, I don’t have time for Game of Thrones. And if I still can’t track the show through Shangie’s ongoing Drag Race comparisons, it’s probably not a good sign for me. I’m doubly confused how she’s referenced GoT every five seconds and never once mentioned a dragon.
Marc Jacobs stopped by the workroom in Lisa Kudrow fashion to help Ru interview the girls on their Snatch Game picks. Shangela nearly performed one of my long-standing wishlist characters, infomercial tarot maven Ms. Cleo. Even modest dreams sometimes aren’t meant to be, and Ru wisely redirected her to Jenifer Lewis in one of the cruelest bait and switches Drag Race has ever done to me personally.
Once Jacobs and Ru finished interviewing the queens, Marc asked “Where’s my protege, my BigAndMilky?” Ru hesitated and broke the news. Marc slapped him with his gloves in a single deft movement, and fled into the night. One assumes.
In the art of impersonation, Shangela has come a long way from What’s Love Got to Halleloo With It, and her Jenifer Lewis killed. Returning Snatch champions had reputations to protect: Kennedy played it far safer than her S7 winning Little Richard with a nonstarter Phaedra Parks, but Dela’s Paul Lynde was as terrifying as it was funny. Chi Chi reanimated her previous Eartha Kitt dialect for a caged bird of a Maya Angelou performance. Kristin Chenoweth showed up as herself?
It was Bebe and Trixie that were at a disadvantage, having not performed in a previous Snatch Game. Bebe was firmly in the middle for Grace Jones, but Trixie rehashed her beloved RuPaul impersonation to anemic result. It was a crash and burn that only Snatch Game can bring, the queen expected to dominate faceplanting on her own skill set.
Sally, on the runway the queens decided they would buy the flowers themselves. Unfortunately we were served another abruptly truncated runway and didn’t have much time to savor the intricate details of their floral designs. The highlights were Aja’s mini-petaled capelet and Dela’s full-body orchid, but this was the rare runway where every queen excelled.
Best Critique
“You look like a nice, slutty teen who’s getting married” - Nicole Byer to Chi Chi DeVayne’s adorably slutacious minidress
Dela and Shangela were the expected winners just as the front runners of the last All Stars (Alaska and Katya) did. Aja’s hilariously spot-on Crystal LaBeija should have been a contender and Kennedy flipflopped back into the bottom yet again after winning last week. Chi Chi’s misspelled Maya Angelou and Trixie’s unfortunate rendition of Mother Ru shared the bottom spots. While Trixie broke down during critique to the encouragement of the judges, the real waterworks came when the queens deliberated in the workroom.
“I feel like I told the judges and everyone here a secret, like I’m so scared. I didn’t want anyone to know because I don’t think anybody here saw me being afraid.”
And that hesitancy Trixie lends the word “secret” here cuts deep. Ru calls it an inner saboteur, an armchair philosopher calls it an imposter complex. Her bond with Katya now makes a lot more sense than the odd couple pairing we thought they were.
There is an aspect to Trixie’s psychosis that is purely midwestern, bred from a place where appearances of success and composure can wield a death grip over your self-worth. We hide here; our shame, doubt, insecurities, all tucked away as if your life depends on no one ever seeing how you are a fraud. If that sounds grim, imagine how it feels swimming in Trixie’s head with all that self-imposed pressure and dire perceptions of other people’s expectations. Oh and make ‘em laugh.
And yet this is a downfall made within the confines of Trixie’s own head. The creative blockage that has kept Trixie skimming by (and knocked Thorgy out of the competition) is caused directly by the inability to get out of the way of her bullshit so that her full self can shine. At its peak, RuPaul’s Drag Race is about the triumph of queer self-actualization, how we overcome our own internalized obstacles. Even if Trixie’s performance thus far hurts her chances at winning the crown, she’s now primed to be the season’s emotional success story.
And Trixie’s potential elimination returned the episode’s narrative back to the fateful letter from Thorgy. While Kennedy was confident in not being the worst performance and Chi Chi flowed zen, Trixie had to reassure Shangela that she could be trusted with her reemerging flimsy alliance strategy. However, trust Shangela when she tells you that she is business fish - she knows how to produce quality television and knew precisely what she was about to make happen.
We have our first double win lipsync, with Shangela and Dela both taking their second. BenDeLaCreme has now won as many challenges as has ever been won on Drag Race and shows no signs of stopping, with everyone (even Shangie) facing a tough climb to unthrone her. That being said, what to make of how each of Dela’s lipsyncs have blurred together into one mash of sameness? She’s been defaulting into an “aw shucks, no way am I going to beat her” performance that’s steadily undercut the drama every week.
This somewhat dubious double lipsync win (Oh please, this was Shangela's alone) looks manufactured to capitalize on the much needed tension, and sure it paid off with each of the queens getting to use their elimination power. As expected, Dela heeded Chi Chi’s “just be fair” direction and sent our bayou queen home.
Does this moment not carry as much weight if Trixie hadn’t been such an assumed frontrunner? Shangela certainly knows the weight of the moment, languorously delivering a Shakesqueerian monologue on how she hopes her chosen queen doesn’t take it personally and has achieved such success after losing the crown in her season. It’s like a verbal torture device on Trixie, and almost a punchline when Shangela reveals her choice to go home was... also Chi Chi. How Trixie didn’t emit a banshee wail of relief, we’ll never know.
Whether or not it was tomfoolery for the cameras or mindgames against a weak fan favorite, Shangela saved the episode from being another forgettable Snatch Game. If you thought she’d become less of a handful after being season three’s love-her-or-hate-her queen, guess again. I’m simultaneously exhausted and in love, but not convinced it won’t be her downfall. BenDeLaCreme and she are our clear two frontrunners, but Shangie is the one who is keeping things interesting.
We’re going to miss Chi Chi DeVayne, noted party-turner and Eraser enthusiast. Was it the effectiveness of this episode’s drama to make us think for even a second that she wouldn’t go home this week after a non-stop journey through the bottom, or was it our ceaseless affection for her? She’ll be the rare queen that walks away with her reputation untarnished despite her poor performance.
How am I feeling about the queens after such a tumultuous week? Let's rank:
- BenDeLaCreme
- Shangela
- Aja
- 🔻Kennedy Davenport
- 🔻Trixie Mattel
- Bebe Zahara Benet
- Chi Chi DeVayne OUT
- Morgan McMichaels OUT
- Thorgy Thor OUT
- Milk OUT
Gif as Episode Grade:
