For the next few months, Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves will be following and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen…
At long last, Law Roach makes his Drag Race debut.
CLÁUDIO: Hi Barbie! This week on RuPaul’s Prison Experiment, our host and MTV have figured out how to tap into the frenzy unleashed by Greta Gerwig’s plastic fantasy without the need for something as bothersome as copyright payments or bending the knee to the Mattel Empire. Then again, this episode might be the twins’ fault since they did parade through last year’s finale red carpet with doll doppelgangers. In any case, whether Queen Barbie or Princesses Sugar and Spice are to blame, “Welcome to the Dollhouse” is a fun hour of television. Or, at least, I had fun. What about you, Nicky Doll?
NICK: I had a lot of fun with this episode! As much as it pains me to say this after Ms. Meating has left this televised coil, “Welcome to the Dollhouse” is my favorite episode of the season thus far. . . .
The majority of the episode has a lot of the queens putzing around, sneaking around and bothering each other when they aren’t having heartfelt exchanges. It’s a great series of interactions, deepening our understanding of the queens as they wrangle with a creative, multifaceted challenge, breaking away from the somewhat calcified annual checklist we’ve had thus far. Somewhat foregone conclusions for the winner and the eliminated queen keep the stakes relatively low, and the strong lip sync ends the episode on a high note.
But first, the beginning. The queens return to the werkroom and marvel at the gigantic goodbye Amanda wrote in lipstick on the mirror. Q is still reeling from placing in the bottom after three consecutive weeks of high marks from the judges, and recommits herself to finally winning a challenge. Dawn is similarly pressed to get a win under her belt. Geneva Karr makes a similar vow, promising her win signals an end to her impressive bottom streak, so there are your main narratives for the episode. Oh, and Plane Jane says she’s gonna turn over a new leaf, which, sure.
CLÁUDIO: Next day in the Werkroom, the Russian menace keeps trying her hand at “niceness,” but it all feels very insincere. The girls also talk about who had work done in this season full of fillers - the limps are plumped!
That said, there’s no time for more cosmetic surgery talk because Ru’s here, dressed in clashing patterns and with a special guest to boot. It’s Charo, the Spanish superstar, and a Drag Race mainstay since season one. She’s in the werkroom to judge a Flamenco mini-challenge sponsored by Spain’s tourism board. Our beloved guitarist welcomes two dancers who’ll be the queens’ dance partners and make me remember how much I love Drag Race España’s Pit Crew. But before they can cozy up to the menses, the girls must put themselves in quick drag. The results are as messy as expected, though Morphine somehow always looks right. Miss Dion Love must paint at the speed of light.
NICK: Morphine also pulls an unexpected swerve, wearing a bright yellow flamenco number you just know Nymphia was covetously side-eyeing. The quick drag getups range from the deeply ridiculous to the unexpectedly polished. Among the silly billies, Q playing into her own stiffness and Plane doing a full pantomime routine make memorable impressions. Megami isn’t trying to be funny, but watching rose after rose fall out of her hair without her noticing is hysterical.
Not everyone can dance, but most of the queens seem determined to enjoy their time with these sexy dancers. Nymphia displays some impressive pyrotechnics, and Morphine dances as good as she looks. Best of all is Xunami Muse, who looks like a million bucks and dances with fluidity and heat. She cinches the mini-challenge win easy, and Charo announces that Xunami has won an all-expense paid trip to Spain. Unfortunately, Ms. Muse’s DACA status means she is not currently able to leave the country, though she’s still pumped to finally be on the scoreboard. It’s one more win than Q has.
CLÁUDIO: You’re so mean to that bald bitch. Leave Jan alone!
After the dancing, it’s time for Ru’s announcement. This week’s maxi challenge will be a multifaceted one, involving design, branding, and storytelling. Each queen will have to construct a look for themselves and a doll version of themselves, which they’ll also paint and style. The fashion dolls of flesh and plastic have to match, but they also have to be a good summation of the queen’s drag persona cum branding. Moreover, as they walk the runway, each girl will have a voice-over to describe the special edition doll, like those little texts on the back of toy boxes, especially those made for collectors rather than kids. There’s so much here that it’s difficult to find a comparison in the Drag Race canon. The closest I can think of is the Princess Challenge in Season 9.
NICK: Maybe the Hello Kitty Ball from season 7 or the Book Ball from Season 8? Oh hell, the soup can challenge from All Stars 3. Trixie’s insane valley girl narration and Bebe’s peanut chili realness were so choice. Damn, Drag Race had a lot of narration with their balls for a while. Either way, there are a lot of moving parts to this week’s challenge: half makeover, half branding, half sewing and design. The girls seem a bit daunted by the scale of it, but they’re ready to strut their stuff.
Q, of course, sees a quick path to redemption if she aces this challenge, and she immediately settles on a plan of attack that warmed my heart. While a lot of the queens rush for more generically dollish colors - your pastels, your blues, your purples, your garish patterns, your pretty prints, your pinks, your blues - and sets her eye on rolls of brown and umber. She wants to stand out from the crowd, and she’s found a good way to do so even before she designs one inch of her outfit.
CLÁUDIO: So much blue, and for no good reason. Plasma is the one to snatch the powder blue stretch velour from the material table, but her stash gets usurped throughout the day. First is Plane Jane, who hates the textiles she managed to secure and proves incapable of seducing some red fabric from Geneva. Why her plan of attack is to insult the other queen is puzzling and an unforced error. Especially when nobody gets their hands on the red at the end of the day. Miss Karr’s initial plans crash and burn, so she also snatches some blue from Plasma. But even beyond these three, Megami, Xunami, Sapphira, Dawn, and Morphine pounce on shades of azure. At some point, they must have looked around them and seen the state of things, right? Anyway, Q is indeed very smart.
One could also commend Nymphia for being a cunning cunt, playing at helplessness again. However, after that first design challenge, no one buys her schtick. It’s still very funny to me and much more endearing than Plane’s ineffective manipulations.
NICK: Watching Plane trying to say something halfway nice felt like watching a deer try to walk for the first time. Unsteady, but determined, and very aware that they fucked up on the first real attempt. Getting that fabric from Plasma was mostly because Plane asked nicely while the bitch was distracted with her own project. If Plane’s arc is gonna be towards some modicum of politeness and self-awareness, she’s got a long road ahead of her. Nymphia, at least, feels like she’s being her ridiculous self when she bugs her competitors.
Re: Sapphira, maybe she didn’t notice because she was too busy helping Mhi’ya with her outfit? She’s giving the girl a lot of practical lessons, none of which overcome the fabric’s gaudiness or Mhi’ya’s sense that things have already gone wrong. As one of the girls who copped to not being able to sew during the Ball, her main concern is skating by to next week. But Sapphira is atypically unsure of herself and her design, an opera coat with a floral pattern dress underneath. She’s worried about this challenge, and though her concerns aren’t invalid, Sapphira’s perhaps too in her head to notice several other queens flailing with their designs or starting new ones more than halfway through the workday.
Dawn, at least, finds new inspiration as the episode progresses, when she discovers one of her green fabrics possesses a shiny silver lining on the other side. But the mood is not super optimistic as elimination day begins.
CLÁUDIO: Q is still working on the garment while the other queens start doing their makeup. In other episodes, such a thing would have been played for suspense, but this season’s editors aren’t trying to imply that the bald and beautiful is in danger. Everyone seems confident she’ll pull it off. As we move to some mirror time, the same can’t be said about Geneva. Megami is a bit harsh in the confessionals, saying the Texas queen’s concept makes no damn sense, but she’s not exactly wrong. When the episode bothers to shine a light on Miss Karr’s TikTok fame, how she styles her leg hair as part of drag, it’s time to start worrying about her fate. The bitch is getting a farewell edit, through and through.
But then things get serious, with the girls talking about their experience with dolls and, through that, how accepting their families were during their queer childhood. Dawn was so ashamed of going to the dolls section at the toy store that her mom would retrieve options from that aisle and meet with the baby elf at another location so he could pick his favorite. It’s an adorable story, almost as cute as the pics of toddler Plasma playing dress-up as Dorothy for Halloween. Her mother even included her tiny ruby slippers in her Drag Race package. Xunami would turn her dolls into photoshoot models and make them clothes from Play-Doh. I find this highly relatable.
As a kid, I also had a doll collection and would photograph them like supermodels. However, I never sullied their plastic beauty with some plasticine miasma. Instead, I’d dream up new outfits and draw them, like a baby fashion/costume designer.
NICK: And look at you now, a grown up costume designer! Sometimes dreams do come true!
Two queens close out this mirror session talking about hardships they faced in their childhood. In the episode’s heaviest confession, Q discusses a childhood defined by poverty and hardship, where food on the table was never a guarantee. The joy she found in drag always made her ashamed - not because her family was unsupportive but because she felt it was a waste of time that could be devoted towards a more lucrative career. Suddenly her comment about always having to fight to prove herself in the previous episode is contextualized in real hardship and toil, rather than diva theatrics.
Plane Jane has a story of her own - not as severe as Q’s but still unpleasant and unexpectedly revealing. It turns out Plane’s dad was a homophobic, perfectionist hardass who belittled any trace of femininity he could find in his child. Plane theorizes her dad’s stentorian behavior has informed her harshness towards the other queens. If someone’s not performing their drag at the level she thinks it should be at, it's on her to whip an inferior bitch into shape or scare them away. It’s a real act of vulnerability from the season’s reigning bitch, and perhaps the first real step to Plane potentially getting her shit together.
CLÁUDIO: Not be cynical about it, but this show of vulnerability also rounds up her as a tridimensional character within the show’s narrative. I’m more sure she’ll make it to the finale than ever. Maybe, along the way, she’ll also learn how to make her unwanted criticism funny. Heaven knows this week’s judging panel delivers a masterclass in just that, with Ru and Michelle in attendance, along with Ts Madison, and, at long last, stylist extraordinaire Law Roach. Now there’s a bitch who knows how to be entertaining and vicious in one fell swoop. But more on the judging later.
For now, let’s focus on the runway proper, the gals and dolls, the branding and narration. Category is… Welcome to the DollHouse!
;)
First, we have Xunami Muse, presenting her Fashion Week edition doll. Honestly, she’d have fared better if she hadn’t tried to sell her outfit and persona as high fashion. It’s all rather basic for such lofty descriptions. Sure, the trousers are superbly tailored (fittingly, the doll’s special talent is ”wearing pants”), and the bow shines as a very doll-like flourish executed with attention to its oversized proportion. However, the top looks like an afterthought, and the velour gloves take this to TackyTown instead of Fashion Week front row.
NICK: I am choosing to interpret Xunami’s look as though she started with designing her doll and matched herself to the same cuts and textiles. Does it make sense? No. But she looks like her doll in human form, rather than a queen who designed the doll to match themselves. One point against the doll: awful hairline.
;)
Another hair comment: Why is the hair on Sapphira’s doll so windswept, and so much bigger than Sapphira’s unit? The runway isn’t bad by any stretch, though it’s probably the most basic thing she’s worn this season. I liked her narration and the bug-eyed mugging for punctuation on several lines, though these gestures never quite fit with the high opera energy she’s cultivating elsewhere in the bit.
CLÁUDIO: I fear Sapphira leaned too much on her self-serious side with this Grande Dame Diva Metropolitan Opera Edition. I missed some of the bawdiness to complement the imperious air, though her delivery helped a great deal. Regarding the looks, it’s all a mismatch of proportions, with the flowers’ scale not translating to the doll and the hair a mess. Still, she looked good. Would have probably looked better if she had time to finish the opera coat she was talking about.
;)
Plasma stayed true to her midcentury taste with this Passenger on the Pacific Edition doll. Kudos for getting closer than many of her competitors to translating the scale of her garment to the miniature format. Beyond that, however, this is a somewhat stale look backed by too many overegged jokes. The textiles take away from the classic design, and the lack of bobby pins holding up the scarf was a mistake. Also, where’s that brown “Y” on the doll’s mug?
NICK: Plasma’s jokes did not help sell the brand, often coming across as random or incongruous in the context of the society gal persona this doll is modeling. I don’t even think the missing bobby pin was as problematic as her repeated attempts to fix it back into place, throwing her off her rhythm every time. You’ve said everything about how the textile choices fail the simplicity and era this look is modeling, so let’s go to a bitch who used the same fabric to much better ends.
;)
After Plasma comes Plane Jane, noted Russian fabric thief, who delivers the first stellar presentation of the night with her Plane Jane Aquatic Edition doll. Frankly, the “aquatic” bit is the only underwhelming part of the design, but even then, her narration makes this mismatch a selling point. Is she an ice skater? A mermaid? Who knows! But Plane sells the fuck out of it, modeling the powder blue ice skater suit with all the cunty, silly aplomb she’s defined herself by. The proportions are so right, to include the debut of some ass-padding - who says Drag Race isn’t a place for growth?
CLÁUDIO: It’s a simple design, like a variation on what you’d expect most queens would have on their performance arsenal. That said, Plane executed it to perfection, making up for the thematic incongruence with the self-aware narration. Using the rhinestone trim to make the bodysuit look more complex is a smart touch. Burger finger aside, this Little Whore-maid was a winner presentation. At long last, the bitch has reason to be cocky.
;)
On their own, I think Nymphia Wind’s garment and doll were the best of the episode. The Spring Banana Yellow Carpet Edition is beautiful, somehow pulling off the queen’s preferred color in a way that makes it read more elegant than gaudy. For herself, Nymphia’s choice to add soft pink to the mix was genius, offering chromatic variation to her shtick while selling a sweet fantasy. She looked like a banana and strawberry ice cream swirl walking down the runway. Sadly, Nymphia didn’t match her doll perfectly, and the shade of Amanda’s recycled wig was too harsh for the gown. At least she got in a couple of nice jokes about standing around doing nothing and potassium-fueled flatulence.
NICK: The dissonances of the wigs and the bows probably cost Nymphia a top slot automatically, to say nothing of how her wig’s hard yellow clashed with the rest of her outfit. But you’re right to praise literally everything else about her outfits. Gorgeous, fairy tale beauty in the softness of that dress. Coming right after Plane, it’s a bit amazing that Nymphia’s far more relentless banana branding is more varied and less tired than the burger finger bit already is.
;)
Going into this challenge, Morphine Love Dion was facing a personality crisis. In last week’s critiques, Michelle advised her to emphasize any attributes besides her BBL, and she took this to heart. An admirable goal, though trying to show new sides of yourself for a branding challenge is just another layer of difficulty I’m not sure Morphine overcomes, especially when she shows off the BBL anyways for her Miami Bimbo Edition. The sunburn makeup looks great. The outfit is a happy compromise between showing her curves and wearing a fun, flowy print. However, her doll looks absolutely awful, with a sadder, wider version of Morphine’s wig and the fabric too bunched up to show plastic skin. Poor thing.
CLÁUDIO: I know these gals aren’t doll customizers equipped with sculpting gear and epoxy clay. However, it seems odd that Morphine’s missing tooth gag wasn’t represented on the doll. I did love the bit about her coke nail and just how BIG she drew that miniature makeup. Seeing at least one of these dolls without a Megamind-like forehead was nice.
;)
Somehow, Mhi’ya Iman Le’Paige managed to make her Queen of Flips doll look depressed. Maybe she’s sad to be covered in that stretch snakeskin print - I sure would be. Or maybe mini Mhi’ya wasn’t feeling the messy hair. Whatever the case, this was a complete misfire, from over-embellished getup to self-contradicting narration. She’s both shy and outgoing? Make it make sense, Nicky Doll!
NICK: I can’t, Cláudio. She picked a tough pattern, but that has to be the worst translation of girl clothes to doll clothes of the bunch, right? Or is it someone else coming down the pike? I’ll say yes for Mhi’ya’s giant hair, more on the principle of goading her into some kind of excess, but it’s just a mess, and her narration makes it seem even more incoherent.
;)
Megami’s Native New Yorker Edition struts the runway, and this is handily my favorite thing she’s worn so far. I love the pared down color palette, the rhinestones all over the bodysuit and the cape contrasting brilliantly with the paper-mache-looking props. Hell, the props are a great choice - don’t all collectibles have props? The wait is snatched, the mug is stamped, the hair frames her face so beautifully. This might be my favorite of the night? Wow.
CLÁUDIO: It’s weird that, for a challenge riffing on the current Barbie craze, nobody else thought about how important accessories are to those dolls. A great look, brilliantly styled with flowers and a Monarch butterfly as a corsage, toy-like enough to make one forget about the tired New Yorker jokes we hear every season. Words can’t express how much I adore the doll’s angry face, permanently scowling because of those spiky Megami brows.
;)
From a surprising success to an expected failure, here’s Geneva Karr’s Daintiest Doll Texas Edition. The design is so random and ugly that the only way to make it sing would have been to play with proportions, replicating how her materials look oversized on her doll-sona. But no, our Texas beauty settles for stylistic mediocrity and a confounding narration. The only compliment I can give is that I appreciate her commitment to blush.
NICK: Is there a way to swing a petite, genteel persona with “everything’s bigger in Texas” pageant girl realness? I’m not 100% sure, but Geneva sure hasn’t figured it out. The layered sand dollars are not at all flattering, and you’re right about the weird sense of scale between queen and doll. And why is the doll’s eye makeup so much whiter? After an episode spent scrambling for any kind of purchase, Geneva’s confusion is represented perfectly in her outfit.
;)
I really wanted more from Dawn, Galactic Empress Edition. Her makeup is stunning, no notes there, but the simplicity of her design sits too close to not doing enough with fabrics that are so grabby on their own they’d benefit from some direction, let alone more tailoring to the specific prompt. Why is there no hemming on her skull cap? This looks more like a medieval knight than a space empress. As a purposeful attempt to go against her usual impulses towards maximalism and clashing prints, bravo, but this feels like Dawn flattened her aesthetic rather than distilling it.
CLÁUDIO: Buzz LightYear if she slayed is an intriguing concept, and Dawn had my favorite text and narration of the night. Still, there’s no denying how shoddy the execution is, rendering a couture-worthy design as a sloppy craft project. The cowl looks unfinished, the turtleneck is too wide, the gathering of her Bertha-style collar is off-center, and the doll’s stitching is pulling all over the place. Press your seams and adjust your machine’s thread tension, ladies. I did find it hilarious that, after Michelle asked for no elf ears, Dawn decided to go completely earless.
;)
Last but certainly not least, Q presents her Fantasy Edition doll in fifty shades of copper. The overall design is complex to the point of excess, but the limited palette makes it cohere pleasantly. Kudos for the pop of white on the eyes, its replication on her mini-me, and how it offsets the overwhelming wave of rusted bronze. I wish I liked the wings better and that the safety pins holding her train in place weren’t so noticeable. Q’s narration is a bit bland, but I appreciated that she acknowledged her stiffness when dancing and made it part of the joke.
NICK: First thing first, the doll is gorgeous. You’re right about the color scheme giving Q’s look some much-needed cohesion, even as so many individual pieces of the outfit have their own distinct texture. Her visual gambit paid off beautifully, and the monarch butterfly realness makes her seem like she emerged from the fey court. And she finally plumped up her lips! Stunning, from headpiece to heel.
With the runway presentations over, the queens line up to prepare themselves for the judge’s critiques, and the one truly insane gag of the episode happens. Sapphira Cristal decides tonight is the night to drink her immunity potion, and everyone is stupefied. The judges look pissed. When Ru asks if she’s sure about this choice, it reads much more as a skeptical “is this bitch serious?” rejoinder than a perfunctory check-in to make sure Sapphira knows what she’s doing. For her part, Sapphira regrets this decision almost immediately, shaking her fist at her inner saboteur. I don’t get it either. You think they’re gonna throw you out for Geneva Karr? Was she scared to lip sync against Mhi’ya? Hun.
CLÁUDIO: A baffling miscalculation on Sapphira’s part. But at least it let us see what happened when someone drinks that damned thing - automatically declared safe and sent offstage without critiques. If Plane is smart about it, and since they can “gift” the potion to others, she may be able to use it offensively, blocking another gal from a victory. Hell, had she done it tonight, she might have won instead of Q. At least, that’s the conspiracy theory going around in fandom circles.
Joining Sapphira in the safe zone are Xunami, Nymphia, Morphine, and Megami. This leaves Plane, Dawn, and Q as the top three, while Plasma, Mhi’ya, and Geneva are at the bottom. This week, the judges are both coming for blood and happy to wax rhapsodic if the occasion calls for it. Law Roach, in particular, is much more enthused about Dawn’s galactic drag than us. He compares it to the work he pulled from the runways for his celebrity clientele. Amid sharp commentary, however, there was a note I found troubling.
When shredding Geneva to pieces, Law Roach says the doll’s legs are giving RuPaul while hers are Danny DeVito. What exactly was she supposed to do? It’s not like she could carve her body into a statuesque figure. The other judges mention padding the doll, but that’s ridiculous, especially since they gave them articulated toys rather than a Barbie-esque fashion doll. It means that the skinny girls have an unfair advantage. Not to mention the lack of skin tone variety in the dolls or how the face sculpts were different, yet they didn’t look personalized for the queens. Production probably got them from castoffs, but that’s no excuse if you’re going to bring it up in the judging.
NICK: It’s a maddening critique, and one Mhi’ya received too. None of these bitches padded their dolls, and it’s very weird to see the judges bring it up like it was a requirement. By that mark, should Plane have missed the top for padding herself and not her doll?
The three bottom are exactly right, though I would like someone to tell Morphine to step up her game before it’s too late. Plane and Q belong in the top spots, though as rapturously as the judges received Dawn, I’d trade her for Megami in a heartbeat. Someone made simplicity look elegant, and it was Megami. Nymphia’s incongruities (my word of the day!) keep me from saying she should have placed, but fuck did she look good. She deserves to finally hear it.
Still, even in agreement I don’t get some of the judge’s comments. In particular, although Mhi’ya absolutely belonged in the bottom, the biggest jabs at her lack of sewing skills felt badly aimed. Why did they interrogate her about her putting a zipper on the back of her bodysuit? Should Sapphira have sewn Mhi’ya into it?
The judges deliberate, and their conclusions are inevitable. Q is declared the winner of this challenge, and I think I agree with that? Plane sold her brand the best, though I admire all the challenges Q gave herself with this outfit. The headpiece alone is to die for. But what say you, Clàudio?
CLÁUDIO: Like you, I’d have switched Dawn and Megami, but I’m not sure I agree about giving Q the win. Because this challenge has so many moving parts, different queens excelled at different parts of the brief. Dawn had the best branding and narration for me, while Nymphia served the best garment and most beautiful doll. Q aced the similarities with her miniature self, while Megami seemed to be the one who most understood how dolls work as brands and products, applying it to her styling. In the end, I’d go with the bitch that wasn’t the best at anything but served the most consistent package - Plane Jane. Still, can’t complain about Q’s victory.
For once, I also can’t complain about the lipsync. After Plasma is declared safe, Geneva and Mhi’ya perform to Janet Jackson’s “Control,” an iconic song that feels at home on the Drag Race stage. While the Texan beauty opts for some funny beats, almost Pantomime-adjacent, Mhi’ya ties her half-assed cape with hair ties and flips all over the place. It’s an energetic marvel, electrifying the screen even as her outfit falls apart. The way she uses her breastplate to punctuate the beat, never letting it fall off despite it bulging out of her keyhole cleavage, was the winning move. The judges are right. Mhi’ya won that handily.
NICK: I do kinda wish her breastplate had gone flying. This season doesn’t have enough boob malfunctions. But yes, Mhi’ya won her lip sync easy. And I’ll say this for Geneva, she gave it her all up there, certainly more than what she did against Mirage. She ultimately leaves with her head held high, even if she starts crying in the werkroom confessional. It’s been a tumultuous journey for Geneva Karr, with one of the strangest track records in the show’s history. No one can say she didn’t make a mark.
Another queen gone. Next week (ie - two days from now) is the Rusical, a riff on The Sound of Music, and I for one feel very excited. We love a big cast, and with Geneva gone I’m genuinely curious who could be on the chopping block next week. Any predictions? Guesses? Dreams?
CLÁUDIO: Farewell, sweet Geneva. As for next episode, I’m excited yet cautious. I don’t think they can top Wigloose!, nor should they try. Still, I can't wait for some singing nuns nonsense. Let’s all twirl through the Austrian wilderness with too big breastplates on top - just like God intended.
Previous RuCaps:
- Episode 1: “Rate-a-Queen”
- Episode 2: "Queen Choice Awards"
- Episode 3: "The Mother of All Balls"
- Episode 4: "RDR Live!"
- Episode 5: "Girl Groups"