THE MOST SHOCKING ELIMINATION SINCE THE LAST MEDIOCRE THEATRE-QUEEN GOT BOOTED!

1. Despite the fact that Jasmine semi-quit last week in a cloud of bad feeling and boot polish applied to her chin, her sistren in the Bitter Old Ladies Brigade, Ginger and Kennedy, still opened the episode by talking about how they were going to miss her energy and spirit (and the giant bottle of hot sauce she had hidden in her suitcase), with Kennedy being particularly sad, as she was the one who went through the emotional wrench of personally having to send her best friend home in the lip-sync face-off. Meanwhile Violet stood there a-bearded and thinking



“see? This is why I don’t have friends!”. And given that the bottom 2s are clearly being chosen with maximum heartbreak and drama in mind this season, it may well also be a good strategy for getting to the end. Now just don’t go pointing out that someone is old Violet, and you should be ok. Miss Fame meanwhile was less bothered by the loss of Jasmine, as she debuted a little segment I like to call “Miss Fame : Comedy Critic”



“Jasmine was a BAD! SEED! Nobody wants to pop the corn and feed the children! That’s disgusting! Let me pop this bunion and have the kids feasting for days? Are you kidding me? WHO THINKS OF THIS SHIT?”. Too right Miss Fame, it’s time for someone else to take up the mantle of providing this series’ new catchphrases. Cleaner, more family-friendly, and chicken-related memes for a brighter and more on-brand tomorrow.

(SPOILERS : In 15 minutes Miss Fame will be involved in a skit where Katya eats her own skin tags).

2. You may think being a crew-member on a low budget niche channel reality show where all the money is spent on extravagant ball-gowns for the host and getting in old cast members of Webster to be guest judges would be a trying job, but let’s face it, we all kind of envy the backstage hand who this week got to



splash in Pearl’s face. Now take that cup back to Party City where it belongs. (This was part of the ongoing storyline where Pearl has to WAKE UP. A storyline that this week Pearl told to fuck off before smacking that snooze button and turning right back over again) (Pearl <3)

3. We were straight into the Main Challenge this week, without Moby and The Pit Crew to distract us (some of these things being more distracting than others…), as the queens were tasked with creating spoof music videos, presumably in honour of the mainstream (ish) succcess of Top 5 Drag Race contestant of all time Willam Belli with such club hits as “Boy Is A Bottom”, “Es Una Pasiva” and “Boy Is A Bottom (Stars On 45 Remix)” under his Versace belt. Those of you kvetching (constantly, in Internet comment segments everywhere, constantly) about how the show’s budget won’t stretch to licencing the songs of pop gigantasauruses of past seasons lip-syncs past like Stacy Q, Seduction, Mary Mary, Klymaxx, Pam Tillis, Expose, and Paula Abdul, might have wondered how RuPaul got artists with iconic spoofable megahits and music videos to allow the show to mock them. Well she didn’t. The queens were to do parodies of her own songs. Of the three chosen I was familiar with…one and a half. So really if you’re wondering where this challenge fell a bit flat…there’s your starting point. The world was not waiting for an hilarious tanning based spoof of some RuPaul album cut I’ve never heard of I’m sorry. Queens were tasked with splitting themselves into three different teams :



Edited out : the two clouds of crossdresser shaped dust that appeared next to Violet seconds later. The contestants of course settled right into friendship groups – the fashion-minded young white queens (Trixie, Pearly, Famey…Katya-y), the more diverse Bitter Old Lady Brigade



(Mrs K’s trousers there coming direct from my own grandfather’s wardrobe circa 1995) and…well, what was left. Bitchy Violet, Pretentious Weirdo Max, and annoyingly plucky try-hard Jaidynn, who doesn’t quite fit anywhere.



The war was on, and the struggle was real.

4. Those of us hoping that Violet, Max and Jaidynn would come together as the rejected outsiders and harness their inspiring John Hughes movie esque backstory into a harmonious team dynamic and win the challenge were disappointed as Max and Violet started a knock-down drag-out death feud 5 seconds in. Of course, this was a knock-down drag-out war involving shy wallflower background awkwardsaurus MAX, who expresses anger mostly by becoming more English, passive-aggressively declaiming the RAUNCHY AND THE VULGAR (…Violet) and poking Jaidynn in the ribs constantly whilst Violet’s back was turned, all “see, see, isn’t she the WORST?”, and then freezing like Grandmother’s Footsteps as soon as Violet looked at her. Still, it became more than obvious over the course of the task why nobody wanted to work with Violet in previous challenges, as she snottily shot down everyone else’s ideas, sassed back to RuPaul’s producer and Earth Angel Lucian Piane



(srsly, the only reason he should be making that face is if he has returned home after a tough day in the studio to find out that restraining and clothing order he put on me has expired), and made this face regarding Max’s prissiness



over and over again. In the end, their video was actually probably my favourite, between Jaidynn’s dead-on Bianca make-up and mannerisms, Max’s squawked “I! I! I! I!”s and Violet’s juvenile mugging, but I can’t help but feel like my favouring it is partly because they were spoofing the RuPaul track I’m most familiar with and like best of the three (Sissy That Walk), and partly because they were launching themselves off the backs of the funny and charismatic queens of last year’s end game. And Courtney Act. (Seriously, the amount of Courtney Act shade in this episode was overwhelming and delightful). I’m starting to think these queens need to learn to stand on their own merits, not via echos of past catchphrases. Also they needed a stronger parody song name than “Get Ready To Clock” because come on

5. If things were bad between Max and Violet though, the scenes of carnage over on Aryan Airlines 2 were even more destructive. I blame this primarily on a cosmic shift in Trixie Mattell’s libido. Remember in episode 2, when all he wanted to do was make love to Miss Fame? And then episode 3 when he was cruising for tail backstage amongst the show’s staff? Well this week Trixie joined the rest of the Internet and pointed her Trixie’s Dream Condo right at Pearl, sighing mellifluosly all episode about Pearl’s wicked-cool laid-back attitude and how much she loved her. Clearly this left Miss Fame jealous, as she seized control of the group midway through the task to win Trixie back. Yes, Miss Fame was in charge of singing and choreography. The Miss Fame who danced and flapped her way through Episode 2 like the love child of Quentin Wilson and Fiona Phillips. Naturally Miss Fame’s avant-garde jerkiography didn’t sit well with the rest of the group, particularly Pearl, who was having bad flashbacks to wanting to throttle the bitch with Violet’s seatbelt-cum-waist-cincher. Meanwhile Katya stood at the back of her 50th disastrous team in a row screaming



“FUCKING FUCK FUCKING DIASTER WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS FUCKITY FUCK FUCK?” in confessionals. Oh Katya. At some point you’re going to have to stop whining and start actually intervening, in this, the season of the never-ending group challenges apparently. Still, at least Katya actually delivered in the challenge this week, so she’s got that going for her. In the end, their parody of “Dance With You”, entitled “Tan With You” was clearly the weakest of the three, as the whole thing never really came together as a coherent whole and only two of the queens (Katya and Miss Fame) landed any comedy at all. That said, Miss Fame’s suggested



GIANT ROTISSERIE CHICKENS made me laugh like a drain. WORK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW, FAME. WORK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW.

6. As you might expect from a team that featured the more seasoned queens and the camera-averse Kandy Ho, there was little drama to go round on Team Bitter Old Ladies, who did a QVC themed rewriting of “Let The Music Play” called “I Just Got Paid”, with the only roadbumps coming from RuPaul supposedly (but clearly not really) taking offence at a crack being made about the lameness of Drag U, and everyone worrying about Mrs Kasha’s Davies’…bass singing voice. I can’t help but feel like this particular drama might have had more legs if we weren’t watching Ginger fret that Mrs K sounded like the love child of Ethel Merman, Paul Lynde and The Cowardly Lion immediately after being subjected to the cat-in-a-sack yowling of Pearl, Trixie, Miss Fame and Katya (although at least Katya made it work as a character choice). Also as if Mrs Kasha Davies’ throwback showbiz voice isn’t our favourite thing about her. Well…my favourite thing about her at any rate. It was no surprise anyway that this was the team that ended up winning, as they showed the most originality, produced the best lyrics, had the most coherent theme, and also Ginger is the only one in the entire cast who can sing. Oh and ALSO











because it was a minute and twenty seconds of straight-up genuine product placement. You’ll never go broke on this show by pointing out that things are available on iTunes. Somehow though, the overall win went to Kennedy for…squinting and having purple hair and generally looking like a bunny wabbit doing an offensive impersonation of a Chinese person. Oh well, not all of Ru’s decisions have to make sense.

7. This Week’s Gratuitous Shot Of The Pit Crew



Truly, the most gratuitous This Week’s Gratuitous Shot Of The Pit Crew yet.

8. The judging panel for the spoof video challenge was one of my favourites yet, featuring as it did Lucian (*FANS SELF*) and Jessica Alba





in character as the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Of course getting a Hollywood A-Lister like the star of “Dark Angel” and “The Love Boat : The New Wave” to guest judge was always going to come with strings attached, so for her challenge “win”, Kennedy ended up getting



A THREE YEAR SUPPLY OF JESSICA ALBA BRAND CLEANING PRODUCTS! SHE PICKED OUT THE SCENTS HERSELF!



I mean, Jessica’s judges critique was mostly limited to “that looks cute!”, “She’s a hot Latina!” and “I like her shoulderpads!” but you have to respect any judge who turns up for the show with three years worth of wet wipes to give away.

9. This week’s runway theme was GREEN.



(If you’re new, Michelle hates green. It’s kind of her thing.) Well, green unless you’re Miss Fame, in which case you wear some sort of hateful reptillian copper shade that makes my eyes hurt.



What is that? Why does it burn so? I know she was one of the only stand-outs from her parody video but I really would have considered having her amongst the girls in danger just for that alone. That is straight up SLUDGE. On the other hand, visual stand-outs were Pearl’s venemous snake-woman (apart from that fact that her legs looked like raw dough), Katya’s



POWER FASHION STOMP, and Mrs Kasha Davis’



60s Batman Villain’s Moll Realness. I also, despite myself, find Jaidynn’s trashbag robot aesthetic



is growing on me? Maybe? A little? She’s trying so hard to be cutting-edge that it’s hard not to root for her. Here’s hoping anyway that this week’s runway has softened Michelle’s stance on the colour that sits in the middle of the rainbow and she can move on to a new gimmick like loathing hats or wanting all the queens to be able to juggle. Heck, she already set Max the entirely arbitrary and pointless challenge of NOT WEARING A GREY WIG NEXT WEEK. Now let’s see if she pulls it off… (*tension*)

10. Just like last week, all of the top (Katya, Jaidynn, Kennedy somehow) and middling (Ginger, Fame) queens were waved off so the messy bottoms could be read by the judges. It really is starting to feel like the queens who are delivering aren’t getting enough credit or praise this season, when good performanes really could do with being emphasised from this particular group of queens, who appear to have generally come into the show sputtering a little. That said, even though Violet was notionally in the bottom, they couldn’t really find anything to criticise about her other than well…her herness, so I’m declaring her to be an honoroary “safe”. Other than Max being read for not making Courtney gut-bustingly funny the other four queens in danger were all criticised for not standing out in their videos. Which is entirely true – none of Kandy, Mrs K, Pearl or Trixie really made much of an impact in their parodies, and really any of them could have legitimately in the bottom. Personally my choice would have been Kandy vs Trixie because I liked the outfits of the other two more (and Mrs K has a much stronger CV of performances in other challenges to back her up). The lip-sync though, to “Dreaming” by Blondie, turned out to be the most controversial of the season yet – some people favoured Trixie’s campy twitterpations and though Pearl was just stomping around making crazy eyes, whilst the rest of us thought Trixie’s charades and Liza Goddard realness was embarassing whilst Pearl CHANNELLED DEBBIE HARRY TO THE VERY CORE. Fortunately for the good taste of the universe, RuPaul agreed with me, and sent Trixie home to do the usual round of shock and horror from the fanbase when a queen of his type gets cut. Personally? Just like with Jasmine, I was pleasantly surprised in episode 1 when Trixie came out and was far more interesting than I’d anticipated her being pre-show. And just like Jasmine…she did very little for me after that. Still, I will miss all those hilarious comedy looks she had waiting for us. Who could fail to be amused by the comedy aesthetic of a cheap high-concept dress and something stuck on your head?

Meanwhile on Untucked :

Ginger would like Kennedy to reach the final as part of the Final Three. Yeah, good luck with that.



Miss Fame would like to thank God, the cosmos, her crystals and her boobies for her ongoing success.



The politics of padding one’s ass or not padding one’s ass is surprisingly fraught, and Pearl better get stuffing mattresses down her pants soon if she doesn’t want to go home.

But she’s beautiful…



Trixie believes she has a great personality and a sparkling wit.



Water is wet.



After a whole episode of nudging, whispering, and encouragement from Max, Jaidynn stuttered out that sometimes, and she thinks the other girls have said this as well, that sometimes Violet gives off a vibe that can comes across as maybe a bit mean.

Kandy doesn’t really *do* high-concept or theming. She just wants to be pretty.



Ginger loves everything about Max and everything she does and only wants her to succeed but she really doesn’t understand the judges infatuation with her, and thinks her dress didn’t have enough green in it, and WHILST SHE’S HERE she also loves Kennedy likes a sister but doesn’t understand how she won the challenge when Ginger did all the work for her, but no shade

The first thing Violet said to Mrs K upon meeting her on day 1 was “nice man arms”.

Oh what could have been…