Hello Kitty Gurls.

After getting rid of the excess Kalorie, the girls return for their first challenge where they have to write and act in commercials as teams of four by creating unique apps for very specific audiences. BUT before they do, there’s the batshit crazy mini challenge that feels like some kind of a casting call directed by John Waters. We get an Irish Monet, a tap-dancing school-girl Blaire, another quick drag Miz Cracker looking fresher than Dida Ritz in full makeup, a Madonna-British Monique with the most realistic bewbs ever on drag race and Eureka doing stuff with an imaginary wall.

Yeah, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to be able to explain any of this to my other friends without sounding crazy. The three ‘winners’ of the mini challenge get to pick their team-mates, and somehow Yuhua ends up being the last to be picked. Blaire (End of Days) chooses Cracker (duh), Eureka, and The Vixen . Monique (Fibster) picks Dusty, Kameron, and Mayhem. Monet (Madame Buttrface) teams up with Asia and Aquaria but also Yuhua who apparently she doesn’t think much of. These girls have to come up with concepts, scripts, characters and a narrative and it’s a fun challenge to really shine. In Monique’s team, Mayhem seems far too reticent to really express her opinions in any way. Monet basically dismisses all of Yuhua’s ideas because they’re not very good. The Vixen thinks that Eureka’s idea to be about fat-jokes is a ploy to make her the focus of the piece. Then Kameron thinks she should narrate their piece because she wrote it, and Monique asks Mayhem if that’s okay with her and Mayhem doesn’t have a real answer. Cute. (The fact that then she throws Monique under the bus on the main-stage and in Untucked and Monique predicted as much… #notcute). The Buttrface gals use up all the prosthetic noses and Yuhua doesn’t get any, so she simply opts to put dots on her face to look ugly (Dusty would like a word with Yuhua, please). She doesn’t seem to really commit to anything that would be instantly noticeable, and then seems far too quickly irritated with the others. Next.

The Fibsters are organized during the taping, because Monique is a great team leader and is anal retentive about everything. She says action and cut herself. She’s being the director-actor, gurls. Team EndofDays has a complete concept and they execute it well, and the only weak spot is The Vixen. The Buttrefaces…are all over the place but Asia’s face is instantly iconic. I mean. IKOHNIK. Yuhua flails on the exercise ball and looks like she got splashed by an ejaculating inkpot. Back in the workroom for elimination day we get our second Group Therapy Session, when Dusty talks about his parents finding about his homosexuality and how their uber religiosity made them try and exorcise her and she had to pack up and leave for her sanity’s sake, and it’s really touching. It’s the fact of life for many around the world, of being judges unfairly for something they have no control over based on flawed and erroneous personal beliefs and religious fervor, and my heart goes out for Dusty because not everyone gets the love that she finds with her fiancé (awwwwwwwww!!). Religion is also a topic of conversation, as Monet explains how she has reconciled her religion and drag and both aren’t at odds with each other and it’s a perfect example for every religion because the basic tenants of every religion is acceptance, love and kindness but most people don’t realize it and only hold on to the ridiculous aspects of it and ruin it for everyone.

Being queer and being religious/spiritual aren’t mutually exclusive and the conversation this episode really does a wonderful job of explaining both sides of it. The other big conversation of the episode (and probably the season) is the growing enmity between The Vixen and Aquaria. It started off when Aquaria talked about how Miz Cracker’s apparent copying of her makeup was annoying her, and the Vixen chimed in and said that Cracker faked her way to Drag Race. Then later, when asked to confront Cracker, Aquaria basically flip-fops around the issue (most probably because they’re good friends out of the drag race environment and have a working relationship and should be better discussed mutually and separate from the others) but the Vixen jumps in and calls Aquaria out and basically sets fire to the whole issue. This leads to the animosity between the two because The Vixen sees Aquaria as spineless (true) and Aquaria sees Vixen as overly dramatic and stirring drama she’s not part of (true). All this leads to this episode which sparks what seems like a Sharon vs Phi Phi kind of explosive moment. It’s a complicated and delicate issue with many facets to it, of race, of fan perception and manipulation, so it will obviously be a heated topic for the fanbase as well as the queens. I’ll try to be as neutral as I can in it, because I see validity in both arguments but both parties also have big flaws in their points as well, especially in their Untucked interaction.

The fight starts when Asia points out that The Vixen won in a Best Drag runway with a wig borrowed from someone else (and not even a good wig). And then, seeing an opportunity Aquaria chimes in that she won a challenge with someone else’s drag. This evolves into a back and forth (which seemed playful at first to me, like typical drag queen shade) but The Vixen was ready to fight (she came in ready, bitches) and shuts Aquaria down real fast. And then later, while they’re putting on makeup The Vixen takes the opportunity to gawd Aquaria about her (questionable) sense of humour and Aquaria point blank tells her to stop being negative. She’s over it. The Vixen has a mouth, henny, and Aquaria ain’t no Bianca or Bob and she can’t take it and leaves the workroom. Now a bit of shade is always welcome, but here it seemed (and said out loud) that the Vixen was taking every chance to irritate Aquaria. It’s a nice strategy, trying to bamboozle and throw off your opponent (Hello Phi Phi and Roxxxy), but the later conversation in Untucked undermines Vixen’s motives. The thing is, as the Vixen rightfully said, Aquaria likes to throw shade and then scamper, but the Vixen is like a dog with a bone, she won’t let nothing go. It’s not a great combination. She also doesn’t mind going straight for the jugular, regardless if the occasion warrants it or not. There’s no shade, there’s just direct bitchiness. These girls need to visit the Library and get lessons from Bianca and Jujubee. Ugh. And now let’s talk about Untucked for a minute. Monique brought up the fact that Aquaria and Vixen are butting heads, and Cracker states the fact that both of them are provocative and what they each do to irritate the other, and it’s accurate. But where it derails is when The Vixen takes it as a race thing, and I disagree. Is there a race issue amongst the fans of the show? YESSSS!! There are some hateful ignorant dumbass fans of the show who would gladly go after queens of colour and give free passes to the white gurls for the same things, and that’s just the worst and indicative of the present political and socio-cultural conversation happening in America and Europe. Is THIS an issue of race? Hell naw. It’s good of The Vixen to shed light on the issue of race and perceptions of the public on drag race and the queens, but the way it was brought up and illustrated isn’t the most accurate. The Vixen points out that Aquaria brought the negativity by commenting on her runway, and The Vixen responded in kind but she will be judged as a bitch and taken to task by the fans as the stereotypical Angry Black Woman, and that Aquaria will be painted as the Innocent White Victim. It’s a popular tool used by many a person to manipulate the masses, the best example I can think of being Taylor Swift and Kanye West. Taylor Swift has made a career out of calling out her ex-boyfriends and other pop stars, but doesn’t shy away from making use of that one incident back in 2009 when Kanye took away her moment of glory at the VMAs. Was Kanye right? Yes, absolutely. But was he right in doing what he did? Hell naw, that man needs to be tamed. But Even after severl public and private displays of having smoothed over the episode, Taylor regularly took digs at Kanye and acted the victim, the frail woman or the feminist who was being unfairly treated and that narrative helped in establishing and furthering her career, and it was not until Kim showed the receipts of her two-facedness that the world started to catch on to it (although they quickly forget anyway). Here, though, Aquaria isn’t using that narrative to her advantage, and The Vixen isn’t subverting the cliché. Aquaria’s problem is that she’s not backing her statements up coherently and with enough guts to establish a narrative, and the Vixen starts at a 10, so she’s already steamrolling over Aquaria. Ther’s no chance of a middle-ground or playfulness here, because The Vixen is confrontational and does not give ground. Should she soften against a better opponent, no, she should be able to hold her own and state facts, but here we’re seeing her completely ignoring Aquaria’s attempts at apologizing. And then we have the moment when Aquaria realizes that she comes across as standoffish and a bitch (she does, I said so myself back in episode 1) by her own NYC girls Cracker and Dusty (who specifically seems to have received some form of shade from Aquaria many times), and it’s like that moment when Violet realized she was a complete and utter bitch back in Season 7. Cracker and Dusty make valid points eloquently, and it seems Aquaria is starting to get it. And then she cries. And The Vixen goes off. She states that Aquaria is creating a narrative that The Vixen is an Angry Black Woman and Aquaria is the meek victim, but the flipside of the coin is that The Vixen IS playing an Angry Black Woman, and it’s not a narrative being created by someone else. There’s a valid point in there, absolutely, but the way it is presented moots the point because The Vixen isn’t the right person to talk about it because she is the most confrontational person in the cast and that’s not an external creation, it’s her very own because she came in with that attitude. Aquaria just happens to be the tool that plays perfectly into that narrative, because she takes the bait and goes for The Vixen without having the chops to give it back in turn. It could have ended there, with The Vixen stating clearly that she doesn’t want Aquaria to be involved in anything with her, but where she crosses the line is when Aquaria is crying, she says “It’s just.. it’s so gross”. That’s not validating your point, that’s just invalidating your whole speech by doubling down on the stereotype and actually acting like a bully. The Vixen is entitled to her opinion, and the facts are that the optics of the show has hurt black queens in the past because of how they are judged severely for their behavior while others are let go (an example being Jasmine Masters and Kennedy getting race-related hate while Ginger and Derrick, who basically did the same things, never getting nearly as vile threats as they did). It’s especially rampant in social media where these little ignoramuses with barely enough brain-cells can’t separate real-life from Reality TV drama and go after people for the most ridiculous reasons with the most over-the-top actions. It’s absolutely the worst part of Drag Race, and it’s not even the show’s fault. The show itself is one of the most representational on all of television, and yet these idiots with internets just ruin everything for everyone. But the Vixen should be able to adjust her tone for the recipient, and not be so brutal, especially when she’s not ready to listen to others herself. The point she’s trying to make will get lost in the mix because she’s negating herself and playing into the stereotype. It’s best shown when she shuts down Miz Cracker. Softening one’s tone to suite the listener isn’t being disingenuous to oneself, it’s called being smart and understanding. Take a look at Shea Coulee, or Bob The Drag Queen. They’re able to say the same things she’s saying, but without the confrontation or the unnecessary aggressive behavior, and that’s not serving the Mammy stereotype either, that’s just being a strong black person who knows how to represent the best of blackness without resorting to the worst tendencies. Every culture, every race, every group of individuals needs to learn that. Regardless of the messiness of the situation, I’m glad that the conversation is brought up in to the fandom and the general audiences, because it needs to be said and said loud. Black excellence has far too frequently been overlooked for white mediocrity (*cough*AdeleTaylorSwiftBeck over BeyonceKendrickBeyonce*cough*)

The runway theme this week is Feathers, a first, and I’m ready. The final videos themselves could have been better, IMO, because there were some sloppy editing going on that could have been tweaked better for more seamless final product. None of their works really stand out in the same way as, say Jinkx’s “Delusion” commercial or Sasha and Shea’s TV pilot, though and I’m yet again left with a slight case of blue-balls. But the queens aren’t judges as teams, oh no, they get to be read for their individual choices. The judging is yet again a bit wonky, but the overall consensus is the same.

The Mehs

Cracker: How does she manage to coast through the middle in this challenge? She could have really taken it to the stratosphere here, because she is a really funny and intelligent queen, but yet again there seems to be that extra something missing here that stops her from really getting the A+. The runway was cute, but a familiar silhouette at this point, but executed beautifully. I don’t care for the story she told about the outfit because I don’t see the point of it.

Performance: 7 Runway: 8.2

Monique: Monique did decent in the challenge, but her teams video itself was a mess because it was incoherent and didn’t flow well. She gave good direction, but didn’t take much herself and neither apparently did her teammates. On the runway, her top half was a total SHOOT but that lazy wedding dress/paper towel bottom was an absolute boot. Shame.

Performance: 6.3 Runway: 7.2

Dusty: Dusty was the best thing about her team in the challenge itself. Her character and segment came through clearly and was funny, and she’s a great performer. But that runway outfit.. gurl, that’s some Kennedy-Chicken levels of awful. The colours were off, the proportions were dismal and that makeup made her look manlier than her out of drag. No no no, baby, what is you doing? I wanted to reach through my screen and slap the bitch. (I have a hunch that Dusty’s drag is much cheaper than the rest here. More arts-and-craftsy. Hopefully the Drag Race money helps her upgrade her wardrobe and reach her full style potential).

Performance: 8.7 Runway: 2.3 (I really hate it.)

Monet: Meh. That’s all I feel at this point. Just… meh. I don’t remember what she did and why she did whatever she did. And the runway was just Nono Lekes, Nene wouldn’t go near that with a Raja-length pole. The proportions were off, because she didn’t cinch apparently, giving her a barrel-body that was just unflattering.

Performance: 6 Runway: 5

Aquaria: Aquaria keeps being competent at best, and I’m getting tired. New York girls are supposed to be fierce, at least based on the previous ones we got, but this lot haven’t yet shown that side to that degree and I’m getting impatient. Aquaria was okay, and that’s not okay at this point. But her runway as always is beautiful and well-executed. The take on a wounded bird-entity was inspired and took that extra leap in terms of commitment. If she doesn’t bring this runway Aquaria to the challenges, she won’t be around long.

Performance: 6.5 Runway: 8.9

The Yess Gawds

Blaire: Her character in the commercial was immediately recognizable and funny, and she did a wonderful job as team leader to create a coherent product that actually gets its message across well, and her teammates do nice jobs as well. Her runway look is polarizing. At first I was like, did her gown molt? Then after a while it felt couture and I liked it. Overall, a great job.

Performance: 8.6 Runway: 8.2

Eureka: Eureka came back from her bottom placement with what we know she can do. She’s funny, natural and effortless in the challenge. But again, that extra something to take it over the top is missing here, and none of the performances in any of the challenges so far have given me that same feeling I get when I watch Sasha in the Rupaul Roast or Ben..does anything. These girls need to step their pussies up PRONTO. The runway outfit was gorgeous, and somehow reminded me of Darienne Lake, but that friggin loaf. I don’t loaf it, I loathe it.

Performance: 8.5 Runway: 8.2

Asia: Asia finally gets her glory in the sun with a funny as hell showing in the challenge and a sublime runway. In the challenge, as the buttrfaciest Buttrface, her just mugging the camera was by far the best part of the entire challenge. Simple, straight-to-the-point and funny, her makeup and expressions really sold the theme of the app. Her runway interpretation of Tweety was pure genius, particularly how holding her hands in front made the Tweety-beaks. Best. Thing. Ever.

Performance: 8.8 Runway: 9.8

The No Ma’ams

The Vixen: She basically felt inconsequential the team. She wasn’t a terrible actor, but her character itself seemed like just the Vixen on a regular day but with crunchier makeup. Her runway look was inspired, a peacock fantasy with a side-sweep instead of a train at the back. The colours are lovely, but yet again I felt it to be a bit unfinished, especially at the crotch and the wig was a #Choice.

Performance: 6 Runway: 7.9

Mayhem: Mayhem tanked. She was by far the worst of this week. She was basically nonexistent in the video, and what we saw of her didn’t do her any good either. The sight gag was completely lost. And her runway outfit was disjointed. The gown itself I not bad, but mixed with that basic DMV wig and unnecessary contacts, the look suffered. Her personality needs to shine through in the challenges more and she can go far.

Performance: 2 Runway 6.4

Kameron: Well, that almost gave me whiplash. Kameron did poorly in the main challenge. Her acting wasn’t bad, just very underwhelming. Her delivery was half-baked (as was her mug) and it didn’t read well on camera. But that runway, my god. That was some Detox levels of securing a safe spot. That Maleficent meets high fashion look gave me all the loife I needed from all the girls. My thirst is quenched.

Performance: 3.4 Runway: 9.7

Yuhua: Oh Yuhua. Yuhua had such promise, but Yuhua just let me down. She had no shtick in the challenge whatsoever. I thought she was the comedy queen that was gonna bring me all the Asian spice I needed, but what she brought this week was White-people levels of bland. And the runway was disjointed as hell. That hair did not go with that outfit, and the birds sticking out only took it to a costumey element. Nobody was raven about any of it.

Performance: 3 Runway: 5

In the end, Asia wins the challenge, and rightfully so. It could have gone to Blaire too, but oh well. And Mayhem and Yuhua end up in the bottom, and that’s again accurate. They go head-to-head on Hole’s iconic song “Celebrity Skin”, and darlings it is gagging. Mayhem simply wipes the floor with Yuhua. There’s no fancy choreography, no shablams, no reveals, just good old-fashioned lipsyncing again. It’s fun to watch drag queens do what they do best. So in the end, Mayhem is safe and Yuhua sashays away. Sigh.

The challenge overall was fun, but just not the heights that I’m used to with the series. Hopefully the girls get better and better and the challenges truly bring out their best.