And we’re back in the workroom. Didn’t this just happen? They need to leave us more down time between episodes so that our brains can recharge. Also, that grace period makes it less obvious that I’ve been reusing the same jokes every week. Of course, the producers are looping the same plots every week, so we’re even. Never has this been more obvious than in this particular pre-credit sequence. It may as well be a highlights reel: Bianca is hilarious, Laganja is atrocious, Courtney is tactless, Darienne is shady, Adore is dumb, Joslyn is underperforming, and Trinity is… there. That sum it up? We good? Great, roll the theme song.
The next day reaffirms that Bianca has had as much of Laganja’s preening, clucking persona and Etsy-ass fashion choices as she can take. Girl, we can all relate. The shrill SheMail siren, established years ago as a warning that difficulty lay ahead, now serves as relief for the contestants, as it signals the end of Laphony Baloney’s nattering. It also used to contain clues about the week’s tasks, though Ru’s message this time around seems utterly devoid of meaning.
Though, how do you hint that the ladies are going to lie on their backs and do an upside down googly-eyed lip sync? There’s really not a good one-liner for that.
Watching the edited footage, it seems impossible that Adore didn’t win this one, given that she used her lizard tongue to dismantle her chin face. Joslyn ends up taking the prize, so whatever we didn’t get to see of her performance must have been downright otherworldly. Then again, the “prize” is the responsibility of defining the running order of the main challenge, which is probably more trouble than it’s worth.
The main challenge, by the way: stand-up comedy. Bianca is immediately (and rightfully) thrilled, because when she’s not busy doing everyone’s make-up and helping with everyone’s costumes and rebuilding everyone’s self-esteem, she’s the funniest queen you’ve ever met. If she wrote recaps, I’d be out of a job. It’s an undertaking that has the rest of the contestants shaking in their pumps, though. You can tell because the volume in the room is instantly halved. Now it sounds like there are only twelve cocaine-addicted parakeets in here. Even Laglobal T-Mobile barely whispers her signature yesmommagurrl hoKURRRRRRR from her hiding spot underneath the table.
After a series of near-funereal interview segments, Ru drops one final bomb on the gals: they’ll be performing to a near-funereal audience! That’s right: while you’re grasping at straws for any semblance of a joke, don’t forget to make the content interesting and appropriate for senior citizens. It’s a drag queen’s dream come true.
So the boys put on their funniest dresses, the bus drags in a crowd of oldsters (and some youngsters, too), and the “comedy” show starts. Luckily, Darienne is up first, and despite the bitter edit she’s been getting, she’s actually bright and charming onstage. The quality dips slightly when Courtney appears; her jokes land decently, but her choice to sing is dubious given that she can’t support her vocal talent with the requisite lyric-writing ability. While Adore elicits some solid laughs, she’s also clearly flailing, and her tendency to fill the emptiness with swear words is wasted on the elderly audience. I’m assuming that Dela was only speaking for thirty seconds total, because she delivered her entire set in one breath. She better get an EPT, because her monologue was missing all its periods.
And then there’s Laganja. Her set was so far from funny that I can’t even make a joke about it. Watching a puppy die slowly of cancer would have been more amusing. Trinity probably thought that following this massacre would give her an advantage, but in the end she has to dig the whole audience out of a dank pit of despair. The fact that she restores people’s will to live, let alone gets them to laugh, makes her a superhero in my book. After her comes Joslyn, who is still naked except for that necklace she wears every single week. Maybe it’s a family heirloom? Maybe it’s full of secrets? I’ll tell you what: it’s not full of punchlines.
Do I even need to say that Bianca kills? Bianca kills. She’s Michael Phelps in the kiddie pool. She’s got this.
To contrast the humor of the challenge, Ru delivers mountainous melodrama during the critiques. Backed into a corner about the overblown caricature she constantly portrays, Laganja doubles down and insists that she has no idea what they’re talking about, she always talks like that. This leads to tears over the fact that at home in the clubs, everyone tells her how much they love her, and here she’s not getting that. I’m actually really proud of the judges for showing absolutely no sympathy during this whole display. Instead, they transition to Trinity, who is in the exact same spot as Laganja (full of self-doubt, pushed well outside her comfort zone) but managed to excel. Ru is so proud of Bodacious Bonet that… oh, my, it’s dusty in here. There must be something in my eye.
They may as well have started the episode by announcing Bianca’s win. She was funnier putting her make-up on backstage than some girls were during the actual performance. Equally unsurprising are Joslyn and Laganja in the bottom two: their sets were so dull that the crickets couldn’t even be bothered to chirp.
I’d like to provide a thorough review of the lip sync, but the truth is that I only remember one moment: the synchronized splits. Neither woman is exceptional as a performer (despite what their fans back home are apparently telling them all the damn time), but the tandem gymnastics sent me into fits.
And then, mercifully for all involved, GanGan is gone gone. The show has wrung every last shred of sanity and dignity out of her, and she needs to go home and rebuild. I hope Alyssa Edwards has been going to school for social work, because her daughter’s hurting for some therapy.
