It’s a new week and a new crop of queens, but frankly still the same old song. Though the episode starts with the non-eliminated queens throwing themselves a messy party that will manufacture some “tension,” things play out otherwise exactly as they did last week: Mike Ruiz photo shoot, then make a runway dress out of trash for the main challenge. I suppose it would have been unfair to hold this group to vastly different standards than the first batch, but who in their right mind prioritizes fairness over entertainment value on a reality show?
Setting a decided change in tone from the previous round, Bianca Del Rio quickly asserts herself as the sharpest tool in a shed packed to the brim with dull hoes. We don’t need to wait for the reading challenge; she delivers a steady stream of shade so powerful they’re going to need to reinstall those season one floodlights. She’s probably better off alone than trying to make conversation with Trinity K. Bonet, the next lady to saunter in. This illicit heir to the Kardashian queendom is heavy on visuals and light on audio. Even her talking head segments are usually silent. (Not that I’m complaining. She’s basically made of gifs.)
To appease the segment of the audience worried about the lack of whiny-voiced cretins, in walks Joslyn Fox. She’s a quarter Adore, a quarter Laganja, and half [this space intentionally left blank]. I’d love to give her credit for being pretty, but when Milk walks in, she sort of makes conventional beauty irrelevant. Like, sure, your little dress is nice, but why am I supposed to care about you if you aren’t a seven-foot bullfighting Slender Man sex goddess? Unless, that is, you’re the world’s most glamorous trash queen. I’m just gonna put this out there now: I love Magnolia Crawford and I will defend her to the death, so if you’re looking some genius dig at her nose contour or her weird attitude, then keep walking, Mary.
Next up is Courtney Act, who let’s be honest is a grossly overqualified. Like, if there were an Australian version of Drag Race, she’d be hosting, not competing. The seventh guest is this season’s big girl, Darienne Lake. I wish her the best, but as a rule, the fans have done a shit job of picking winners. Hell, we’re lucky if our pick lasts until Snatch Game.
When Ru descends the stairs and announces a boudoir photo shoot with the four pit crew members, my mental image is drastically different from the girly pillow fight that ensues. Not that I necessarily expected it to devolve into porn, but I sure did hope. Instead, it’s mostly another battle in the eons-long war pitting drag queens against feathers. It’s a tale as old as time: men in dresses, forever drawn to the beauty of festive plumage yet burnt by the inability to control it. The face-hugging properties of the pillow-stuffing wisps are hardest on Joslyn, who ends up looking like a sorority girl at SantaCon. No one manages to deliver an exceptional photo; Courtney’s ladyface edges her ahead of the pack, but Trinity snatches the win by thinking like me and getting kinda porny with it.
Her photogenic false teeth (please tell me you all clocked that flipper) earn her the right to divvy up this week’s boxes of garbage fabric, which are loosely connected by the word “party.” Somewhere, Adore is watching and cringing at the million missed opportunities to scream her favorite never-going-to-actually-be-a-thing buzzword. Trinity chooses the Princess Party for herself, and seems fairly confident in her ability to construct a garment that merges the grounded classiness of Carrie Fisher with the intergalactic melodrama of a pregnant Kate Middleton. Poor Joslyn can’t even say quinceañera, let alone make a dress for one. And the luck of the Irish doesn’t do much for Darienne, whose homage to St. Patrick’s Day during the interview segment is to ramble like a wasted coed.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m not going to say anything bad about Magnolia. Does she make the best of the materials in her Hoedown box? Absolutely not. Moving on. The best pun of the week - the Republican Party - goes to Courtney Act. And really, what’s more right-wing than a cross-dressing homosexual immigrant? God damn foreign homos, stealing jobs from hard-working American female impersonators! The Luau theme suits Bianca just fine, but then so would any theme because she’s a seamstress for a New York costume house and could probably have whipped up frocks for the whole group without needing to repowder. Milk, who’s basically never not wearing a costume of some sort, will continue being a goddess by attending a Toga party. She’s pretty intent on wearing a goatee with her look, too, probably as an homage to all the fratty assholes with soul patches who unironically love toga parties.
The runway that follows RuPaul’s extended Final Boss Battle entrance is overall a couple notches better than last week’s. Courtney is safe but serves a little too much boy body for my tastes (and you have to work hard to get me to complain about a dude wandering around mostly naked), and Milk is fashionable enough to stay out of the bottom while too weird to be in the top. Trinity, on the other hand, asserts herself again as a strong contender by going more Soul Calibur than Sophia Grace. But Bianca’s seamless seamstress skills soften the blow of her harsh-edged make-up (which RuPaul should honestly be used to by now; they’ve known each other for years), and she saunters away with a shopping spree from the surprisingly plausible-sounding establishment Fabric Planet.
Despite her inability to edit her look down (or process information in general), Joslyn manages to inch into the safe zone. That leaves Darienne, whose bunchy vagina fabric was the topic of far too much panel discussion, to throw down against Magnolia, whose bovine dress didn’t earn her a stampede of praise. (Look, that joke sucked, but we're going to be nice to her and I'm in no mooooooood for talkback about it.)
Of course, it’s not mean to say that this Lake is truly overflowing with lip-syncing talent. Without mentioning the other gal on stage, it’s fully reasonable to point out that this was a fantastic moment for Darienne.
But Magnolia leaves before her time and I am just plain sad about it. She’s weird, her main dance move is the Adventure Time wiggly arm, and RuPaul’s Old West pronunciation of her name is pure joy.
Oh, and she put me in her farewell video, so I’m a little biased. Whatever.
