'...and DON'T *bleep* IT UP!' -- the RuPaul's Drag Race thread

I feel like as a series, it needs to try harder, because a lot of these queens seem much more talented than what they're getting to work with. Chatting with a friend the other day who pointed out that a lot of the series tropes end up feeling like chores, for example everybody gets excited for Snatch Game but the actuality of it is that it's always disappointing now.

otm

Basically agree that the best episodes are almost always the ones where the queens get to write their own material or create their own fashions (or someone else's). Snatch Game gets a pass because they're still in charge of their own ad libbing.

But, man, the acting challenges with pre-existing scripts are just getting worse and worse.

By contrast, I thought this week was a superb episode. Loads of fun workroom stuff, and loads of RuPaul gems. Good times.

Yeah, a truly fun episode and, at least by my estimation, an even better LSFYL match-up (tho maybe that was just editing).

That said, and as much as I actually admire Kam for being able to keep her shit on lockdown in this environment, that was the wrong call overall.

Also, S10 without Monet and Monique is just a whole hell of a lot less fun.

Sidebar: Frankie Grande’s eyes are terrifying.

Eureka’s macho look made me laugh til I cried

mostly the voice is what put it over the top

I am convinced that Rupaul is selfhating and takes it out on black contestants pic.twitter.com/MW36gs7QL5

— fatty (@fatandfem) May 25, 2018

Sidebar: Frankie Grande’s eyes are terrifying.

Genuinely thought he was Cynthia Lee Fontaine for a split second.

The problem was that Monet didn't know the words in the lip sync, and Kameron was on every syllable. And Ru had already played the "nobody goes home this week" card.

I caught maybe one minor flub from Monet. The editors were clearly trying to make it look very, very close.

Nice of Rupaul to show up.

Genuinely thought he was Cynthia Lee Fontaine for a split second.

With makeup by Bianca! The resemblance was so eerie.

I thought Manet was doing well in the lipsync up until she went offstage to prepare for a messy-as-hell splits into a slide.

Also I keep linking to Cracker's youtubes but this one has real pathos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JIPMfMMYlM

yeah i mean i love her to death but Monet had her back to the camera for that whole walk to the back of the stage, cmon girl know yr words

how goid was cracker’s makeup for cookie
she looked like a more reasonable Trixie Mattel lol

they telegraphed monet going home when she did that run and slide down the runway and cracked the light bulb and they cut to ru making a sort of confused and disturbed face. it was kinda poignant in a way, like the magician was out of tricks.

miz cookie is the wintergreen of the season, also so glad cracker finally got a win

Ugh Aquaria was terrible this episode and I think Monet actually did a great job and shouldn’t have even been in the bottom 2!!

Yeah Aquaria should have been in the bottom. Aquaria looked like she just threw a red duvet on Kingsley & told him to figure it out. Poor dude looked not very good at all.

I thought Capricia Corn's dress was boring, but she looked very pretty. I didn't expect Kingsley to make a pretty queen. Tyler Oakley on the other hand... I don't know I guess I just don't love Monét's sense of style, although she's very loveable.

The mini challenge was a lot of fun and kind of hot. Asia was giving me Tyson Beckford realness!

yeah she was great.
Aquaria’s pencil mustache was ... odd

So, when you do everything within your power not to cause drama or be a bitch and the show producers STILL do everything in their power to make a villain out of you.

That's what tonight's all about, pretty much.

Missed opportunities every which way.

I really thought that the main challenge was going to be so much more trenchant, a chance for a reality program to shed its superficiality and actually dramatize interiority. Instead we got some stilted acting, a top-to-bottom bad idea of editing the twins together (and why even bother with the good twins "watching" the critiques of the bad twins?), and the judge's typical caprice becoming so much more arbitrary given the subject matter.

Also, right before the season even started, I read a Youtube comment that I hoped wasn't a spoiler reporting that Cracker would be sent home by Kameron. But that's my fault for wasting time in that cesspool.

Anyway, I'm fully Team Asia now because Asians gotta stick together.

Asia was so fucking good, I love her & this manufactured drama is v annoying

And the judges flipping their wigs over Aquaria was so like, really? idgi

also I need an Asia app on my phone where i can just whine & get a dose of real talk™️ whenever I need it. she’s got that Bianca workroom personality, she’s old enough to see through bullshit & laser focus on what’s real & whenever she does it, it’s just such good tv

Agree wholeheartedly. She is fantastic. She deserves a better season than this.

Aquaria’s face bones were really weird and both face and backbones looked like a badly executed afterthought. Asia ftw.

exactly

What was up with the random splits in the lipsync? Neither of them seemed to happen to any discernible musical cue.

Yeah, I've seen people rating Aquaria's dark-sided lewk among the series' top 10 and even top 5 all-timers and I wonder if they've even seen any Logo-era seasons.

Honestly I kinda liked Asia's dark-side look more.

she was completely transfixing

srsly some of those lipsyncs look like mini floor routines

the splits esp look perfunct asf

This has been the worst season yet, right?

I wouldn't say worst but there's been far too much focus on ~drama~ and not enough of actual performance. The best scenes that don't take place on stage have always been the casual chatter-in-the-workroom and the worst have been the "well I just feel this way" emotionally laborious scenes.

The queens have been very entertaining when given the chance to shine and the right material, but a lot of the musical and acting challenges have been based on woeful scripts which do the cast no favours at all. "Breastworld" is one of the worst things ever to happen in this show's history.

For me I've just found the talented queens to be profoundly unlikeable this season
And the likeable queens to be profoundly underwhelming
I am finally coming around to stanning for Eureka and Aquaria based on their performances, but I would leave any party they were at

I more or less called this the weakest season (as a show) to date, barring possibly the first All-Stars season. The overall average rating this batch of queens would be higher than some others, but there just aren't any 10.0 queens this time around.

And, yes, the quality of the writing/scoring/conceptualization of the challenges is significantly stunted this time around.

i've actually liked this season better than i thought i would even tho too many of the challenges were poorly conceived or presented... the dual personalities one from a few weeks back was a complete trainwreck. but i think there were some rly good out of drag personalities this season... i got a huge kick out of monet, asia & monique's confessionals for instance. and then as far as the onstage talent goes... in most seasons -- even the classic ones -- there's maybe three queens who can really do it all so i didn't find this season to be a let down in that regard. i don't find there to be a huge gulf in quality between the final 4 here and what it was last season.

also generally i think the show always peters out towards the end... especially because you can really feel the producers bending the show in a certain direction, as they are to aquaria here, who they clearly see as someone who can really extend the drag race brand. im thinking back to season 7 when violet chachki beat ginger minj, kennedy davenport, katya, trixie etc... it is what it is

generally i think the show always peters out towards the end

A flaw inherent the entire reality competition series model, really.

Why is Todrick always so cruel? Like is he EVER nice or fun? Or even, like, respectfully critical?

really? I love that about him. he’s so intense, he doesnt take no nonsense.maybe it’s bcz he’s a choreographer first?
he has that Debbie Allen thing like
ONE AND TWO
AND TURN AND KICK
👏🏻WHAT👏🏻 IS 👏🏻WRONG
👏🏻WITH 👏🏻YOUR 👏🏻FEET

like there’s no grey. get it right we move on, get it wrong i burn you with my eye lazers until u stop being a fuckup. cool? cool.

maybe i just watched too much Fame as a kid lol.

and omg i looooooved that dance routine.

now that I think about it I think all of S9's top 4 are better than anyone in S10

true

S9 was epiccccccc

yeah this season felt more like the last allstars than a fully fierce competition

Sorry bout it. Just not feeling this season at all. On any level. (Except Vixen.)

Why is Todrick always so cruel? Like is he EVER nice or fun? Or even, like, respectfully critical?

I saw him on something else recently and he seemed a lot nicer than he does here.

haha i kind of love him on the show. idk this time he was being tough on queens who clearly have a lot of talent and can handle it.

I found a lot to like about this season and have been through enough of the rodeos now that every season gets nitpicked or (dare I say) dragged in ways that in future don't always hold up. (But overpraise is a thing too.) That we did see more design challenges in general was welcome.

Honestly what I'm really wondering about is with the eleventh season. We are, presumably, having another live lip sync resulting in eliminations for the crown as the final episode. But they have to find some way to change it up next year in order to avoid the understandable 'so all that matters is to make the final four' repeat process. But what direction can they go in? Go back to three? Expand to...five?