‘RuPaul’s Drag Race UK’ Season 3 premiere recap: Back across the pond we go

We’ve had quite the year of Drag Race so far, haven’t we? The various 2021 seasons have each taught us something different about the franchise. Season 13 showed how important meeting the moment is, while UK Season 2 demonstrated that even a seven-month filming break can’t bring an all-time great cast down. Drag Race España proved how embracing a home country’s roots can make the season great, while Drag Race Down Under suffered from never really settling into Australia and New Zealand. (Also, racism.)

Most recently, the triumphant All Stars 6 revealed through Kylie Sonique Love’s win that neither time away from the show nor a less-than-perfect track record is an obstacle to victory. Meanwhile, Keta Minaj’s untimely elimination on Drag Race Holland Season 2 proves track record should still mean something. (Seriously, how did this happen?) But the whole package adds up to a franchise in the midst of great changes. It’s expanding across the world, with global superstardom on the horizon for its queens. (Congratulations on being cast in Billy Eichner’s new rom-com, Symone!)

And with that, of course, come some growing pains. Though she was a fan favourite and her win was largely celebrated, there was some grumbling that Kylie’s performance throughout All Stars 6 did not merit a crown. That raised further questions of how much a report card should matter—a debate the fanbase has been having ever since Sasha Velour and her rose petals won Season 9. Additionally, Down Under was nothing short of a disaster (I’m frankly shocked it’s coming back for a second season), and served as a cautionary tale about expanding a franchise too quickly.

So we head into the third season of Drag Race’s most popular international spinoff, Drag Race UK, with a lot of questions up in the air about exactly how this series will evolve. Luckily, at its best, UK is great at making us forget about all those weighty questions about the franchise’s future. The first two seasons have been an absolute blast for the majority of their runs, only to fall back to earth with subpar endgame episodes. Will UK Season 3 fall into the same trap? Who knows! But we’ve hopefully got a lot of fun times ahead of us, so we can deal with that question later.

After a short highlight reel featuring some of UK Season 2’s best moments, we start with the reentrance of Veronica Green—painted entirely in green makeup! Those who watched the second UK season will remember that Veronica was disqualified and unable to return after contracting COVID-19 right before filming resumed. She was granted an open invitation to come back, an invite I recall her seeming somewhat hesitant about at the time. I questioned if she might not come back—that’s how noncommittal she sounded.

Upon seeing her return… honestly, I get it. Veronica has a new introduction, but there’s not much she can say that’s different than what came before. Unlike queens who come back for All Stars, or even returning queens like Eureka! and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, she hasn’t had any time to tour or perform live. This season started filming earlier this year, meaning Veronica had little time out of lockdown in between the two. The result is someone who’s resetting from square one through no fault of her own, only her immune system’s.

She talks hopefully about not being underestimated by the other girls this time, but I actually think she has lost a crucial advantage she had in Season 2: the element of surprise. Veronica subverted expectations in her first go-around, but now we’ve got a better idea of what she’s capable of. She’ll really need to demonstrate something new, particularly with other singers and actors in this group. She looked mighty nervous upon seeing Ella Vaday enter the workroom—tough to be the queen who wants to be in Wicked in the West End when your castmate has literally been in Wicked in the West End.

Once we’re past Veronica, we get some solid introductions to the other girls, including theatre queen Ella. Kitty Scott-Claus (Claus pronounced “claws,” making the name sound like “Kitty’s Got Claws”) is a personality queen with a diverse knowledge of pop culture. Vanity Milan is a relative novice with only a year of drag under her belt, but a tremendous level of polish and costumes made by her husband. Choriza May is the first Spanish queen on the series, who responds to potential questions about her being on Drag Race UK with a simple “Listen, Linda, I started doing drag in Newcastle.”

Perhaps the most notable entrance is that of Victoria Scone, who gets a round of gasps and applause upon appearing. She is the series’ first cisgender woman to compete, and the second queen assigned female at birth (or AFAB) after Season 13’s Gottmik. “I was born with a vagina, and she’s still going strong,” she says in a confessional. (She’s also a lesbian—and there’s a cute moment after she correctly guesses the film title “Robocock,” in a mini-challenge game of Dirty Charades, when she blurts out, “I don’t even like cock!”) Much attention is placed all episode on the historic nature of her casting, and indeed, it’s a huge step forward for Drag Race to include her. It can come across as borderline self-congratulatory at times, but considering the discourse that erupted in the wake of Victoria’s casting, I’m glad the series is taking the extra time to emphasize the history being made.

Victoria is one of the top performers in this week’s maxi-challenge, which sees the queens debut two separate looks: one inspired by their hometown, and one inspired by one of their favourite things. The former category is a bit stale at this point, as we’re on our third iteration of it, while the “favourite things” prompt is absurdly wide open to interpretation. The things range from “ABBA,” Kitty’s favourite, to the general concept of “music”—which two queens, East London’s Scarlett Harlett and Kent’s River Medway, both do. Victoria’s flowery Cardiff look is great, but I’d wager it’s her afternoon tea garment that earns her top marks.

Scarlett does well enough to earn a high score, turning out the better music look and a stunner of a Pearly-meets-Queen Elizabeth I ensemble. But it’s 19-year-old Krystal Versace who joins Victoria in the upper echelon. Her ivy-coated hometown look is solid, while her lynx-inspired favourite things look is an absolute winner. Her makeup in both is striking as well. The judges note Krystal’s attention to detail, and it’s clearly a winning factor for her this week. She reminds me of Aquaria, both in age (Krystal has watched Drag Race since age 13 and calls herself “Generation Ru”) and in fashion sense.

In a twist, Victoria and Krystal must lip sync for the win, which is ordinarily done in nonelimination or All Stars episodes. The song is Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” and it’s clear that Krystal’s more in tune with the emotion of the song. Victoria tries to ham it up, but her costume is restricting, and she doesn’t lean far enough into camp to make it work. The 19-year-old edges Victoria out, earning the first RuPeter Badge of the season. (Yes, we’re still on BBC Three, there are no real prizes.)

River scores in the bottom three because of her uninspired take on “music”—again, the lack of specificity!—but her incredibly funny take on a traffic cone-topped statue for her hometown look saves her. That leaves notably short queen Elektra Fence (5’2” and proud of it) in the bottom, facing off against the other 19-year-old in this cast, Anubis. Both queens show promise in their entrances, with Elektra explaining that her name comes from literally being electrocuted by a fence (complete with funny video), and Anubis noting that it’s rare to see campy younger queens on Drag Race. Unfortunately, each of their hometown looks is just okay, while Anubis gets hit with the dreaded “basic” label for her sea creature second garment.

The two lip sync to Little Mix’s “Sweet Melody,” and honestly, this one is over in seconds. Anubis tries her best to emote and stand out, but Elektra is like lightning on the stage. She’s incredibly flexible, and her bounces, splits and bone-defying moves (how does she do some of this stuff?) are more than enough to secure her the win.

It’s a sad farewell to Anubis, who does present a new kind of young queen to the show. But even from the start of the episode, there seems to be a sense that this set is only big enough for one 19-year-old. Krystal wins out, while the Egyptian queen (who, delightfully, says she’s no “Giza”) sashays away.

This is an enjoyable premiere, with just enough twists (no photo shoot mini-challenge, two lip syncs) to keep things interesting. Still, the fact that all three seasons have now opened with the same two-runway maxi-challenge has me hoping for an even more drastic shake-up. I never think we’re getting the best impression of the dolls from this one challenge, and as Asttina Mandella proved last season, winning it is no guarantee of longevity in the competition. (Justice for Asttina!) This season was filmed really shortly after the success of the second, and I do have some concerns about elements feeling rushed. But a hilarious-looking Peloton-themed challenge next week is allaying my fears. Drag Race UK is back, baby.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨For what is largely a pretty fun premiere, we do get one segment that’s a real tonal shift. River reveals her mom passed away from COVID-19, while Choriza opens up about the struggles of being isolated from other people during lockdown. It feels like the show is trying to remind us of the place and time in which it was filmed, but it’s a pretty blunt (and momentary) mood change.

✨Choriza is excellent at the Dirty Charades mini-challenge with its cheeky spin on movie titles, but there’s no winner—just good times had by all.

✨I’m wondering if there’s no Brit Crew on set this season. Ru calls them, but we just cut to a video of them at the “factory” polishing RuPeter Badges. They might be a casualty of COVID-19-compliant shooting, but we’ll see.

✨When introducing him, RuPaul calls our guest judge “the hilarious Matt Lucas.” Coming for Ross Mathews’ title! For what it’s worth, Matt is indeed very funny, and gives some smart critiques.

✨Not sure how I feel about the now-standard reminder from Ru to ignore the online trolls at the start of every premiere. While I did previously say the show could be doing more to address online hate, I assumed it would be putting more onus on the fans to do better, not just tell the queens to ignore the online chatter. This is a persistent problem, and it’s going to require more than a pithy line about trolls to combat.

✨Choriza gets my award for best entrance line: “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful, hate me because I’m an immigrant.”

✨Veronica makes a Sister Sister reference within moments of entering the workroom: “It’s kinda like Veronica’s Drag Race: it’s dead boring.”

✨The remixed theme song, featuring “may the best drag queen win” instead of “may the best woman win,” has made its way over to the UK from All Stars 6. I remain a fan of the change, but do not understand why the whole thing had to be taken down an octave in the process. It sounds so robotic now!

✨Well, we’re back for another season! We’re doing the full recap-and-ranking treatment for this season of UK, as well as for the upcoming season of Canada’s Drag Race. You can find recaps of each show (once CDR premieres in October) on Xtra on Fridays, and power rankings will come out on Saturdays. Thanks for joining us for another pair of seasons—they’ll likely be our last two of 2021!

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK will be available to stream Thursday, Sept. 30, at 2 p.m. EDT on WOW Presents Plus in the U.S. and OUTtv in Canada, as well as on BBC Three and the BBC’s iPlayer in the United Kingdom. Additionally, episodes are available the same day on Crave in Canada.

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