Yes, it’s that time again! A brand new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race has hit the air, and this week the queens were tasked with joining the WTF Wrestling Association and laying the smack-down on each other. Let’s take a look at the shit that worked and the shat that sharted.
The 12 remaining queens enter the work room and gather around the mirror of the recently sashayed Alisa Summers. The queens finally take in the fact that people will be going home as Jiggly Caliente wipes away Alisa’s goodbye message. And then they all unanimously decide that they would have liked it better if Jiggly had left and rub it in her face. Haters gonna hate, Jiggly.
LaShauwn, meanwhile, reflects on the fact that she narrowly missed taking gold in last week’s challenge because the judges felt like she was being too “quiet,” which in the parlance of drag means “you have the personality of beige paint.” But before we can delve any further into LaZzzauwn’s personality — or lack thereof — Ooh, girl! You got SheMail! Lady RuPaul shows up onscreen to hint at the girls that they’re going to have to get rough with each other this week.
Boy Ru enters, once again wearing plaid, to give the queens their quickfire challenge. The Pit Crew comes in with a wagon full of packing supplies, and the girls are given 30 minutes to create a convincing, padded ass with the provided materials. The actual work process comes and goes by in the blink of an eye, but at least it gives us a pretty solid back and forth between Sharon and Latrice, as well as a shot of Willam in a jockstrap. (Hellooooooooooooooo, nurse!)
Jiggly tries to pack her ass with packing peanuts, which results in her ending up looking like a morbidly obese burn victim; Milan ends up with what appear to be two perfect cubes; and LaZzzauwn apparently suffers a stroke while trying to describe his ass, or as he calls it, “badompadonkakongalongbombombom.” Is his translator here? Anyway, Chad Michaels, Willam and That Bitch Phi Phi win the challenge, and as their advantage, they get to choose their teams for the main challenge: putting together a wrestling team to stage a wrestling match with the World’s Trashiest Fighters wrestling association.
Here’s what I love about this challenge: this is the first time being a big girl has ever really benefited someone in a challenge. While big girls have won challenges in the past, this is really the first time where being a powerhouse is actually helpful. That Bitch Phi Phi grabs Latrice first, followed by Kenya Michaels and LaZzzauwn; Willam picks up Dida Ritz, The Princess and Jiggly, while Chad gets Sharon, Milan and Madame LaQueer. Unfortunately, Madame had an ankle injury recently, which could come back and bite her in the ass.
The queens are given three nearly naked, oiled-up wrestlers to teach them how to beat each other up — oh, would you look at that, my legs just spread to opposite ends of the room. How gauche! Latrice is a natural, picking up the fun-sized Kenya and chucking her at LaZzzauwn, who is too quiet and shy to really do anything other than act as a landing pad. On team Willam, Jiggly goes all ghetto diva for her act, while The Princess (despite her tough exterior) just sort of meekly follows suit. And on Team Chad, Madame is having some trouble with her ankle again.
Back in the workroom, boy Ru comes in to mentor the girls and point them in the right direction. He pushes LaZzzauwn to be more loud, while pushing Jiggly to make sure she doesn’t show up looking like someone assaulted Kirby with a roll of tin foil. Ru also announces the guest judges, Rick Fox and John Salley, which causes Willam to get a little bit flirty. Little does she know that they’re mine, bitch, MINE! Although we can work out a system here . . .
Anyway, on to the main challenge. First up is That Bitch Phi Phi and LaZzzauwn versus Latrice and Kenya, which features lots of makeup-based assault and very little LaZzzauwn, who just kinda sits in the corner of the ring going, “Oh, I’m so shyyyyyyy.” Have you noticed the red flag yet?
Willam and Dida go up against Jiggly and The Princess, while referencing the classic reading scene from Paris Is Burning. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, we can no longer be friends. Willam and Jiggly go hard, while The Princess is sort of just subdued compared to Jiggly’s New York diva bit. And before it’s all said and done, we get one last shot of Willam’s ass.
Finally, Sharon and Milan go up against Chad and Madame, and the whole thing sort of has this super-sickening Jem and the Holograms vibe to it, which I adore. The fact that Chad has Madame on a leash spouting jibberish has some undertones of Raja and Manila’s performance in Drag Queens from Space back in Season 3, so all in all, it’s kind of a clean sweep for the team. And bonus point: Madame pulls off her performance without a single snag when it comes to her ankle injury!
Back in the workroom, the girls have to put together their girliest looks for the mainstage. Madame takes this time to reveal to the rest of her team that she’s not close to her biological family and that the people who support her drag career are her real family. Sharon pipes in with what could very well be the thesis statement of RuPaul’s Drag Race: “We’re selfish, vain creatures of beauty, and isn’t it bizarre how we make the best friends in the world?” Preach, hunty.
On the mainstage, Kenya comes out in a super-cute Nicki Minaj getup, and LaZzzauwn dons a bubblegum getup that falls apart when paired with her hair and makeup. Sharon pulls together a little cutesy-poo look despite “girly” being a foreign concept to her, and Jiggly redeems herself from last week by coming out in a super-colourful, shiny cocktail dress. Milan’s sheer number is a little too “nightgown” for me, while Madame turns out a stunning, leggy and very well-constructed dress. Chad serves up my favourite look of the night, which comes off as Paris Hilton without the “every STD ever” part. The Princess comes out in a cut dress, but it’s a tad too edgy for the challenge, and That Bitch Phi Phi decides to go with a leopard-print dress that’s too ill-defined to really work. And finally, Latrice serves a gorgeous pink number, and Willam closes things out with a very early-aughts number that Britney would have worn back in her heyday.
And Dida Ritz . . . Oh Dida Ritz . . . The only way I can describe what she wore is like this:
And now on to the judging! Chad and Madame are both declared the winners and go home with a lovely set of wigs but no immunity, so no real surprise there. Willam is called out for giving a performance that’s too “fake,” and Jiggly is praised for her performance, even though she has an entire tube of lipstick on her front teeth. LaZzzauwn is read to pieces for giving a boring performance and for lacking hair and dress skills. Rick Fox, however, gives the slam of the night: “She was going for Sex in the City, but it was more like Sex in the Alley.” Sploosh.
Ultimately, The Princess and Lazzzauwn are both relegated to the bottom two and are forced to lip-sync to “Bad Girls” by Donna Summers. Before the first words are even fake sung, Lazzzauwn takes off her heels, and you can visibly see the burning rage in Ru’s eyes. The rest of the lip-sync is pretty much just a technicality from that point out, because everyone knows the first rule of drag is that you don’t take off your shoes. EVER. Your shoes could be made of hungry leeches and you would still get read the house down if you ever so much as thought about peeling off one of those slimy motherfuckers.
So Lazzzauwn is given her sashay away orders. And to be honest, I kind of had my eyes on LaShauwn from the get-go because she was an absolutely magnificent seamstress, but for the time being, LaShauwn is really more of a human coathanger than a drag queen. She can rock the fuck out of a dress, but she’s too green, and as such, she lacks the skills or the nerve to really win something like this.
Just call her Lazzzauwn Begone.
(Once again, image credits to Logo’s tumblr.)
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