‘RuPaul’s Drag Race UK’ Season 2, Episode 9 recap: Soaps and Panto

We begin this week, as we should at some point in every RuPaul’s Drag Race season, with puppets.

Well, that’s not exactly true: Technically, we begin with some fallout from last week’s elimination, as Lawrence Chaney once again holds Ellie Diamond’s feet to the fire over how strategically she played with the order of the stand-up challenge performances. There has already been a lot said about this situation online, including so much vitriol that Lawrence temporarily deactivated her Twitter account. 

The tension between the two queens comes up multiple times in this episode, including in a nice moment when they make amends. And in this episode is where that tension should stay. The dolls are good with each other; that’s what matters. 

To be crystal clear before we move on: Sending hate to queens is unacceptable. Lawrence got frustrated on TV. That’s not a crime. Did she get too heated? Sure! Is that worth tweeting hate at her? Of course not! The reaction to drama on a TV show should not be to hop on social media and trash a queen in her mentions. Every season, this situation gets worse. I continue to hope Drag Race will do more to address the hate, both on the show itself and on their social media accounts, as the queens themselves already do.

With that said, let’s get back to puppets—because everybody loves puppets! Unlike Drag Race U.S., which has either shied away from the puppet mini-challenge or produced lackluster versions in recent years (the last great one was in Season 9), UK has fully embraced the bitchiest, most suggestive task this series has to offer. In fact, it’s getting more than suggestive: Ru tells the girls that, to pick their puppets, “you’ll each penetrate that pink hole,” referring to the slot that the dolls rest within. Forget subtext, we’re making the glory hole innuendo front page now.

Like many a challenge in the back half of this season, Bimini Bon Boulash easily wins. She goes for high-yield laughs with her Lawrence puppet and keeps her jokes specific, while a lot of the other girls go for obvious, repetitive jabs. Tayce is perhaps the worst offender as Bimini, yelling the same jokes about being a vegan over and over again. (Bimini charitably notes that she does talk about veganism a lot.) Mini-challenge wins never mean much, but I do give those who win the big ones—Reading Is Fundamental, Puppets, the dearly departed Slapping Challenge—extra credit for those victories.

Bimini hardly needs extra credit, though. She’s tied with Lawrence for the most RuPeter Badges going into this episode, and after this week’s acting challenge, she actually leads the pack with four (the most wins for a single queen in Drag Race UK herstory). The acting challenge is a parody of the British soap EastEnders—called, of course, “BeastEnders”—and across the board, everyone does well. Granted, I’ve never seen EastEnders, so I can’t pretend to be much of an authority on the accuracy of the parody (though I do love the recurring bit involving the start of the show’s signature theme).

Since I don’t know the source material, I may just be out of the loop on this one and not the best person to judge it. But it could’ve been a parody of my beloved The Good Fight and it still would have felt very long. (Related: Since All Stars and The Good Fight are now both Paramount+ series, can we get such a parody on a future season? Bring Christine Baranksi on as a guest judge!) Like “Gay’s Anatomy” in Season 12, all the performances are very good, but the length of the skit makes it hard to keep focus.

Because all the queens are strong, the judging relies a lot on the filming process to fill out the critiques. Lawrence really delivers in the final product, but her struggles on set narrowly keep her from the win. Ellie gets praised for being the best actress of the lot by Michelle Visage, but Graham Norton knocks off points for not doing enough with the character. Bimini gets rewarded for her consistency, and thus takes the win. I might’ve given it to Lawrence instead, but really, the quality is so even across the board that it’s a toss-up.

In something of a surprise, Tayce is the one who sticks out most this week. She’s good in the challenge, but misses the joke when it comes to her character being named Karen, which Michelle dings her for. She also goes in an entirely different direction from the rest of the dolls during the Panto Dames runway: While the other queens lean hard into the “Dame” part of the prompt, Tayce dresses as a fairy character that’s heavily inspired by Tinkerbell. She seems slightly out of step all week, and she’s hard on herself in Mini-Untucked about it.

Tayce has been one of my favourites all season, and the idea of Ellie (who still has no wins) making it to the end over her is not my idea of a good time. But it does feel very possible that that’s what’s going to happen. Surviving four Lip Syncs for Your Life is almost unheard of, while this is Ellie’s first trip to the bottom. And while Tayce does have one win, it’s notable that it’s a four-way group win—and hey, plenty of queens with more wins than their opponent have gone home in a lip sync this season.

The song is Steps’ “Last Thing On My Mind,” and both queens work hard to impress Ru. It’s nice to see Tayce performing to an uptempo song again, while Ellie proves she can turn the party when she needs to. It’s not an all-time great lip sync, but it’s solid. In fact, all the lip syncs this season have been remarkably solid compared to the last one; you can tell they really sought out some good lip-syncers in casting this season.

Tayce gets the shantay—which means stay—and then Ru turns to Ellie. She… also gets a shantay, which also means stay! Thanks to their strong performances this week, all four queens are moving on to the finale. Only one will win, but what’s the harm in having a full suite of dolls to compete until the very end? And hey, it gives us one more verse in next week’s RuMix. Sure, it may feel a bit lackluster to have a non-elimination this close to the end, but that’s more about the season’s momentum than it is wishing any of these queens would go home.

That said, I’m starting to worry that Drag Race UK has an endgame problem. Both seasons have been nothing short of terrific until we hit the top five, when things get wonky. Last season, it was Baga Chipz being saved from lip-syncing when she didn’t know the words (thus sending Blu Hydrangea home), and some suspect makeover judging that screwed over Cheryl Hole. This season, we’ve already had last week’s mess that sent A’Whora home, and now this dubious double shantay.

More pressing than the questionable judging is that the last two episodes have been under par compared to the rest of the season. There’s just not enough in this installment to fill out a 65-minute episode; to pad things out, we get a remarkably long main challenge, more rehashing of the Ellie/Lawrence drama and, in the only sweet bit, the letters from loved ones that the queens read in the workroom.

You could keep what works about those segments and trim the fat, and you’d have about a 50-minute episode. It’s still quite a bit of Drag Race, while acknowledging that, with only four queens left, a long episode isn’t necessary. (And since BBC Three is currently a streaming network only, runtimes don’t have to be so strictly set.)

But none of this takes away from what a gold-star season this has been. Both the U.K. seasons are among the very top of the season rankings for me, and Season 2 deserves all the credit for building upon what was already so great about Season 1.

It’s worth noting, though, that sticking the landing seems to be UK’s weak point. With the third season of Drag Race UK reportedly in filming, the production has ample opportunity to find a way to make these final episodes sing in a way the rest of the season does. It should be hard to say goodbye to this show after such a terrific run—a better endgame would leave us desperate for more.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨Up and Down: Around this time in UK Season 1, I was slowly convincing myself that The Vivienne’s edit had turned around enough to make the contest between her and Divina de Campo a real battle. I ultimately bet on Divina, but I wasn’t surprised at all that it was Viv. Similarly, I’m going to go with my gut on the edit and say Bimini has this—but I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s Lawrence. If Ellie or Tayce win, it would be flying in the face of all conventional wisdom about how Ru picks a winner. (Which is why, as much as I want Bimini to win, a chaotic part of me kind of roots for a surprise.)

✨Drag Race UK really hyped up the surprise guest judge this week on social media (the show’s Instagram account declared they would be “the most iconic guest judge in Drag Race herstory”), leading me to believe it could be an absolutely huge name. Naomi Campbell? Elton John? Dame Judi Dench? No, just a mannequin version of Mickey from EastEnders. They got me, gal!

✨Clock the beer taps during the challenge, as they’re references to last season of Drag Race UK. We’ve got “Much Bitter” as a play on Baga Chipz’s catchphrase, as well as “Scaredy Tap” beer. Remember when I thought Scaredy Kat was for sure returning for Season 2? That didn’t turn out, did it?

✨Speaking of Baga, she’s over on The Celebrity Circle in the U.K. right now, catfishing as Kim Woodburn. Good news: She’s made it past the first elimination!

✨Despite feeling a bit worn out by these two most recent episodes, I’m still a huge fan of this season and am desperately going to miss it. Any season that introduces us to Tia Kofi is deserving of all the adulation in the world—and we get to see her again when the eliminated queens return next week!

Every Friday at 4 p.m. EST, join Xtra’s Kiki with Kevin live on Facebook, where he’ll be talking  about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 13 and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 2. And hold on to your crumpets, because Kevin will be spilling the tea!

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK will be available to stream Thursday, Mar. 18, at 2 p.m. EST 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, and Fridays the week following at 8 p.m. EST on Logo in the U.S. For other countries, check World of Wonder’s streaming guide.