‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 14, Episode 4 recap: Such a tease

This episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race has basically everything you could want from modern day RPDR—plus things you don’t. A fun challenge? Acting out superteases for this very show! A celebrity guest? Jennifer Lopez, via video message! Some drama? Try a long, drawn-out conflict between Kornbread “The Snack” Jeté and Jasmine Kennedie! A controversial judging choice? Just look at how mad the internet is over Alyssa Hunter’s elimination!

The episode may not be all good, but I do think that, after a few weeks of false starts, we’ve finally settled into the groove of a Drag Race season. The memory of last episode’s twist-a-thon fades, and we get a self-referential team acting challenge plus a “Night of 1,000” celebrity runway prompt. There’s comfort in the familiar, and with a cast this enjoyable, the familiar can still be a ton of fun. But I will admit that this week’s elimination leaves a sour taste in my mouth that I can’t quite ignore.

It’s actually been a minute since we’ve had a two-group acting challenge. Season 11’s “Good God, Girl, Get Out” and “Black Panther: Why It Gotta Be Black?” were the last on the flagship franchise. Instead, the show has preferred either smaller groups (Season 13’s “RuPaulmark” movie trailers) or cast-wide challenges (Season 12’s “Gay’s Anatomy”) in recent seasons. I like the big groups, though, because it gives us a sense of how the queens handle putting forth their own creative visions. That gets taken up a notch this time, as the groups seemingly write their own material for their Season 14 superteases.

The result is two very strong skits—although I think Maddy Morphosis’ team is clearly the better of the two—but also some clear faltering by former frontrunners. If you’d told me that Alyssa, Kornbread and Kerri Colby would’ve been in the bottom three this early after their performances in the premiere, I wouldn’t have believed you. And in some ways, I would’ve been right not to, since a couple of their placements are sketchy. (Let’s just say Jorgeous is right to feel lucky to be safe in Untucked.) But the end result is a shift in the status quo, and a clear establishing of who our actual frontrunners are.

We start this episode with capital “D” Drama, as Kornbread is very annoyed with Jasmine. As we saw last week in Untucked—and as she helpfully demonstrates repeatedly in this opening act—Jasmine has a bit of a problem with talking over others. She confesses a dislike for silence, and tries to fill it with her own talking. Kornbread would like Jasmine to listen to other people instead! This seems like a reasonable request, one that Jasmine could’ve just taken and quietly applied.

Unfortunately, Jasmine does not find it easy to stop interrupting others, and Kornbread only grows more irritated. It’s a bit of a slow car crash to watch: Jasmine thinks that by quietly taking notes during her group’s brainstorming session, she’ll be doing what Kornbread asked of her. But she feels a need to deliver a whole monologue about why she’s doing it and how her degree in marketing and communications makes her well-suited for this challenge. Kornbread, in response, snaps at Jasmine for writing while others are talking, and as their teammates note, the whole thing just gets too tense to bear. (In a confessional, Bosco says that Kornbread is basically mad at Jasmine for breathing at this point.)

This whole thing is uncomfortable, and it just goes on way, way too long. Eventually they channel it into their sketch, playing it up for comedy (at Jasmine’s suggestion), which feels like the best approach. But it’s a long way to get there, and a lot of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills-style passive-aggressive sniping to endure. I love Housewives, but not on my Drag Race.

The issue on Maddy’s team is much simpler: Alyssa’s got a lot of ideas, but no one likes them much. Everyone else is feeding off each other’s concepts, and they generally work very well together. But this makes Alyssa stand out all the more, and when she doesn’t do great during the challenge filming, it’s like flashing a big red sign that she’s in trouble. Jorgeous gets a similar treatment back on Willow Pill’s team, but there’s enough other chaos over there that she doesn’t stand out as inferior, despite delivering what I think is the flattest performance of the week.

On the runway, the theme is Night of 1,000 J.Los, and the girls mostly acquit themselves well! There are no unconditional stunners, but the queens who do best wisely find a J.Lo look that fits their typical style. Angeria comes the closest to knocking this challenge out of the park, dripping in silver to emulate J.Lo’s Met Gala look. DeJa Skye goes the furthest afield with her interpretation of J.Lo’s Video Music Awards stagewear, but it looks good on her regardless. Points to Maddy for the most unexpected choice, dressing up as Jennifer Lopez at President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

If it all feels a bit safe, though, there’s likely a reason for that. Someone on Twitter before the episode aired claimed to have seen the list of approved J.Lo runway concepts, only to find they were quite limited. I take this with a grain of salt, but it’s worth noting that they were responding to someone asking for a runway inspired by J.Lo’s work in The Cell—and indeed, Maddy posted a Cell look on Instagram that she wasn’t permitted to wear.

I get that the show is worried about another Kimonogate, the infamous Madonna runway in Season 8 when half the cast wore kimono looks. But if the reports of tight control on this category are true, it feels like we lose any sense of genuine surprise in the process. Sure, only one queen wears a green Versace dress—and Kerri has the actual 2019 update of the dress, to boot. But while she looks stunning (and Willow is appropriately gagged), it isn’t a great moment of transformation. It’s just the look. 

I don’t know, maybe I’m being cranky about this. Everyone looked solid-to-good! But I do believe you need some wow factor to really make a Drag Race runway iconic, and that was missing this week.

The superteases, as mentioned, are both really funny. If the old adage is “write what you know,” then “act what you know” must be its cousin, as the queens are all quite able to perform as themselves. Only Alyssa, Jorgeous and, shockingly, Kornbread really miss the mark, although Kerri and Orion Story have a few flat line readings here and there. Meanwhile, there are several standouts, including Bosco, DeJa, Willow and challenge-winner Angeria. 

The latter two in particular are absolutely dominating this competition, having won or scored high in every episode they’ve competed in so far. Willow’s commitment to a woman who thinks she’s on The Bitchelor is extraordinary, while Angeria’s line deliveries are hilarious. (“This is not RuPaul’s Southern Hospitality Race!”) While Angie takes the win, either of them could have been the victor. At this rate, it’ll be difficult for anyone else to break up their monopoly on the top spots—particularly as frontrunners like Kornbread and Kerri falter.

Kornbread is ultimately saved from lip-syncing, though I think she should’ve been in the bottom with Jorgeous instead. She’s just way too one-note in her performance, going from zero to 100 and staying there. Her runway is an improvement from recent offerings, but not so great as to negate her disappointing acting challenge work. 

However, the judges want Kerri to worry less about being pretty, and they make her fight for her spot to stay opposite Alyssa to the tune of J.Lo’s “Play.” I don’t think either queen deserves their bottom slot, so it makes this lip sync a frustrating one to watch. Alyssa does really well in the first half, but then brings out a money gun that malfunctions at a pivotal moment. She recovers as best as she can, but she gets a little too high-energy after, as if to make up for the mistake. Still, I think she’s far better than Kerri, who looks more nervous about damaging the Versace dress and thus barely moves.

Ultimately, between the two, the show is more invested in Kerri, and the prop malfunction provides a clear reason to keep her around. Alyssa does not have a gold bar in her chocolate—because oh yes, we are doing this reveal every week this season—and sashays away. It’s sad to lose her, particularly after we learn about her and her gay father coming out to each other, and especially after a challenge she wasn’t the worst in. But production clearly has some favourite queens in the bunch this go-around, and Alyssa isn’t one of them. I’m glad Kerri sticks around, but I can’t say it feels like a fair fight.

A solid episode, but I’m not sure it restores my faith in Season 14 just yet. I’m looking forward to many more weeks with these queens; I just hope we don’t see the seams of production quite so blatantly in future episodes. All reality TV is produced, but the best of it never lets you see the strings being pulled. Right now, there are a few too many visible strings—and one just yanked Alyssa right out of this competition.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨Kornbread references Silky Nutmeg Ganache’s infamous “if I had to lip sync for my life, I was motherfucking ready” exclamation from a Season 11 Untucked in her performance. Funny enough, when this season was filmed, these queens did not know that Silky had finally made very good on her promise.

✨Really don’t feel good about Michelle Visage comparing Alyssa’s performance to Yara Sofia! The regular judges have been a bit all over the map this season—the comments have ranged from the unhelpful (where did Ross Mathews’ sharp critiques from Seasons 9 and 10 go?) to the tone deaf (Michelle saying she couldn’t understand Kornbread in Episode 1). I thought the show might use the off-season to freshen up the judges’ panel, considering how positively received recurring judges Nicole Byer, Ts Madison and Loni Love were last season. Alas.

✨Speaking of Loni, she’s back this week! And she’s the only one on the panel who gives really good critiques, honing in on what worked or didn’t work comedically. I love that she explains she feels a responsibility as a comic to push Kornbread to do more than food jokes. It’s specific, from-the-heart advice that will really help Kornbread not just on the show, but in her drag.

✨Listen: I love J.Lo. Love her. Her Selena performance? Legendary. Her in Hustlers? Deserved the Oscar. “Let’s Get Loud”? A bop! But all that said, I think she could’ve done more than just a short video message for the dolls. She really could’ve been the premiere judge, à la Lady Gaga and Christina Aguilera. If not that, then something like the video chats Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson and Angela Bassett did in last year’s seasons would’ve been totally fine. This just fell a bit flat. (Though props to her for retweeting and commenting on the episode’s runway looks and lip sync!)

✨Once again, the funniest moments of the episode come from the self-described “Auntie Corner” with Angeria, Kornbread and Kerri. This week, they discuss “birdwatching”—checking out guys’ packages—to the confusion-turned-to-delight of Lady Camden. Angeria saying “toucans” will stay with me for days to come.

✨I may feel like the too-much-talking conflict plays out for too long, but it absolutely peaks when Kornbread said of Jasmine: “She’s very oatmeal raisin.”

✨My resistance to the chocolate bar twist remains strong, but I am still weak for the sad horns (plus Ru’s dramatic sighs) when the eliminated queens reveal their chocolate. The horns are just so funny!

✨We’ll be back next week with the next Drag Race U.S. recap, but we’ve actually got something else to cover beforehand! Tomorrow marks the premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Versus The World, and we’ll be recapping that for its abbreviated season on Wednesdays. So check back on Feb. 2 for our recap of the international All-Stars season’s premiere!

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race will air Friday, Feb. 4, at 8 p.m. EST on VH1 in the U.S. and on Crave in Canada. Check back every Monday and Tuesday after new episodes for our recaps and power rankings, and subscribe to our drag newsletter Wig! for exclusive Drag Race content delivered straight to your inbox every Tuesday afternoon.