‘RuPaul’s Drag Race UK’ Season 3, Episode 6 recap: Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory

Remember in the recap for the last episode in which I argued that the no-win result and tough talk on the runway would be the shake-up that RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 3 so clearly needs? 

To quote Canada’s Drag Race’s Icesis Couture, “I lied, bitch.” 

Or rather, I was led to a lie by the show. Because this week’s instalment? This is not the result of a shake-up. This is not new wind in the season’s sails. The wind is gone. It left with River Medway and Choriza May.

That’s right: after an episode in which Ru laid down the law and set new expectations, this one featured the franchise’s third-ever double sashay, sending two major fan favourites home. It is just about the most devastating possible result you could imagine for a season already on its last legs, and it leaves us wondering: What’s the point of going on? You’ve got five queens left and four episodes to go, which mathematically requires another double shantay or some other non-elimination twist. 

That means more time with a top five that RuPaul has repeatedly made clear is not measuring up to his standard. Yet, even as he says that, he also tells the cast that the judges have to split hairs “at this point in the competition.” What point is that? Just last week, Ru told all the queens they were under par, and refused to award a winner for the first time ever. We’re not splitting hairs; we’re still trying to separate wheat from chaff. And so it is maddening to see two queens who had been, by this season’s standard, doing quite well chopped in an arguably undeserved double sashay. (Neither is great, but River is fine enough to survive in my book.)

In theory, at least, an evenly matched group should still produce some interesting competition, even if they’re falling short. The problem, however, is that it actually isn’t an evenly matched competition, because RuPaul can’t stop breathlessly praising Krystal Versace no matter what she does. This week, for instance, she gets critiqued by the other judges for her Charity Shop Sue in Snatch Game, and Michelle Visage calls out her runway as using the same silhouette as her look from the third episode. You know what that gets her from Ru? A declaration that “at 19, you have found what it is that God has chosen for you.”

That’s right: Ru invokes God to declare that she was “born to be a drag queen.” I mean, what are we doing here? Why are we spending another month on this season to get to a result that feels all but predetermined? And even if someone pulls off an improbable run in the back half of this competition, what’s to stop Ru from ignoring the trajectory of the queens once again as he did when he awarded Lawrence Chaney the win over Bimini Bon Boulash? It genuinely just feels like a futile exercise.

If I sound irritated, know that’s because I am! This is one of the most frustrating episodes of Drag Race I’ve seen in years. And it doesn’t have to be. Snatch Game, for all its flaws as a challenge, usually does produce a fun show. There have been episodes with terrible Snatch Games that have gone down as series-best instalments (looking at you, Season 11). And while most of the performances ranged from funny enough to dull, no one was static: there was a lot going on throughout the game.

But everything around the game is a mess. The Reading is Fundamental mini-challenge is the sole other bright spot—we’ll get into some of the best reads in the final thoughts section. Immediately after it, we get Ru’s consultations with the queens about their characters, and for some reason he tries, over and over again, to get them to change course. 

Choriza went so far as to call the whole thing “fucking bullshit” in an interview with Buzzfeed UK, and for good reason. RuPaul’s suggestion that she play Cher instead of Margarita Pracatan was based on absolute nonsense. And while he did steer two contestants into good choices, they seemed prepared to do those as backups—the Cher suggestion was just out of nowhere.

I have a conspiracy theory, based on the common belief in fan circles that this season started filming shortly after the Snatch Game episode of UK’s second season. While Bimini’s Katie Price was instantly iconic, the characters chosen otherwise were largely incomprehensible to a non-U.K. audience. (As I said in my recap at the time, that’s not a knock—this is a British show—but American audiences were confused by some of the characters.) Ru is so insistent on steering the queens into more recognizable picks that I have to assume it was a reaction to the previous Snatch Game.

Somehow, Ru hijacking other queens’ Snatch Games is not the worst part of the episode, though. Nor is the double sashay, though that comes really damn close. Even the underwhelming fruit runway isn’t the worst part, though Nina Bo’Nina Brown’s peach remains the superior Drag Race fruit look. No, my vote for the worst segment of the episode goes to the mirror chat before the runway. 

I’ve mentioned before that this cast is historically bad at organically introducing producer-fed prompts into the conversation. Well, history gets made once again with this howler of a transition from Vanity Milan: “Do you know what’s funny about the Snatch Game is, you had to play a character,” she says. “It takes me back to being young in school, and having to play a straight person.”

Look, if Vanity’s getting a prod from the producers to get the queens to open up about their coming out experience—as they do in short order, with scoring rivaling that of the fake Mirror Moments in Canada’s Drag Race’s acting challenge this week—she’s gotta find some way in. But this is preposterous. It’s almost camp, honestly. And it’s a failure more on production’s part than the queens’ that they’re not coaching them to find their way into these subjects better. 

This whole season feels so damn rushed, it’s no wonder that we’re dropping any organic pretense for Mirror Moments. Why would we want to learn anything unique about these queens, some of whom we barely even know at final five (who even is Ella Vaday?), when we can instead transition to digging up coming out trauma for five full minutes?

Aside from the challenges, this episode is an across-the-board flop. Luckily, one of those challenges does have the saving grace: Ella’s Snatch Game. A queen I’ve been waiting to get to know better still remains a mystery, but she steps it up in a big way. She gets talked into portraying Nigella Lawson by Ru, but it doesn’t take much elbow grease—you can tell Ella had this one in her back pocket. 

She’s absolutely hilarious, going for the obvious jokes (yes, she gets a “mee-crow-wah-vay” in) and sexing up everything about her impersonation. But she finds all kinds of riffs and twists to the character. My favourite might be when Snatch Game player and Girls Aloud alum Nadine Coyle successfully petitions the judges to count their answers as matches, and Ella as Nigella responds: “It’s absolutely fabulous, Nadine Co-yah-le. It’s great! Oh, it’s lovely to see you. I don’t know where you’re from or what you do, but it’s gorgeous.”

Ru later tells Ella that hers is a textbook example of what to do to win Snatch Game, and I gotta agree. It’s so impressive to watch Ella just smash back every single ball lobbed at her like it’s nothing. This is why it’s hard to believe Ella didn’t have Nigella fully ready to go: she is prepared. She makes Snatch Game look easy, and she does it with a character we’ve never seen before. Is it better than Bimini’s Katie Price? Maybe not. But it’s great all on its own, and Ella more than earns her second RuPeter Badge.

I’d hesitate to call Ella a new frontrunner, considering how little we still know about her. But if anyone is going to pull an endgame run off (I know, I know, fool me once), I think it might be her. She has the momentum at the right time, and she’s the only one that Ru is anywhere near as excited as he is about Krystal. And hey, don’t forget: World of Wonder still has to produce a web series with the winner. “Cooking With NigElla,” anyone?

I’ll get more into the individual performances in tomorrow’s power ranking, but suffice it to say that Scarlett, Vanity, Krystal and Kitty Scott-Claus all skate to varying levels of safety. (Kitty is presumably second in line for the win, but I’d argue Ella’s performance is so dominant that no one else is even close.) And so Choriza and River must lip sync to Lulu’s “Shout” in front of the legend herself.

Make no mistake: just because I find this double sashay unnecessary doesn’t mean the lip sync is good. It’s pretty awful, especially from Choriza. But similarly to how I argue that both queens doing well doesn’t mean it should always be a double shantay—even when both do well, one can do better—so will I argue that River being distinctly better than Choriza should’ve saved her. She isn’t good, but she does enough. Unfortunately, Ru, seemingly fed up with most of this cast at this point, just decides to rip the bandage off and get rid of both of them.

So we head into the ball challenge with a final five, one of whom (Kitty) still hasn’t won anything; one of whom has been most notable for fighting with her castmates (Scarlett); one of whom has consistently underwhelmed the judges (Vanity); one of whom is our presumptive winner (Krystal); and one of whom who might, might, make a challenge for the win (Ella). Forgive me if I’m not that excited about that potential endgame.

But hey, at least there’s Canada’s Drag Race. If you’re not watching it, I truly cannot recommend it enough.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨Just a reminder that we’ve officially shifted our publication schedule for the UK recaps and rankings. These recaps will now come out regularly on Mondays for the rest of the season, while the rankings will publish on Tuesdays (including the one for this episode tomorrow).

✨This is a pretty great round of Reading Is Fundamental. Far fewer of the same kinds of jokes we’ve heard for seasons now, and a lot more playing with form, especially from winner Choriza. She has a great bit in which she keeps accidentally reading Krystal with drags she prepared for Vanity, then Ella, then even herself. But of course it’s Scarlett whose performance attracts the most attention, as she just fully vents her issues with the other queens. “Ooh, River, I didn’t see you there,” she says to the queen who called her out for interrupting others. “You make absolutely no impression at all!” Not particularly funny, but I admire how she really goes for the jugular.

✨Props to Nadine Coyle and Loose Women’s Judi Love for being so game and fun as Snatch Game contestants. We’ve seen a wide variety of players across the years, some invested (Tamar Braxton and Michael Urie), some not (Gigi Hadid and Chanel Iman), so it’s always great when the celebs show up and show out.

✨All the love in the world for Lulu in this episode. She may not have any particularly incisive critiques, but she’s clearly having such a ball. Judging by her reactions, you’d think the lip sync would be a double shantay! Alas.

✨So let’s talk about the Scarlett drama a bit. While I don’t think it’s her most elegant moment to throw River’s previous criticisms of her back in her face when she’s in the bottom, I get her frustrations. The rest of the queens have told her that she was negative—a claim she says was more true of Charity Kase—as well as accusing her of complaining about being tired (which, unless I’ve forgotten, has never come out of Scarlett’s mouth on camera?). They also repeatedly tell her she cuts them off, which is one of those reality TV critiques I never fully get. People cut each other off in conversations, it’s natural! Anyway, I’m pretty solidly Team Scarlett, but I don’t think this conflict makes anyone in particular look great.

✨Choriza gets very upset in mini-Untucked about the judges calling her runway look just okay, and I gotta say, I agree with her. Out of a lineup of underwhelming fruit looks, her peachy tribute to Carmen Miranda is one of my favourites. God, I’m gonna miss her.

✨There’s apparently a timed element to this season’s ball challenge? I cannot wait to see how this group of queens, who have demonstrated themselves to be disappointing to Ru even in the most comfortable of circumstances, handle the immense pressure of a deadline.

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK will be available to stream Thursday, Nov. 4, 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. Our recap of that episode will be available the following Monday, Nov. 8.