‘RuPaul’s Drag Race UK’ Season 3, Episode 8 recap: In space, no one can hear you overact

If this season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK has had any consistent theme, it’s that the production has often seemed improvisational. Victoria Scone, one of the most-hyped contestants, injured herself and only made it through two episodes. Veronica Green, a perceived frontrunner sidelined by COVID-19 during UK Season 2, was too mired in her own struggles to compete at the appropriate level and went home early. 

The competition has also been disrupted repeatedly by a series of non-traditional elimination formats: a top two lip sync for the win, a non-elimination, a non-winner challenge, a double elimination and now this: a double win and a non-elimination at the final four.

I mean, sure. Why not?

With no clear map or plan, Drag Race UK Season 3 has forged a new path at the same time as it has walked it. The result has been interesting, but not quite impressive. The arbitrary nature of a lot of the judging and elimination decisions, most notably the double sashay, has stymied any kind of momentum the season could have built. And now, at the very end, we’re stretching out what seems like an inevitable elimination just to fill out the episode count.

Because make no mistake: despite all the talk about Vanity Milan being able to lip sync her way into the finale, it’s very clear that the show does not plan on allowing such a thing to happen. It may have taken production a while to settle on a Victoria- and Veronica-free final three, but they seem to have locked in on Ella Vaday and Kitty Scott-Claus as the correct choices to join always-planned frontrunner Krystal Versace in the finale. And Vanity, despite her growth and lip sync abilities, is facing an uphill battle to get to the end.

The maxi-challenge this week is an acting task, with a reference-loaded sci-fi script called “Bra Wars.” Kitty, as last week’s maxi-challenge winner, gets to assign the roles. She promptly turns this into a chance to camp it up and wrings the duty for all the screen time it’s worth. She basically turns Drag Race UK briefly into Kitty’s X Factor, making all the queens audition for their parts on the spot. It’s a masterful bit of production from Kitty, and were it not so dang enjoyable I’d be mad at her for making us take so much time on casting yet again.

Once the queens are in their roles, everyone’s basically where you’d expect they are: Ella’s in the villainous Darth Shader part, Kitty’s the star as Brabarella and Krystal is a fembot named “She-3P-Hoe.” Vanity thus gets stuck with the head-in-a-box role of “Baby Yolo,” which looks incredibly uncomfortable to perform. (That said, Vanity lamenting getting a head-only role strikes me as short-sighted. Darienne Lake won with such a role back in Season 6!)

The script is very heavy-handed with the references, but overall it’s more fun than not. You’re only ever going to get a certain level of quality with these; Ru himself acknowledges that the material is inherently mediocre. But while I can’t quite co-sign Ru saying the acting challenges reveal something about the queen’s psyches—I burst out laughing when he said that—I do think the mediocrity is part of the point. How much can a queen elevate material that necessitates elevation?

On this point, Kitty does the best. She takes on the protagonist role with aplomb, selling every cheesy line delivery like this is her day job. You can tell the win last week really emboldened Kitty to lean into what’s naturally great about her: this is a confident, assured performance from someone who knows her place in this competition. Guest judge Russell Tovey raves about her as a star, and it’s easy to see why.

One person who doesn’t necessarily elevate the material, but really understands the assignment is Krystal. It takes a bit of direction from Michelle Visage for her to really get into the She-3P-Hoe character, but once she does, she gives a remarkable C3PO parody performance. And on the runway, in a “Scene Stealers” movie category, she takes the judges’ breath away in a stunner of a Cruella look. I’d have put Krystal in the top two, but someone else edges into that spot instead—putting Krystal in theoretical danger of having to lip sync.

The other top queen is not Vanity, but she deserves all the credit in the world for making “Baby Yolo” work for her. It’s a crude, one-note part—talking about farting in a Yoda voice—but Vanity doesn’t let that stop her from going hard for every punchline. What ultimately keeps her from being a top contender is her runway, which goes back to the orange well once again and draws the judges’ ire for being repetitive with her charity shop look in the Fugly Pageant.

No, instead, it’s Ella in a very different type of orange who joins Kitty in the top. She dresses as an Oompa Loompa on the runway. It’a a real curveball that seems to appeal to the judges for being unexpected. It doesn’t work quite as well for me, though, and I similarly think her Darth Shader character is just solid. She’s a self-described actress, so a solid performance is expected. But other than rubbing her hands on her leather pants, I don’t remember much about what she did. Certainly I remember less than I do of Krystal and Vanity’s performances.

Regardless, Ella joins Kitty in the lip sync for the win, after a fake-out that makes it seem like they’re actually the bottom two. This is meant to be a bit of payoff after they were too confident about their win in mini-Untucked… but it’s dubious how effective that is considering they still win. It’s a scare, but one that lasts for all of a couple minutes.

Anyway, Ella and Kitty lip sync to Girls Aloud’s “Something New.” Kitty is most naturally suited to this as a member of Cheryl Hole’s Girls Aloud drag tribute group, but we’ve seen neither she nor Ella lip sync yet. I almost wonder, as I put my tinfoil hat back on, if this top two isn’t designed to give the judges and producers the best idea of who will be able to survive a lip sync against Vanity next week. We’ve seen how Krystal did in the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” lip sync at the start of the season, and now we’ve seen these two. None of them has had to lip sync for their life even once, but we still have an idea of how they all perform. Interesting, no?

It winds up being a tie, and while that’s kind of silly (I’d have given Kitty the solo win), I appreciate that it gets more RuPeter Badges into the game. There are now eight won by the top four collectively, with Ella winning one more than the average and Vanity one less. It keeps things feeling competitive for the track record queens going into the finale, and makes next week’s comedy challenge all the more crucial. Whoever can steal that final win is likely in the best place going into the finale. Considering she’s on a hot streak, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if by this time next week, Kitty’s “Scott” three badges to her name.

Untucking our final thoughts

✨How do we feel about these last-minute acting challenges? We’ve had quite a few now: this, UK Season 2’s “BeastEnders,” Season 13’s “Henny, I Shrunk the Drag Queens,” and so on. The quality of those has been much higher on average than your previous early season, two-team acting challenges, but I think that might be more about the format than the number of queens left. (Season 12’s “Gay’s Anatomy” and Canada Season 2’s “Screech” were both great with bigger casts.) Ultimately, it’s mostly a matter of taste; I probably prefer this format, but wouldn’t mind if it were at final seven instead of four or five.

✨Kitty putting on talent agent drag—complete with a “Kitty Scott Talent Agency” clipboard—is the kind of commitment to a bit that I can’t help but love.

✨Is it time to finally have a conversation about how, despite roles on Drag Race seemingly being cast on the fly, queens in latter seasons always seem to have looks perfect for them? (The Madonna Rusical is the greatest offender of this for me, with an extended bit about casting that somehow ended with all of them in perfect Madonna outfits for their “assigned” characters.) I’m fine with the idea that the show is assigning the parts ahead of time if that’s indeed what’s happening, but I just want them to be honest!

✨Once again, the fact that this season started filming while Drag Race UK Season 2 was still airing becomes notable, as the queens don’t know Tayce successfully won four lip syncs and thus question if Vanity would be accomplishing a record feat if she did. (Though in fact, it was Miss Abby OMG on Drag Race Holland who did it first.)

✨Vanity giving us another BAPS reference on the runway, in the same calendar year that Symone and Utica did on Season 13! Halle Berry representation has never been higher on this show.

✨We’ve gotten a new drag show announcement since we last met: Queens of the Universe is coming, and Drag Race U.S. three-time finalist Jujubee is competing once again. How will she fare in a pure singing competition? And how will it feel for her to be judged by Trixie Mattel, her fellow RuGirl? I’m excited for this one, if only because the format change could really liven things up.

The next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK will be available to stream Thursday, Nov. 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. Our recap of that episode will be available the following Monday, Nov. 22—this author’s 30th birthday!