Rupaul’s Drag Race stays in second gear with ”Drag Movie Shequels”

Rupaul’s Drag Race All Stars sticks to the tried-and-true template for a fun episode featuring the queens starring in cheesy fake movie sequels.

Like last week, the new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars is just okay. And like last week, it comes up short of the first two episodes of the season because it doesn’t let the queens shine.

Last night, the girls stared in “shequels,” fake sequels to camp classics…and Thelma & Louise. It’s a fun idea in concept—in addition to Thelma, the queens take on sequels to Showgirls (Showsquirrels) and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (Wha’ Ha’ Happened to Baby JJ?)—but they don’t write any of the dialogue themselves. And the dialogue that’s written for them is terrible. (A sample from Showsquirrels: “I guess you don’t…Nomi.”)

Now, granted, terrible doesn’t necessarily mean unenjoyable. That’s particularly true of drag, where everything is covered in 50 coats of irony already. But this is still an episode where the producers, rather than the queens, are the main creative force behind the challenge. And that’s a shame, because the girls on All Stars are creative forces to be reckoned with.

Image: Logo TV/Screencap

Of the pack, only Alaska, as Baby JJ, really stands out. She’s enthusiastic about playing a woman who’s “old and crazy and evil” right from the start, and her Bette Davis impression is impeccable, from the pancake makeup to the vocal cadence to the domineering attitude. The Wha’ Ha’ Happened to Baby JJ? sketch is the best of the three, and it’s entirely thanks to her. Alyssa, doing a limp Joan Crawford impression, fades into the background. Then again, that’s kind of what happens in the original movie, so maybe she’s going for realism?

Meanwhile, Phi Phi does a solid job of aping Gina Gershon in Showgirls, complete with some endearingly spazzy references to the dance moves in that movie. (Yes, she’s technically supposed to be playing the Elizabeth Berkley role, but whatever—at least she’s entertaining.) Roxxxy Andrews’ performance, on the other hand, lacks texture. But ultimately, the sketches are only as good as the meh-level writing allows them to be. This means that the best part of the episode is the runway.

Theme is: two outfits in one, inspired by Violet Chachki’s English flying squirrel look from Season 7. Pretty much everyone brings it in some form or another. Phi Phi and Roxxxy play it straight and do it well. Phi Phi’s duel-look is inspired by how Belle looks at the beginning and the end of Beauty and the Beast, while Roxxxy does two takes on the prototypical Latin diva.

Image: Logo TV/Screencap

Katya and Alaska, being Katya and Alaska, go for comedy. Katya’s reveal may be minimalistic, but her story—that her ’60s party girl character got kidnapped, Sharon Tate-style, and turned on to Satanism (complete with a bloody pentagram carved into her forehead)—is twisted and hilarious in a way only she could manage. Really, her look alone justifies the limp sketches. Where else will you see that kind of thing on TV?

But Alaska offers the most complete look. She starts out looking like a pile of artfully arranged garbage bags, and then flips them off to reveal…Lil’ Pound Cake, the drag puppet she created back in Season 5. RuPaul loves references within references within references, so this goes over well with the judges, and gives Alaska a chance to pile on garish cartoon makeup while flipping off the audience.

Again, just look at all the creativity the queens showed on the runway, and imagine what they could do if they were allowed to channel it into a main challenge. Let them be great, show!

After the critiques, Ru gives top honors to Alaska (duh) and Phi Phi (sure), and puts Katya, Alyssa, and Roxxxy in the bottom. That’s interesting, since last week there was just a bottom two. She may be trying to inject some drama back into this portion of the competition, but the notion of the best-performing queens eliminating the worst is starting to wear thin. When Alaska sits down with each of the three queens up for elimination, everybody seems like they’re going through the motions. Thank god that Alaska has her Lil’ Pound Cake makeup on. She can’t help but look funny in that stuff.

Things pick up during the lip sync, to Cheryl Lynn’s disco classic “Got to Be Real.” It’s the most evenly matched lip sync of the year so far. Phi Phi (freshly changed) again plays it straight, staying sexy and slinky and settling into the groove of the song. Alaska, showing the kind of outside-the-box thinking that will probably win her this competition, stays in character as Lil’ Pound Cake, throwing Phi Phi hateful glances and getting right up in her face.

In the end, Ru chooses creativity over proficiency, and gives Alaska the top spot for the second time this season. And thus, an emotional elimination and a strong runway save “”Drag Movie Shequels” from mediocrity.

And the night’s not over. Remember that problem the show had earlier with the tired backstage discussions about elimination? In the final minute, it solves that issue, too. The queens walk back into the workroom, Phi Phi starts whining about favoritism, we’re bored, and then the four eliminated queens show up on the other side of what it ends up is a two-way mirror. What does this mean? What happens now? Why are they in full drag? Is it a trick of the light that makes Alyssa’s eyes look so huge and pale? I don’t know, but I am completely on board for more of this reality TV nonsense.

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Random Ruflections

• If nothing else, I’ll miss Alyssa’s malapropisms. She drops a great one tonight, shouting “Rigor Morris!” for no particular reason. Honestly, even if she had gotten it right and said “Rigor Mortis,” it still wouldn’t have made any sense, which is another reason she’s a national treasure. (And let’s not forget her inability to say “Doo dah.”)
• Phi Phi on Phi Phi: “I don’t wanna leave the competition until I’ve had a chance to make the world fall in love with Phi Phi.” As Detox pointed out, Phi Phi came into the competition wanting to rehabilitate her image as an over-competitive backstabber, but her manipulative streak has been cropping up recently. For example, tonight she browbeat Roxxxy into switching characters and refused to meet with the queens up for elimination. Is this behavior just compulsive? Is she getting a bad edit? Whatever it is, it’d be a shame if talk about her personality overshadowed her talent, because Phi Phi O’Hara knows her way around a costume.
• When stuck in a tricky situation, Katya asks herself something everyone should ask: “What the hell would Amy Sedaris do?” And come to think of it, Katya’s little tongue whips during Velma & Weezy did remind me of Sedaris’ work on Strangers with Candy.
• Todrick Hall: “I’m gonna have to give your girls two thumbs up.” RuPaul: “Try three. They’ll enjoy it much more.” So does Ru have this repartee written ahead of time or what?
• Even though Alyssa went home, she wasn’t really bad. On All Stars, no one’s a true liability. In fact, her outfit on the runway was downright fantastic, a campy concoction studded with working cameras clamped all over it. See above re: national treasure.
• And oh my god, Alyssa’s final message to girls: “It’s not personell (sic)…it’s drag! P.S. Log off.” What the hell does that even mean? I’m missing her more by the second.