Review: RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9, Episode 4—”Good Morning Bitches”

RuPaul’s Drag Race finds drama in unexpected, sometimes uncomfortable places in “Good Morning Bitches.” (Episode not affiliated with Good Morning, Vietnam.)

Well, that was sad.

Not the episode as a whole. “Good Morning Bitches” isn’t going to go down in history as one of the great Drag Race episodes, but there was fun to be had. That lip sync, though — damn. I can remember a couple queens from the past who, when confronted with the indignity of being in the bottom two, threatened to put forth no effort — Jasmine Masters from season 7 comes to mind. But when push came to shove, Jasmine delivered, and even though she was sent home, she could leave knowing she’d tried her best. Charlie was defeated and acted like it, and that’s not fun to watch.

Up until this point, Charlie Hides has come off as an underdog. Her runway looks have been consistently excellent — tonight, her nightgown was fashionable, sexy and understated — but she had yet to crack the top three. An extremely skilled impressionist, I was looking forward to seeing Charlie in the Snatch Game (watch one of her YouTube videos below for a sample of what we’re missing), but after she straight-up folded during a performance of Britney Spears “I Wanna Go,” there’s no question it was her time to leave. “I’m nota lip sync performer,” she explained, as if that excused anything. “99% of the acts in London sing live. So I just need her to say it, ‘Sashay away.'” Okay, so Charlie might never have been able to beat Trinity, who tore up the floor so bad Ru gonna need her contractor, but does she want this to be America’s last impression of her? As a girl who can’t even be bothered to give a damn when the going gets tough?

Sometimes, fans bat around the notion that RuPaul’s Drag Race casts “filler queens.” I’m not sure I buy that, but I do think certain contestants turn themselves into filler queens. Charlie had some fascinating moments in this episode — watching her break down as she remembered the friends she lost during the height of the AIDS crisis was heartbreaking, and in sharp contrast to the tightly controlled persona she presents most of the time. There was a lot more to explore there, but if she doesn’t care enough to show it, we’re not going to care to see it.

I agree with Michelle that Nina Bo’Nina Brown could be in similar danger. Nina is so freaking talented — however she performs in the challenges, her outfits are consistently the most interesting on the runway. The theme tonight was “Naughty Nighties,” and she came out as a terrifying cartoon zombie hooker with an impossible shape and a face that could raise the dead…or kill someone in their tracks. It was great.

She did well in the morning talk show challenge, too. As a drag style expert on Not on Today, she improvised well with Eureka and sold the prop-based comedy, all while serving The Lady Chabliss realness with a look completely dissimilar to the one she wore on the runway. Nina is a wildly creative queen, yet she was picked last for the challenge and got teary before her critique, even though the judges had nothing but compliments. Michelle said it best: “The vulnerability is so raw I just worry about her.” Just because a queen is inventive or polished doesn’t mean they’re secure, and I hope Nina’s insecurity doesn’t sink her like it did Charlie.

Those were the highlights of a pretty standard group challenge episode. The girls divided into two teams and appeared on competing morning talk shows: Good Morning Bitches and Not On Today. And just one more thing: they had to do it…live! Although that seems like a weird way to put it. It really meant that they couldn’t record their segment twice. Whatever.

The girls who do well are the ones willing to keep it loose. We already mentioned Nina and Eureka. Good Morning Bitches anchors Alexis Michelle and Farrah Moan get things off to a good start with some easy banter, but no one delivers harder than Shea Couleé and Sasha Velour. They dive head first into a double entendre-laced cooking segment bristling with campy sexual tension. It’s the polar opposite of what happens between Charlie and Cynthia Lee Fontaine, the entertainment reporters for Not on Today. There, Charlie insists on sticking to the script to the point where all sense of spontaneity and fun is drained from the performance, although some of Cynthia’s natural charisma makes it through. But Shea and Sasha are happy to roll with the punches, as when Shea takes a bite of a chocolate salad, clearly hates it, but pushes through, because this is live TV, baby, and there are no breaks.

Instead of falling to pieces, Shea and Sasha embrace the unpredictability of the challenge without letting it spin out of control, and are justly rewarded with a joint win. On the other hand, Aja and Valentina step on each others lines and mess up their timing as the entertainment reporters for Good Morning Bitches. They have the same chemistry problem Charlie and Cynthia have — one of them (Aja) is more improvisational while the other is more tightly controlled, although they aren’t at opposite ends of spectrum like Charlie and Cynthia. Charlie thrives on YouTube where she can control every aspect of production, but in a live setting with other people, she’s at a bit of a loss. She ensures her placement in the bottom two when, after the show moves into a celebrity interview segment, she steps on guest star Naya Rivera’s answer to a question. I suppose it makes sense that someone so precisely calibrated would have figured out how they were going to exit the show long ago.

As the anchors for Not on Today, Trinity and Peppermint also have a rough go of it, partly because their shady bitch characters aren’t a good fit for morning TV and partly because Peppermint flubs a few of her lines. As the group leader who steered the good ship Not on Today onto the rocks, Trinity’s performance lands her in the bottom with Charlie, but see above re: tore the floor up. I mean…my god — if Charlie gave even a quarter of the energy that Trinity did, this would have been a legendary lip sync.

Too bad she gave, y’know, a half percent at best. But my bitterness is showing. Dammit, this is a drag show and I demand the drag queens at least attempt to entertain me!

Beyond that, the episode devoted a lot of time to the ongoing feuds of the season. First up was Aja and Valentina, still getting over a memorable tiff from the previous episode of Untucked.

Basically, Aja still feels threatened by Valentina’s beauty and poise. Valentina, naturally, responds by being beautiful and poised. It’ll be interesting to see if Valentina’s feathers ever get ruffled this year. She seem uniquely, almost eerily unflappable. She’s either very mature for her age or she traded in her soul for that beret she wears in the talking head segments — it’s too early in the season to tell. In any case, the girls make up before the runway, where Aja shows off her best outfit and makeup of the season. So the rivalry is doing its job.

Meanwhile, Trinity and Eureka are having a good ol’ fashion pageant queen standoff. These are two fiercely competitive girls with a long history. If all goes well, will drive each other to become better and better until they face off in a lip sync for the ages. And when that happens, I know they’re both going to give it their all. If you’re lucky enough to be on this show, I think you owe yourself and the viewing public that much, at least.

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Random Ruflections

• You had to love cape-smock thing Sasha was wearing upon entering the workroom. And there was a giant hole in it! A hole-y cape-smock. I also dug her elbow-length green gloves during the challenge.
• Are there going to be any mini-challenges this season? I could do without them if we at least got a full runway, but we just got an abridged version this week. Where does the time go?
• Peppermint corrects herself: “I think the biggest challenge for Trinity is going to be keeping everybody in line. She got a lot of big personalities…look, she’s got Eureka on the team.”
• Trinity: “Eureka needs to shut up. I’m trying to be a good southern belle and not punch this bitch in the face.”
• Sasha calls Eureka out for making a joke about an eating disorder. Drag Race has often flown in the face of political correctness (do we all remember RuCo’s Empire?), so I’m not sure how to feel about this. It’s a serious subject, but I’d hate for Drag Race, of all shows, to restrict outrageous jokes.
• Ru loves to give the girls nicknames. This year, she’s decided to append other names onto the end of “Nina Bo’Nina Brown,” like so: “Nina Bo’Nina Brown Rodham Clinton.” I approve.
• The nightie runway went by in a flash, but Shea’s gold-and-purple one-piece stood out, as did Sasha’s gender-bending all-white lingerie. As the judges pointed out, Peppermint’s basic top and too-short skirt looked cheap. As they didn’t point out, Alexis’ boxy nightie was terrible. As for Cynthia, I enjoyed that she tried something different, but her outfits always look like they could use more finessing, and the angel wings made little to no sense.