An extended episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race proves the strength of the All Stars format. There’s blood in the water and the sharks are circling.
RuPaul’s Drag Race is two shows. First, there’s the talent competition — the lip syncing, the outfits, the comedy, and the rest. These girls are gifted, and they’re happy to show it.
The other part is the reality show, and episodes like “Divas Lip Sync Live” really play up that aspect. This week, we had a lip sync extravaganza — each of the girls was assigned a diva to impersonate and had to lip sync to prerecorded tracks of RuPaul songs, each one sung by one of the many terribly talented vocal imitators Ru seems to keep on call for challenges like these. They give very convincing, heightened takes of the divas on offer; their vocal performances might be my favorite thing about the episode.
The problem, if you want to call it that, is that this sort of challenge leaves the queens themselves with comparatively little to do. They don’t pick their characters, they don’t plan their own choreography, and they don’t write their own lyrics. They have to perform within a fairly constrained set of boundaries, and while that’s an important skill, it means they don’t get to show off all they have to offer.
That said, people can still mess up. Kennedy Davenport, playing Janet Jackson, seems timid and unfocused when it comes to the dance moves, which is baffling considering the high-octane acrobatic showstopper she put on last week. She’s a freestyler, you see, and choreography trips her up, which … okay. On top of that, she can’t remember the words and doesn’t much resemble Janet Jackson, so it’s a failure all around.
Once again, this group of queens doesn’t put on quite as good of a show as the batch from All Stars 2. During that lip sync extravaganza, everyone did at least a respectable job, and the judges had to pick nits deciding who was in the bottom 2. This time, Kennedy clearly belongs there.
What’s confusing is who joins her. The judges have almost nothing but lovely to things to say about Chi Chi DeVayne’s performance as Patti LaBelle, a role she tackles with all the high-spirited faux-holleration it requires, even if she muddies a few of the words. The only thing they criticize, and that only minutely, is her outfit, a reimagining of her Neon runway look from season 8. (That’s the runway gimmick: reimagining outfits they botched back in their seasons. It’s a fun idea.) And sure, it may not be the most inspired thing Chi Chi has ever worn, but if she’s in the bottom 2 just for wearing it, Milk should probably have been there as well — her runway look is clean and chic, if an incredibly loose interpretation of “Crazy Sexy Cool,” but her Celine Dion getup recalls very little about the famous diva.
I do give Milk credit for throwing herself into her part of the lip sync and nailing all the words with precision, but it’s a curious hair to split. Then there’s Thorgy Thor, who impersonates Stevie Nicks, a good choice for someone with her off-kilter sensibility. Her punch-drunk performance didn’t bowl me over, but seemed in character for Nicks, and she had the hat-hair-and-shawl game down. I knew Thorgy was in the bottom mainly because the show kept cutting to the judges looking slightly confused during her performance.
That brings up a question: in a challenge like this, when so much is out of the queens’ hands, is success or failure determined by what part you’re given, and is that fair? After all, the winners of the challenge, Shangela and BenDeLaCreme, were gifted with the two best-written roles. As Mariah Carey, Shangela is terrific. In addition to painting herself to be Mariah’s double, she brings a winning combination of “confusion and confidence” that puts her over the top. But she’s helped along hugely by the fact that the Mariah track, a parody of Mariah’s infamous 2017 New Year’s Eve performance, is big on spoken word. It allows Shangela to perform in character to a greater degree than a lot of the other girls. BenDeLaCreme gets a similar lift when she draws Julie Andrews. In the funniest performance of the night, she gets to grab her crotch while dressed up in Maria’s opening outfit from The Sound of Music, Andrews’ mellifluous voice contrasting hilariously with the raunchy lyrics to RuPaul’s “Call Me Mother.”
So the results of the challenge itself are left partly to fate. That’s death to tension. Where the show makes up for this is in the interpersonal drama department. The All Stars system, where the winning girls have to decide who to eliminate should they win the lip sync, is perfect for reality TV. Even if the girls want to be fair and friendly, there’s bound to be conflict when they’re forced to send home one of their own, or if they’re making their decisions in a way that’s out of step with the rest of the pack. BenDeLa purports to want to send girls home based on the judge’s critiques, but Shangela brings some Survivor into the mix by suggesting the possibility of forming alliances. “If I throw you a bone, I’m gonna expect a bone thrown back to me later on,” she says to Thorgy. The possibilities here are very tantalizing. With this setup, the show doesn’t need to create stakes; the girls will do it for them.
We also get a minor breakdown from Milk, who’s despondent she wasn’t in the top 3 and actually starts to cry. “I want [the judges] to congratulate me.” VH1 delivers the shade with some sad piano music. Trixie Mattel, always ready with a quip, is on the case. “I think that’s a lot of emotion for safe.” If Milk is this worked up when she’s safe, what are we gonna see when and if she’s in the bottom? The undercurrents of drama are going to mix and mingle and blow at some point, and I wanna see how it turns out.
It all ends with another terrific lip sync, this time between BenDeLa and Shangela. The Pointer Sisters return with “Jump,” another one of those songs you’re shocked to hear hasn’t already featured on the show.
Between Shangela jumping rope on stage and BenDeLaCreme tearing off the lower part of her outfit before falling into character and desperately aping Shangela’s moves, the lip sync was delightful. That’s another advantage of this format — if the best performers lip sync every week, the lip sync is probably going to be really good. I actually thought BenDeLa would win for a second week in a row, but Shangela deserves credit for taking the lead during the performance, and we wouldn’t want to create a winner edit for BenDeLa too soon. Still, she’s doing better than I think a lot of fans assumed she would.
In the end, Shangela sends Thorgy home, cutting off a possible redemption arc for one of the more unique queens to feature in the past few seasons. (“Gross,” Thorgy opines.) Whatever she may say, Thorgy clearly hadn’t gotten any better at getting out of her own way between season 8 and now — the number of times she brings Bob the Drag Queen up is proof of that. Girl likes a grudge. But this is All Stars, so no matter who goes home, it’s going to hurt. Going forward, that’s what I’m counting on.
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Random Ruflections
- Trixie: “Somebody really fierce, Morgan McMichaels, just sashayed away. Next week it could be me. It could be Shangela. Probably Chi Chi.” Trixie also looked terrific as Dolly Parton — of all the queens, she was the one who was most instantly recognizable. She blasted through the choreography, although with her padding and glittery jumpsuit, she could have just stood there and captivated me.
- Trixie: “It’s uncomfortable because (*whispers*) Chi Chi’s right there.”
- Trixie: “Milk, your talent can’t be velcro.” Trixie has to win at least one challenge this year, right?
- Shangela clearly watches a lot of Game of Thrones; she knew all of Daenerys’ titles.
- I thought the rehearsal segment with Todrick Hall was overlong, but that guy knows how to bring the drama. “I don’t wanna pressure you, but you do know that Diana Ross is RuPaul’s, like, diva of all time,” he says to BeBe Zahara Benet, clearly wanting to pressure her. You ever get the idea he wants to be a contestant?
- Speaking of BeBe, she was once again rock solid. Her high-powered CEO look was effortlessly chic, and her performance as Diana Ross was on point, even if there wasn’t a ton to it — compulsively touching her hair like Diana goes a long way.
- Thorgy: “It’s the Bob show, every second. There was just no room for anybody else, because his personality was so big. That’s what I was so “eye roll” about. With that said, I hope he dies.”
- It’s always funny when Ru shades Michelle at the judge’s table, even if it’s just for a bit.
- Aja does a good job of aping Amy Winehouse’s signature snarl during an artful stumble through RuPaul’s “You Wear It Well.” Her runway outfit is a big improvement on her princess getup from season 9, but just about anything would be.
- “Microphone drop.”
- Kennedy’s runway outfit is outstanding, revisiting one of her most embarrassing moments from season 7 and recontextualizing it for everybody who remembers that ridiculous speech about being thrown into a fire and crystallizing or whatever.
- I didn’t think Shangela’s outfit was anything to write home about, but the prop was great. You can’t beat rolling out on stage in a giant plastic bubble.
- BenDeLa brought a mood and a sparkle on the runway with her fringy, ruby-studded showgirl gear. She really was the best performer two weeks in a row, even if she lost the lip sync.
- Chi Chi DeVayne to Vanessa Williams, proving she still has that charm we fell in love with back in season 8: “Can I just say I loved you in Eraser? Eraser, baby, Eraser.”
- RuPaul: “Shangela, are you a Mariah fan?” Shangela: “I’m a huge Mariah fan, and I hope when she meets me, she won’t know me.”