'...and DON'T *bleep* IT UP!' -- the RuPaul's Drag Race thread

I got diagnosed with tendonitis

i have literally now heard everything

i’ve been a Miley stan from the Disney channel days, i love her so much & i thought she was awesome <3
(just quietly tho she should maybe get a restraining order against silky nutmeg bc jesus)
the hannah montana lipsync was hilar, such a weird shitshow

i love all the davenport girls but esp Honey, i love nina west, i’m into Canadian Detox Brooklyn whatever
i am here for them

i already hate Scarlet Envy she looks like the nightmare child of Tammie Brown & Violet Chachki.
and she’s Pearl’s drag daughter so it’ll be negligeès all the way down i guess

I’d have put Ms 3rd Last in the bottom two because her photoshoot was such a disaster and what a booooring outfit she made. But she probably would have stayed because it would be hard to do worse than that dire lipsynch.

I really, really, really wanted to love Silky but she makes it v hard
I did not hate Ariel nearly as much as I thought I would based on the 15 min preview
I really loved the *idea* of Soju and wanted her to stay for a minute but it was clear she is just not that good, also lmao at those overdrawn lips???

yeah, Soju seemed cool but was really just not ~together~ or ready enough for the show.

I enjoy Vanjie & her look but lord she needs a body glitter intervention. girl looks like she’s doing Goldfinger cosplay - she could use half as much & still look good

i was getting a good Nicole Byers vibe off Silky when she walked in. i def want to like her! i just hope she doesnt get booted before she eases up on the gas pedal

I have a feeling La Visage will say something about the Vanjie body glitter if it continues.

The conspicuous desperation is so off-putting, though, like if you're gonna play the game try to maybe be a bit more clever about it? It feels so artificial

wait so.....

it was very clear that soju was not ready to be on the show. the other queens were calling it out on air etc. they tried to edit into a storyline -- soju attempts to prove that she's an actual drag queen! -- but she's prob the least prepared queen in the show's history. i found it embarrassing and i feel bad for her... i see she's trying to make a meme out of going on national tv and talking about how a cyst on her taint exploded while she was on an airplane, and like yeah you can certainly make that kinda thing your brand but i don't think that's how she saw this going. anyway i find it hard to believe the producers didn't realize all of this beforehand and though i don't *think* they cast her with the intention of making a fool out of her, i wonder what they really thought was going to happen

also i find it extremely lame that they cast a fuckin RECAPPER to be on the show. drag race has this myopia about its own mythology that i find to be kinda suffocating at this point & between soju and vanjie and the summoning or invocation of like two dozen old queens this episode really started to push the limit for me

oh & the cast is like a third queens whose drag mothers are old drag race queens. it's just a lot

I sometimes wonder if the ultimate goal of the show is to create a mega All-Stars season where it's all the past champions in a fight to the death, and then Ru finally retires.

Yeah, the show's reached peak Marvel Cinematic Universe monocultural insularity. I too don't know what they were getting at with Soju.

Also, have a feeling its trajectory is going to mirror The Simpsons'.

Pretty sure the producers decided to say fuck saturation we’re riding this thing into the ground.

Ru's early career certainly gives her all reason to make the most when the iron's hot.

I mean we've already reached the 'people who grew up on the show win' stage with Aquaria. Next season should just be recappers, and then Ru sends them all home immediately and then it does finally become the Best Friend Race with Ru and the main three judges just sitting around talking trash.

the producers are tanking the show, intentionally or not. imo.

i still watch project runway and top chef so it's not like im gonna stop watching this... at its core it's still an amazing show. any show that makes it that long eventually worms its way up its own ass. but drag race is coming out the other side at this point

I still watch Top Chef and PR too (love Top Chef so much still). I didn't watch the last regular season or finish the All Stars that Trinity And Trixie won (I am not a fan of either of them). I saw the holiday special in its entirety (terrible). I may just wait until the british version comes out before picking this back up.

Has anyone seen the Thai version? I really should.

In many ways, the ancillary programming the show has resulted in is where the real fun is these days.

What’s a Recapper? Who was it?

Has anyone seen the Thai version? I really should

I feel like instead of maxing out the brand with more all stars and more regular seasons they should just air the international versions of the show

yeah the thai version is surpassing the american one at this point

That was a mess -- but a thought provoking mess because it broke certain conventions, and breaking points illustrate the rules of reality tv as a genre.

Reality tv hates ambiguity, and narratively important moments need to demonstrate clear causality. I think that's partly why Mercedes's reticence to talk about her religion feels so frustrating; in a genre where everything needs to be legible, not be forthcoming is undermines audience expectation. And legible causality is also why the fight between Silky and her team doesn't feel rewarding -- we don't really get a chance to hear Silky explain herself (and that's something I noticed in the previous episode, too, where people cut her off before she's done talking), which is then capped off by the non sequitur of her saying that she's ready to lipsync. When people on reality tv fight, we usually want to know who's in the right and who's in the wrong so that we can take a side, but when that's not clear, we're left confused and unresolved.

Sorry for waxing critical, I'd rather think about the above than gay Urkel or budget Aquaria.

Vanjie was awesome though.

Vanjie is such a joy to watch

That lipsync was bananas. In a bad way

i felt bad watching untucked when honey collapses in tears immediately after getting offstage bcuz i was crying laughing watching that lip sync like “damn this show still has it!”

poor honey. that made me tear up

I thought that the script the Britney team came up with was much funnier than any script they've been provided with for an acting challenge in a long time

also I felt that Mercedes reluctance to speak about her religion was more like the beginning of a chapter in her narrative, and over the next few weeks we'lll see a story unfold relating to how her faith affects her

Honey has got to be the most excruciating elimination reaction in the history of the show. I thought she was great and promising and I'm amazed she went home so early???

also otm that the Britney thing was actually funny and not fake hammy RuPaul funny

yeah they did a great job with that!

Vanjie deserves the win. I don’t care what her runway looked like.

i love how open Vanjie is, like she just seems born to improv. and her cutaways are always hysterical.

i love that Ru puts a real fine point on it: this challenge is designed to see of you can put on a show. And Nina definitely lighted the way for her group. Love seeing her rise up finally.

Hands up anyone else who just fast-forwarded through the Rusical to get to the runway and commentary? I just hate those things.

They're getting worse

it was weird af as always

Silky’s Oprah was everything though. EVERYTHING.

and I couldve watched a whole episode of choreo rehearsal.

Raja
I AM A DANCER I CAN DANCE ALL THE DANCES
to
i danced 15 years ago
to
i knew a dancer
to
i saw Step Up briefly when i walked past a tv display in Best Buy one time

I was convinced the RPDR subreddit would be echoing the twitter reaction I've seen to Joel McHale's guest judge stint but, surprisingly, it's the opposite. That or they're all just thirsty bitches.

Whatever, I thought it was amusing (after initially hating it).

I appreciate full on straight bro positivity just dropped into the usual mix for hilarious purposes.

and I couldve watched a whole episode of choreo rehearsal.

Lord Rajah was hilarious. Looks only get you so far...

The main challenge was middling, but that's in the context of the last X seasons with limp scripted challenges.

also I felt that Mercedes reluctance to speak about her religion was more like the beginning of a chapter in her narrative, and over the next few weeks we'lll see a story unfold relating to how her faith affects her

This was OTM even before this episode! Wanted to call that out. I'm not really enjoying the season so I'm a little reluctant to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Also, Yvie is like a mix of Naomi Smalls and the Vixen.

i enjoyed the rusical but maybe i'm so terrified by the idea of learning choreography that i'm always impressed by the final number

Also, Yvie is like a mix of Naomi Smalls and the Vixen.

― LEOPLOD BLOOMPS (Leee), Monday, March 25, 2019 6:22 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark

i like yvie... her runway looks are novel and editorial but not amateurish. she'll come up w some amazing stuff once she has drag race money. but i do agree that one thing that grates about the show now is that you can really see the machine that connects the show to the cottage industry that has sprouted up around it. so when michelle visage says "no one is doing what yvie oddly is doing right now" i think "well that's a patently ridiculous even if you only know drag queens who have been on drag race." that having been said it *is* the type of thing that you would air on television if say you also have a year round worldwide traveling brigade of drag queens to constantly promote and refresh. in the second episode when ru was chastising the losing group for doing so poorly, she said "we're looking to see if you can host a show"... of course what she didn't say but should've said was "we're looking to see if you can host a show... for us"

"you can really see the machine that connects the show to the cottage industry that has sprouted up around it"

i mean tot say that you can see this machine working in real time now

I thought this main challenge was one of the best turnouts all around, well-written and well-done by all participants. Brook Lynn is far and away the front-runner here imo and I'm head-over-heels in love with Vanjie and Silky. Rajah is an assassin, btw, that was amazing

There’s a running theme of male vocalists yielding astonishing LSFYL moments, tho this and Peppermint’s “Macho Man” are the only ones coming to mind rn