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

Truly!

The memes, the memes.

Five minutes into MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN pic.twitter.com/4c9KUrLgvc

— Jorge Molina (@colormejorge) March 27, 2021

lmao

A separate effort but there are Drag Race connections

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56537339

And a whole lotta Drag Race vets in this thing:

https://deadline.com/2021/03/outtv-media-group-producer-entertainment-group-outtv-usa-lgbtq-diversity-representation-inclusion-1234723463/

kandy’s dress tonight looked like what lala ri’s bag dress would look like if she finished it

lmao

i love this final 4

i am relieved by who the loser ended up being

i love cynthia erivo

i love Cher

I was irrationally annoyed by the way the queens all leaned forward instead of back when they were pretending to climb up the side of the table.

Yeah it’s a solid and increasingly clear with time final four. So I guess my question is whether next week’s episode is it!

oh no Ned, there’s still 5 episodes to go...
(j/k)

At this point I wouldn't be surprised. (I half remember some rumor that the show was trying to stretch out not merely to fill the episode order but in the hopes that by the time of the final they could actually film a final. I doubt it but even if so while the restrictions are about to be more loosened up they'll juuuuust miss it, unless there's some further delaying tactic we haven't seen yet.)

i’d swap one of the final four (you can guess who) with denali, but the other 3 spots are well deserved

YES I'm not the only one who thought Denali was robbed and final 4 worthy. Goddamn. Kandy certainly has the personality, but her outfits and makeup are an embarrassment for the final 4. Miss you Denali.

i hated Kandy’s runway but I hated Olivia’s more for being basic & NOT the challenge! so annoyed when she just put her hands in the hip-ruching as if they were pockets

i wish they’d stopped her halfway out & sent her back to the workroom, like “Bitch, don’t even waste our time with this bullshit”

i did get very teared up in the untucked reveal about her grandmother though, that was so moving. the shit some of these queens go through w their families just to get on stage & do what they love. i mean.

The way they spoonfed Gottmik's performance in this really irritated me

is there a worse song in this world than “My Humps”? I havent heard it in so long & it still makes my skeleton want to leave my body.

lol yes, i think i had gradually softened to it through familiarity, but hearing it for the first time in forever i was struck anew by how extremely cursed it is.

olivia seemed to lean more and more into her tropes as the season went on, strange to think how much of a frontrunner she felt at the beginning.

Yeah, I think it's that she has a smaller bag of tricks to pull from than the other contestants.

i loooooled in untucked - when she was packing in the workroom she had a suitcase full of tiny purses

We got more Down Under details

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ugX-KmhMk

Also, this almost-nothing from Spain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5JsmAzELzU

i mean. ok fine. but also WOULD IT KILL YA TO MAKE A DECISION

the Whitney handkerchief!
Crown Symone. Just crown her.

Yeah, the handkerchief surely has to go a long way with Ru, even if Symone wasn't already clearly the winner.

I just cannot warm to Gottmik. I know it's mean of me, but I just can't. I thought Kandy's interview with Ru was one of the least sycophantic and most natural chats they've ever had in that section, and I really think Kandy has pulled herself together massively since the early days of the competition (which feel like years ago now).

I mean this season started before both the Georgia Senate elections and the Capitol riot.

Yeah a nothing of an episode in terms of any progression but I figured as much and give Symone the crown plz and etc.

I did like we got Rose's baby bro (who was almost more Scottish than Rose is) and Symone's mom, who is clearly great.

yeah the family stuff was so lovely

Anyway now VG can tell us more about these characters. Maybe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ugX-KmhMk

Premiere date has been announced as May 1.

i guess i am not feeling Kandy in the top 4 compared to the other 3. she has truckloads of personality & she’s great but i thought her runway outfit looked like a pool toy & i dont think her song portion or dance were that good? idk. i suppose i get why they are keeping her but she def feels a step down from the other 3

kandy did improve a lot but yeah, she’s not on the same level as the other 3, which makes non elimination feel even more forced at this point (and just plain lazy).

i don’t remember any family stuff - was it in untucked?

yep

Yeah it most always ends up there unless family members actually join them for challenges. Which is always cool too.

Seems like there's a big 'justice for Denali' attitude re complaints about Kandy elsewhere. Which, yes and no?

cool, i thought maybe we got shortened episodes in canada (and the provider that has the rights to drag race doesn’t have untucked - but we now have untucked for the previous season on netflix, which is annoying)

re: denali - she kinda reminds me of rose, super professional but “bland chicken”. she certainly had better runways (and arguably lipsyncs) than kandy though..

i thought the meme making rounds is very otm:
symone - charisma
gottmik - uniqueness
kandy - nerve
rose - talent

i doubt rose will win at this point - you could tell the judges struggled to say something personal to her, and it’s rose’s mistake imo (who otherwise seems to be smart at playing the game) - she didn’t give the judges enough story.

Well that raises an interesting question: if your life has been comparatively more of a glide path then do you have more 'story'? Not saying Rose has had it easier than the rest, but still.

ehhh

I mean Kandy was definitely carried through bc she was good tv. in a way that Denali wasn’t. and kandy for sure got by with some worse performances/looks than what got denali sent home

but i also enjoyed watching kandy, knowing all of that. maybe even over the idea of seeing more of denali. idk.

i just think it’s a bit too much to elevate kandy to the point where she’s final four w no hope of winning. like, ru pushed tyra through for -reasons~ but she had that incredible look.

you push kandy all the way to the top bc she’s crazy & full of personality & you create a monster bc she now believes it was solely her talent that got her there & no one can tell her anything.

eh.

that’s entertainment lmao

^ otm

yeah not saying rose had it easier but her not having a “season arc” or not being presented as somebody who had to overcome something made it more difficult to root for her (or as kamorah would put it, to ROOT for HER). compare that with symone’s breakdown, for instance. or kandy’s story, for that matter. most praise for rose was “she’s... she’s a professional” which yes, she is. but saying that music theater didn’t give you enough chance to express yourself isn’t gonna be enough to make ru tear up.

Ramsey Clark, RIP https://t.co/rlYFi1cNXb

— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) April 11, 2021

Ha IGNORE that, meant to be this one:

RuPaul sucking the childhood trauma from everyone pic.twitter.com/95K7DOtKgr

— ✨ (@heyjaeee) April 10, 2021

But maybe Ramsey loved Drag Race, who knows.

Kandy Muse on her $100,000 boat #DragRace pic.twitter.com/Xyo1rin12j

— Joey Nolfi (@joeynolfi) April 10, 2021

Gottmik's desperation to turn "gorg" into a meme is so exhausting.

I think I finally put my finger on what keeps me at arms length from Gottmik and it took until this ep to realize it ... even more so than Violet, Gottmik is the culmination of people coming up thru drag under the influence of this game show. The entire episode, her storyline was built around her desire to literally live within the show for the rest of her life. That flavor of desperation is not my cuppa. I’d say she and Rose are tied for third for me based on what the show’s delivering to my eyeballs.

It's definitely the blessing/curse of any such vectoring up that the show has provided, thanks to its longevity and success. But this is also probably why we're seeing more drag shows in various forms, contest-based or not, just to acknowledge alternate approaches -- some of which are from veterans carving out non-WoW spaces, others of which are just their own thing.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dmav/what-does-it-cost-to-go-on-rupauls-drag-race

Take whatever they say and double it for Gottmik.

otm

long read but well worth it, so many little eye opening details.
i assumed that some designers work in exchange for exposure but doesn't sound like it's the case.

certainly puts a different light on "i can't believe she'd show up in chicken feathers" comments

still. having a creative eye & taste goes a long way when you are skint

definitely, and they touch on that - but that’s the thing, comments like “chicken feathers” explicitly make it “who cares you made it, not expensive enough”

Which is REALLY interesting in that Joey Jay had a comment on that in tonight’s special in response to Denali’s slam on that.

chicken feathers fucking suck though!
it’s not just that they are financially cheap, they are shitty & fall off!

its what you buy when you want fosse & you end up as hr pufnstuff

Aw, I love Joey.