Guest Judges: Chaz Bono and Travis
Wall
Mini-Challenge: Soul Train dance-off
Mini-Challenge Winners: Jinkx Monsoon
and Coco Montrese
Main Challenge: Divide into two teams
each tasked with performing a different act of a ballet about RuPaul's life
Challenge Winner: Alyssa Edwards
Main Challenge Prize: A custom
feather headpiece from Mother Plucker and immunity for next week's elimination.
Bottom Two: Honey Mahogany and
Vivienne Pinay
Lip Synch Song: "Oops!... I Did
It Again" by Britney Spears
Eliminated: Honey Mahogany and
Vivienne Pinay
Though the girls arrive having just
witnessed an elimination, the mood is surprisingly placid. Out of sight, out of
mind, it seems. At least Serena ChaCha was offered an extended public shaming;
I’m not sure that anyone even says “Monica Beverly Hillz” out loud after her
exit. Everyone’s too busy with new drama to care about what happened five
minutes ago. In drag, you wear your hair big so you never have to look back.
Straight away, we get two key pieces
of information: Jade is good friends with Coco, and Vivienne is tired of all
the attention-stealing, loudmouthed queens, especially Roxxxy. The editing team
at Logo has lost some of its knack for subtlety this season. It’s like the
episodes are Cliff’s Notes of themselves. (And, hello, that’s my job, thanks.)
To announce the mini-challenge, Ru
appears in a voluptuous afro that she probably stole from the set of The Brady
Bunch Movie to announce an impromptu dance-off. Each queen is given a slammin’
sphere of synthetic spirals, a few minutes to crap out a busted look and a
chance to make the crowd jealous of her boogie. I applaud the participants, Pit
Crew included, for collectively suppressing the urge to wear the wig as a
merkin. OK, no I don’t. There is nothing admirable about restraint in this
competition.
When all is said and done, the two
winners are Coco for legitimately having rhythm and Jinkx for delivering
sizzling charisma and a legit split. Yet again, the chicas are divided into
teams, half to create interpersonal tension and half for crowd control.
Remember how Jade was so glad that shantay-Coco-stayed? Well, she’s less
thrilled about that friendship when she ends up in Jinkx’s posse.
On the other hand, no one is excited
about their friendship with Vivienne (because such a connection does not
exist), and Viv is pissy right back at them. She keeps talking about how
bothered she is by everyone’s desire to make a spectacle, as if that isn’t the
main expectation of a performer. Where does she think she is, America’s Next
Top Mannequin?
For their main challenge, the ladies
will be performing a ballet (“ballet”) depicting RuPaul’s life story (“life
story”) in short vignettes. Alaska, who dances like one of those tube sock
people at a used car lot, is terrified. Conversely, the task inspires Alyssa,
who is I guess a professional dancer. And that’s not even a euphemism for
stripper like it usually would be!
Since it’s clear that the contestants
will be lost without assistance, and maybe even with it, Ru kindly provides
them with talented, ridiculously attractive choreographers: Travis Wall and
Nick Lazzarini. Everyone is straight-up dicknotized. People’s eyes get so
hungry that Eric Carmen got a royalty check. Don’t slip in those drool puddles
now!
Rehearsals don’t run particularly
smoothly, but some of that drama is patently manufactured. I mean, Coco was so
playing to the camera when she paired herself with Alyssa in their black
swan/white swan routine, but giving them a lift to execute was just psychotic.
Alaska continues to fret about her inability to control her limbs or tell right
from left. Both teams have a Diana Ross impersonator for some reason, and that
segment is basically a race to the bottom: Lineysha has never even heard of the
woman, and whoever is operating the Honey Mahogany animatronic puppet must be
drunk.
On elimination day, Alyssa has a lot
to say about how art inspires her and her father never accepted her love of the
dance and choreographing has helped her to blah blah whatever learn to abbreve,
girl. Honey shares that her family sent her to Africa after finding a picture
of her in women’s clothing, and I immediately panicked. If you’ve been in the
background for three weeks and the producers suddenly give you a back story,
you’re probably in trouble.
Before the runway walk, we get to
watch the whole ballet. Seeing everyone in flats was quite telling: some people
really lose their femininity without a heel to #sissythatwalk for them. Also,
those little white booties got filthy quickly. Whose turn was it to sweep the
stage? PIT CREW!
All Alaska’s fretting was for naught,
because she doesn’t need grace and flexibility to tell a story. She sails
through with a stank face and a Cabbage Patch Kid between her thighs,
delivering the only standout performance on her team. The next group has a
little more trouble; Vivienne and Roxxxy’s number elicits a couple furrowed
brows from Travis, while Michelle heaves a vicious sigh at Honey. And bear in
mind, it’s hard for Michelle to lift her chest without a spotter. She had to
really mean it.
And all of a sudden the catwalk takes
ten seconds in split-screen fast-forward. Club drugs! Since I can’t review
individual looks, I’ll talk about the judges. Santino, as usual, is epitomizing
a church gargoyle that joined the Mafia during Prohibition. Michelle
straightened her hair, and seeing her flirt with normalcy is uncanny. Ru is
wearing the whole bordello and I’m living for it.
Critiques go as expected. Ivy and
Jinkx earn praise for their comedic chops, but Alyssa’s training garners her a
win, a feathered headdress, and immunity. That should be literal next season:
whoever has immunity wears a feathered headdress. Make them eat it! Roxxxy is
criticized for her lack of performance ability (and I think Chaz Bono calls her
fat), but Vivienne and Honey catch Ru’s attention for their complete lack of
ability to catch anyone’s attention, and are thus cast into the bottom two.
Ru tries to stir the pot by asking
everyone who should go home, but I’m not going to dignify that kind of string
pulling with deeper examination. Don’t stand for cheap tricks, ladies and
gentlemen.
And then it happens! No, not a
breakthrough moment in which one of the potential sashayers develops a
personality. Their lip sync to Britney Spears’ “Oops!… I Did It Again” has no
“didding whatsoever. But afterwards, while I’m thinking to myself that I
wouldn’t care if they both went home, they both get sent home. It’s a triumph
of the human spirit. My faith in Rumanity is restored.
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