Are you ready for a recap?
This mini-challenge
It was a ballroom vogue-off.
Putting to one side any
discussion of appropriation and exploitation of ballroom culture, this was
possibly one of the best mini-challenges we’ve seen in the history of the
entire franchise.
It was funny, it was
entertaining, and it showcased some great dancing from talented performers.
Anetra was declared the winner
– which was fair enough – but it was the audience who won this time around.
The maxi-challenge
Stand-up comedy is always a
tough ask in this format.
Everyone was in pairs, except
Marcia who was working solo.
As the winner of the
mini-challenge, Anetra got to decide the running order.
It’s a bit hard to make any
objective comment on these performances, because obviously the way you edit
them is crucial in the storytelling and how each performance is perceived.
Marcia: Good energy but there
didn’t seem to be any jokes.
Luxx and Loosey: The energy was
good and the “so white” jokes was a smart direction to take.
Anetra and Sasha: This felt
like it had potential but just needed more jokes and tighter delivery.
Salina and Mistress: This was
good storytelling but not really any jokes.
The Runway
This weeks category was Rip Her
To Shreds.
Not the easiest category –
tricky to come up with an original concept that also has runway impact.
Marcia: Marcia gave us a
pageant queen who had been attacked by the runners-up. This was solid, but we
have seen versions of this in various formats, so it didn’t feel hugely
original.
Loosey: Loosey gave us Miss
Havisham as a vampire queen. It met the assignment but I wasn’t excited by
this.
Luxx: Proving, once again, that
she is one of the most intelligent and well-studied queens to have tackled Drag
Race, Luxx gave us a reinterpretation of a RuPaul look from the 80s. Absolutely
smashed it. Luxx truly has cracked the code.
Sasha: Sasha gave us denim and
diamonds. She looked stunning. This wasn’t hugely original but it met the
assignment, was well-executed, and she looked gorgeous.
Anetra: Anetra looked great.
Her inspiration for this look was the emergence of a lotus flower. I’m not sure
I would have got that just by looking at the outfit, but I liked hearing her
explanation. I love Anetra.
Salina: Salina looked gorgeous
and I loved her inspiration for this look – it was a tribute to her mother who
was a refugee from Mexico.
Mistress: Mistress looked
put-together, as always. She was diamonds-are-a-girl’s-best-friend Marilyn, but
distressed and singed by fire. It met the assignment but I didn’t understand
why Marilyn had encountered a fire. It was probably the weakest storytelling on
the runway.
The Judging
Safe were Mistress and Salina.
I was glad that Salina was safe, it would have felt cruel to put her in the
Bottom again. It seems fairly clear that we’re guiding Mistress through to the
Top 4.
The winners were Luxx and
Loosey. The win was well-deserved, but it feels a bit of an unsatisfying end to
the “Loosey is desperate for a win” storyline that the production team has been
building for weeks. Luss seems a certainty for Top 4, but I’m not sure where
else that Loosey can go in this competition.
That left us with a Bottom 3 of
Sasha, Marcia, and Anetra. Given what we saw of the performances, it made sense
that Sasha was safe, giving us a Bottom 2 of Marcia and Anetra. Okay, I can
follow that logic.
The Lip-sync
The song was Boss Bitch by Doja
Cat.
This is not an easy track –
it’s high-energy and powerful but there’s not a lot of levels and there are a
lot of lyrics. A lot.
We know that Marcia is a good
dancer, but this is obviously not her genre. Having said that, she did a good
job. The outfit wasn’t helping her but she didn’t look lost, she delivered a
respectable performance.
But let’s focus on Anetra.
Anytime that Anetra takes to the stage, we’ve got – justifiably – very high
expectations. Anetra did not disappoint. Sure, given how much we’ve seen Anetra
lip-sync on this series, we’ve seen a lot of these moves so there’s not that
shock value. But her level of performance is so exciting and engaging that it’s
just a joy to watch her do her thing. I love Anetra.
Anetra stays, Marcia goes home.
Episode 11, done!
SOURCE: MEANS HAPPY
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