All night I was expecting Hurricane
Sandy to send my electricity (and windows) sashaying away. Heck, even a weak
thunderstorm causes my TV to take a raincheck. But I was one of the lucky ones:
The only thing I saw sashaying away was another team of queens on RuPaul’s
All Star Drag Race.
Our girls start off playing a game
called #InDaButtRu.
(Yup, it came complete with its own hashtag). It’s basically The
Newlywed Game, except the questions are about whose tuck is tighter. Team
Latrila struggled to really guess anything correctly, while Team
Rujubee dominated. When asked about the type of boy-underwear her
partner wears, Jujubee got it in one. (Raven hilariously deadpans, “The Devil
wears nada.”)
Rujubee wins the challenge—but their
prize is just a cream pie in the face. I was expecting some type of
main-challenge advantage or maybe a Sequin Queen gift card? Nope, just pies.
But it did provide RuPaul with a segue for the next challenge: The girls had to
impersonate celebrities in the campy RuPauls Gaff-In, which
apparently was taking the place of our belovedSnatch Game. This week’s
guest judge, Vicki Lawrence, appeared in the skit as well in her Mama guise.
(So edgy!)
The challenge itself is a whirlwind
of scene changes. First there’s a swinging cocktail party with Mama and the Pit
Crew. Then they have to feed jokes to RuPaul in a segment called “Howdy Ru.”
And then they’re popping out of the joke wall. A season of Drag Race without Snatch
Game hurts my soul in a deep place, but we did get a Laff-In style
joke wall where the queens popped their heads out like cuckoo clocks and
delivered jokes they wrote themselves.
Most of the puns fell flat, but
watching the girls desperately try to open the barn doors was hysterical. These
girls can work a runway backwards in hells. But opening silly doors? Now that’s
a challenge.
Latrice was largely unsuccessful as
Oprah, shouting “You get an African baby! And you get an
African baby!” Even Manila’s gap-toothed Madonna couldn’t steer them in the
right direction.
Team Yarlexis stuck
to Spanish-speakers—Yara cuchi-cuchied it up as Charo, and Alexis channeled
Shakira. Nina Flowers chose La Lupe, a Cuban singer banished by her country and
the music industry. Why? Because there’s nothing funnier than a pariah most of
the audience has never heard of? Tammy Brown impersonates Tammy Fae Baker, but
the transformation purely cosmetic.
After the comedy chaos, our girls
prepared for a runway delivering Sixties realness: Realizing they still don’t
know much about one another, Latrice and Manila kiki about growing up and
coming out and Manila’s boyfriend, Sahara Davenport (who has sadly since
passed away). It was a quick mention but my heart breaks a
little.
And we move on to talking, once
again, about Tammie Brown’s craziness.
On the catwalk, all the queens give
us an Austin Powers vibe. My nitpick is that there was a lot of matchy-matchy
among team members, which I hope doesn’t become a thing. We’re already getting
cheated out of so much with the forced pairing. Identical outfits make it that
much more blah.
At the judges’ table, Vicki and the
gang are joined by second celebrity judge Busy Phillips. Chad’s Betty Davis
redeems Shannel’s unlovable Lucy Ball. My favorite part was Manila getting read
for her ridiculous white eyeliner, which made her look completely cross-eyed.
Michelle Visage certainly noticed it—how did Latrice not?
Team Yaralexis took
the home the prize (custom jewelry!). Team Rujubee is also called safe; the
judges didn’t love Raven’s Bea Arthur (I beg to differ), but Jujubee’s
execution of a Fran Drescher laugh keep them safe. That leaves two teams for
the bottom: Teams Brown Flowers and Latrila.
Eeep! Manila and Latrice won last
week—how the fabulous have fallen.
In the end, it’s Tammie versus
Latrice, lip-synching “No Business Like Show Business.” Latrice will always be
my chunky-yet-funky mother hen, but Tammie is just so damn intriguing! It’s
especially true in the lip-synch—her face, which is always twerking, was really
working overtime. The queens weren’t sure. I wasn’t sure. And part of me
expected Manila to press the emergency siren.
But that didn’t happen, and Latrila
won the challenge—sending Brown Eye, er, Flowers to chantay away. After the
usual good-byes, Nina Flowers packs her bags and Tammie Brown takes her
spaceship back to Planet Eyebrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment