02nd Mar2022

‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK vs The World 1×05’ Review

by Rhys Payne

I cannot remember an episode that has been as shocking as last week’s episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK vs The World was! The episode started with the return of probably one of the most iconic drag race maxi challenges that has appeared in every season of the show ever since Ru Paul’s Drag Race season two all those years ago! For the “Snatch Game” the queens have to busy out their best celebrity impressions while also showcasing their improvised comedy skills and for the first time ever the challenge had a family fortunes inspired twist. The clear standouts in the challenge were Baga Chips, as the unhinged Kathy Bates in Misery (I recently saw a video on YouTube that analysed the reference points Baga played on which made me appreciate this performance even more!) and Blu Hydrangea doing two performances as Austin Powers and Dr Evil, both of which were wickedly funny. Both queens did excellently well and delivered many hilarious moments throughout while still staying in character the whole time which is not an easy thing to do! These two queens then had to lip-sync against one another to see who would have the ‘honour’ of deciding who will be sent home this week and it was Blu who managed to claim the win against Baga, who decided to spend a lot of time rolling around the stage.

It was Blu’s elimination choice however that still has the world gagged even a week after the episode had aired! She decided to send home the clear front runner of the season Pangina Heals despite this queen never placing in the bottom until this episode and it was clear that the elimination came as a shock to not only her peers but also the judges themselves! The episode ended with an incredible emotional Pangina leaving the stage while talking about how she felt as if she had let Thailand down, which was very heart wrenching to watch! I totally understand the argument online that Blu was simply eliminating the biggest completion, which was exactly the same strategy that Pangina used to send Jimbo home the week before but I did think that Pangina was going to be at least in the top three of the season as her looks were incredible and her challenge performances were usually great. Despite not agreeing with the elimination, I still don’t think that it warrants any queen on this season deserving to receive the hate that they have supposedly been receiving!

The main challenge in this week had the queens creating an original verse to Ru Paul’s song “Living My Life in London” where they had to sing about their own personal hometowns. I personally believe that that style of challenge should have been one of the first few episodes in the season, as if done well it would have in turn promoted all the separate Drag Race franchises with different perspectives on the same place. Before the queens could perform however they had a very important conversation in the werk room about how in many countries straight conversion camps are legal and frequently used in the name of religions. I was not aware that conversion camps were still a thing in the UK and it is only recently that the government have investigated their effects on people. I find it deeply upsetting that these sorts of places still exist and how people are often forced to attend due to religious parents/guardians who do not agree with the child being who they are. Mo Heart sort of spearheaded the conversation about these camps as she was once heavily involved with programmes like these as a member of the church and so hopefully this conversation can raise awareness of this issue and go some way of banning these horrific camps!

I really enjoyed the fact that during the performance of their original verse the queens clearly decided on a cohesive colour scheme of red, white and blue that they all wore during the number. The fact that all the queens made some effort to use these colours was great and the fact that it fitted with the “London” theme made total sense! Opening up the number was Baga Chips who gave us the high energy and camp performance we expect from this queen! She decided to go down a much more comedic route, my personal highlight being her shouting “paps, paps, paps! which was a clear reference to her ‘most famous women in Britain’ monicker she has been using as a sort of catchphrase on the show! Baga is clearly not a gifted dancer but her personality and charm managed to carry her through the performance and made for a very entertaining watch. I thought that it was very brave for Blu to reference her elimination of Pangina during her verse with a lipstick prop that read simply goodbye on it. After the backlash she received (I know the episodes are filmed months before they air but she even anticipated a lot of backlash on the show), I know I personally would not have been brave enough to ever mention it again so I am very impressed by Blu! My favourite verse however was performed by Mo Heart who did an insane rap style verse and then later in the number delivered incredible vocals. Being able to switch from one to the other is very difficult and shows tremendous amounts of vocal talent! If you haven’t already listened to “Living My Life In London” you can do so on all major music streaming platforms with the profits from the song being split between Comic Relief and Children in Need!

The runway theme this week as titled “Work of Art” where the queens had to showcase a look inspired by iconic pieces of art throughout history. I thought that Baga Chip’s Vincent Van Gogh sunflower inspired look was very whimsical and fun with the careful placing of sunflowers on her body to play up the playfulness of the look. I did notice however that the flowers on the back in the outfit did look very wilted and flat and considering the fact that we see the look on the runway from all angles was a small detail that could have improved the entire experience of the look. The fact that Baga decided to use yellow glitter in her make-up to tie the look together not only looked amazing but also made sense with the entire look! Regardless of the runway theme, I really enjoyed Blu’s vibrant and bold look complete with a wonderfully theatrical collar as it looked amazing but was also very on-brand for this queen. However, the queens are judged on their application of the runway category and it did not read Picasso which was Blu’s intention. I thought that the back of the look was much more influenced by the artist but we spent the majority of the runway looking at the other side. I also agree that the train in this look was way too big and did overpower Blu which was something that the judges also brought up during her critiques. Yet again however my favourite performance on the runway was Mo Heart who decided on a Salvatore Dali look that was head to toe in lilac flowers. This look was completed by a wonderful flower face mask that opened up on the runway to reveal Mo’s fabulous cracked makeup which added a bit of theatrics on the runway which I personally really enjoyed!

It was declared that Jujubee and Mo Heart are the winners of this week’s episode and so they will lip-sync to see which queen will be eliminated. I thought that Mo did excellent in this episode and if it was up to me I would have just handed her the win but I know that goes against the format of the show! Before the performance, however, we see the classic moment of the queens essentially begging to be saved in the werk room but for the first time ever we saw a much more honest and emotional side to Baga where she talked about how proud she was of everyone else and is overjoyed to have even made it this far in the race. This more vulnerable side of Baga was such an emotional moment but will also help with her reputation as a lot of people (myself included) have felt like they have seen a different side to Baga this season, with her attitude being rather negative at times! Jujubee went into the lip-sync talking about how she was going to dance like a headless chicken, which was rather random until I heard a section of audio in the song. She delivered a much more comedic rendition of the lip-sync song which ever so slightly topped Mo’s performance which meant she was given the title of winner of the episode. This is only the second time in all of her Drag Race appearances that Jujubee has won a challenge which is insane when you consider how many episodes she has been on! Juju revealed that she had chosen Janey Jacke to go home which means that Holland is now also officially out of the competition leaving just two queens from the UK and two from the US branches of Drag Race.

Overall this was a fairly entertaining episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK vs The World. I don’t think “Living My Life in London” is going to be joining my Spotify playlist but I thought Mo really shone in both the challenge and the runway! We are down to the final four which means that next week is the final episode of this season and I would love to know who you all think is going to be crowned queen of the world?

**** 4/5

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