‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race 14×10’ Review
The plethora of drag queens on this season of Ru Paul’s Drag Race are all clearly incredibly talented performers and each week the eliminations are clearly solely based on how well they can perform in each challenge, which makes for a very exciting watch! Each queen has been able to showcase their talents, with each of them having at least one show-stopping look on the runway so far but last week’s episode gave us, the viewers, a chance to see a much more honest view into the people behind the drag personas. The drag con panel challenge had the queens (in full drag) talking about their own personal relationships and experiences with the male gender – including stories of dating, father figures, friendships and the concept of toxic masculinity which is not only an array of very important themes but also came at a point in the season where people were beginning to think the queens of this season were untouchable! While I personally really enjoy the queens showcasing incredible fashion and showing how talented they are, I do think that it’s very easy for the character to become inaccessible to the audience and stop people from relating to those in the competition. After being given the role of moderator in the group Bosco was declared the winner of the episode after her series of hilarious jokes throughout the challenge. However, I thought that Deja Skye was just as good a moderator in her group and Deja’s runway outfit was miles better than Bosco’s, so if it was me I would have chosen Deja to win. At the other end of the competition, we saw the highly anticipated lip-sync between Jorgeous and Jasmin Kennedy, who were clearly the worst-performing queens in the episode. These two queens have been known for their incredible dance skills so everyone expected incredible things and we were disappointed. The performance was so entertaining that neither queen has told to leave the competition and instead they were both awarded the rare double save!
This week’s episode began with the return of Daya Betty’s very bitter attitude after openly admitting she didn’t think that last weeks lip-sync was that great. She was shown rolling her eyes and making negative comments throughout the episode, which seems to be a reoccurring issue for Daya who was just beginning to breakthrough in the lineup of queens in this season. The mini-challenge this week had the queens creating a fashion-forward look made entirely from brightly coloured bubble wrap (which was something I never knew existed!) which was sponsored by the brand Bubbly Drinks. I think that regardless of what she wears Angeria Paris VanMicheals always looks amazing. She had managed to make a gorgeous purple and red outfit that looked incredible considering that it was needed in an extremely short time frame. I also really enjoyed Bosco’s hyper-modern red outfit that as the queens discussed was very reminiscent of Aquaria’s (winner of season 10) entrance look. It came as no surprise that Bosco was declared as the winner of this mini-challenge and so she begins a mini streak of wins for this queen.
This week’s main challenge was the iconic ‘snatch game’ where the queens have to bust out their best celebrity impressions and compete for a fictitious game show similar to Blankety-Blank. If you have been following our reviews of Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK vs the World, you will know that a few weeks ago this show had its own snatch game challenge that was so brilliant and was won by the eventual winner of the season Blu Hydrangea after her hilarious Austin Powers and Dr Evil performance. I started this review by saying how wonderful the past two weeks of Drag Race have been and we all know the saying that “all good things must come to an end” and this week’s episode went above and beyond to prove this statement was true. To begin with, Ru Paul did their classic walkthrough where she took the queens away from their stations to talk about who they will be for the challenge with a range of celebrities being portrayed. I have to admit that this week’s episode was one of the worst snatch games I can remember in Drag Race her story! Both Deja Skye and Willow Pill acknowledged during the challenge that none of the jokes seemed to be landing with the former being the only good part of the challenge. Not only did the queens notice that this challenge was not as good as it should be but shockingly Michelle called the queens out for being very underwhelming. Deja decided to take the role of the wonderfully eccentric rapper Lil John who is known for his performance during the song Gasolina. Deja was so wonderfully over-the-top and delivered hilarious sound bites throughout that were brilliant and fitted with the character perfectly! Angeria Paris VanMicheals announced that she would be taking on the character of Tammie Brown who was a drag queen who competed on drag race season one. She was such a bold character for Angeria to take on and while her performance was very entertaining and fun, I do think it lacked the essence of this chaotic persona. Lady Camden decided to really play on her posh and British background by deciding to show her impression of William Shakespeare for this challenge. Camden did a very raunchy and party animal style interpretation of probably the world’s most famous playwright. For the first time this season, Willow was shown to be struggling with this challenge as she decided to perform as Drew Barrymore. The challenge started with Willow being questioned in character by Ru and it was clear from this early that Willow was not comfortable in this style of challenge.
The theme of this week’s runway category was Holy Couture which led to a range of divine outfits being shown. Around four years ago we saw the Met Gala take on the theme of heavenly bodies which had some cross over with the runway category this week. I went into the section of the episode expecting Met Gala standard outfits and yet again was left quite disappointed! Despite how good Deja did during the snatch game, I thought her runway outfit was very lacklustre. This look was supposed to be Joan of Arc inspired but I thought it came across as very messy and ill-fitting. This episode contained a very strange conversation, led by Willow, where she discussed how she worshipped mushrooms. She walked the runway in a very camp fungi inspired look with red polka dots which to me played with some of the fundamental ideas of Leigh Bowery’s iconic fashion choices. I thought that Jasmin Kennedy’s look this week was so incredibly clever! She began in a black and white split outfit which revealed a sparkly purple, galaxy print outfit with matching earrings and accessories. This look was completed with a Gemini infused head peace that played on Jasmin’s love of astrology. This was a very clever look with the reveal making sense within the look without it being just a stunt which I really enjoyed! Jorgeous walked the runway in a sparkly green outfit that celebrated her love of cannabis. This look toyed with the idea of religious iconography with a hat inspired by the head of the Catholic Church but with a wonderful inclusion of glittery purple hair that I thought looked amazing! The only element of this look that I did not enjoy was the inclusion of a blunt that looked very crafter and homemade almost as if it was an afterthought. Angeria decided to showcase a classic southern church lady look with a massive hat that people who attend church would recognise. Bosco also decided to do a religious-inspired look when she appeared on the main stage in a nuns habit which revealed to essentially just lingerie. This idea of a devout, holy figure with a hidden, highly sexualised personality made sense but also played on Bosco’s own experience of growing up Catholic and no longer being associated with this religion. Despite her disappointing runway performance, it was very clear that Deja was very clearly the winner of this week’s episode. I am so glad that Deja has finally claimed her first win as it was clear that her lack of wins was affecting her. The gag at the episode however came when it came to the bottoms of the episode. On a shocking twist, Ru Paul announced that all of the other seven queens are up for elimination but instead of a chaotic multi-person lip-sync that occurred in season eleven, they would compete next week in a lip-sync challenge of which Deja has gained immunity.
Overall this was a very disappointing episode that emphatically broke the streak of great episodes this season. There was only one standout in the snatch game who seemed to struggle in the runway section of the episode. The broadness of the fashion category allowed for the queens to interpret the category however they liked which meant the category was boring but I think the natural comparison to the Met Gala meant many of the looks seemed very simple and basic.
