‘Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race 2×04’ Review
The two qualms I have had with season two of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race have been the lack of cohesive themes that run through the episodes and the connection to the rest of the drag race ru-niverse! It seemed like last week the creative team working on this show focused on the former factor, as every performance was heavily influenced by the idea of money – leading to the first-ever joint winners being Chic-Li-Fay and Chakra Seven. In all honesty, I personally preferred the latter’s intensely fierce performance of “ M.I.L.F. $” by Fergie and so, if it was up to me, she would have been the sole winner of the episode! My biggest issue with this joint winner announcement however, would have to be the fact that when Chic was originally announced as the winner of the episode she did not protest as she promised earlier in the episode. During a backstage segment, we saw the secret celebrity drag queens discussing how incredible Chakra’s performance was and Chic declared that if Chakra didn’t win then she would protest. When it came time to the announcement Chic was announced first as the winner and she did not even comment before Ru announced the first tie of the season! At the other end of the competition, however, it was Jackie Would who was eliminated from the competition and was forced to reveal themselves as none other than Thom Felica from the original Queer Eye television series!
While last week’s episode focussed on the issue of an overarching theme, this week’s episode really made an effort to tie this show into the previous seasons of Drag Race by bringing in a bucket load of fan favourites to mentor the celebrities! The celebrities and the Drag Race alumni had to pair up to produce a fabulous duet to perform in front of the judges. It must have been incredible terrifying to perform alongside someone who has been mastering the art of drag for years (and you have only been involved in this world for a couple of weeks) and I know if I was in their shoes, I would have really struggled! However, if I was to appear on the show I thought I would like to have been partnered up with one of my all-time favourite queens Rosè and would have chosen to do a cheesy musical theatre song such as “Take Me or Leave Me” from Rent! In this hypothetical (or is it?!) situation I have total control over the queen I would perform with and the song we would perform to but I am not sure how much creative control they have over their performances as shows such as Britain’s Got Talent have repetitively been under fire for producers forcing performers to do a certain song and/or look a certain way. If this is the same for this season of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race then it is totally unfair that Donna Belissema revived such critical feedback from the judges regarding her overreliance on props but that has not been proven so I will reserve any negative feelings towards production until this is proven!
In last week’s review, I was also a little confused regarding the role of the three queen supremes (Brook-Lyn Hytes, Money X-Change and Jujubee) but this week they were the pseudo-match makers who supposedly paired up the celebrities with the returning Drag Race queens. This is why when Donna began talking about her issues with body confidence I know she was going to be paired with a ‘bigger girl’ from the franchise and surprisingly it was Silky Nutmeg Gnache who proved during her run on All-Stars six that she is one of the greatest lip-sync performers to ever enter the werk-room (like who could forget that Barbie Girl performance!) who helped to inspire Donna to become a lot more confidence showing skin on stage! The two queens delivered a wonderfully body-positive performance (living the fantasy of being extremely sexy and relaxing on the beach where people are literally throwing themselves at you) of “Whatta Man” by Salt-N-Pepa, with Silky bringing her brand of ridiculously high-energy dance moves with Donna standing her own with an extremely clean/crisp lip-sync! I think that the queen known as Chakra Seven is showing the most artistic range in this completion with each performance being so drastically different week by week. She was paired with Eureka and the mismatched pair delivered a wonderfully strange interpretive/ballet-infused dance number to “Fly” by Nicky Minja and Rihanna which started with Chakra busting out an incredible rap lip-sync! The fact that Chakra went from last week being a sexy and fierce diva to a vibrantly colourful bird this week is just showing how well-rounded a performer she is!
Last week Thirsty Von Trap delivered one of my favourite performances of the week; and this week she was paired with none other than the wonderfully eccentric Katya and so I know we are in for another unique performance! The two queens looked fabulous in wonderfully sparkly outfits taking on the role of two housewives who were selling a mystery product to a group of men. The camp yet sensual performance is something that Katya knows how to do very well and clearly, she has trained her partner to also excel in this genre of performance! It is clear that this far in the completion, the front runner is Poppy Love who won two consecutive episodes and so of the four episodes of this season Poppy has won half of them! Poppy’s critique last week was that she needed to camp up her performance which she struggled to comprehend so Morgan McMicheals was brought in to help channel the masculine energy through a drag perspective which is something Morgan has become synonymous with. However, I was not expecting the two queens to start their performance of “That Boy is Mine” by Brandy and Monica laid on a hospital bed giving birth to a series of sexy dancers in diapers! The storyline of two ladies giving birth only to realise they giving birth to the same man’s children is one of the most unique narratives to ever be told on the main stage! The rest of the secret celebrities have been paired with queens who could easily be described as lip-syncing assassins and have delivered some of the most iconic performances during their time on their original drag race season. However, Millie Von Sunshine was paired with Gottmik who is known more so for their incredible looks during season thirteen! I really enjoyed the fact that this performance of “Side to Side” was set in plan with the queens portraying intense turbulence but also incorporating the classic flight safety announcement movements into the performance itself! Chic-Fi-Lay decided to take a risk this week by choosing an intense ballad that was recommended to her by her partner for the week Violet Chachki (who is the only Drag Race winner in the lineup) which was a hilarious nod to an iconic moment between Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey! The performance of “When You Believe” included Violet and Chic ripping parts of each other outfits off during a subdued yet powerful lip-sync! I do have to say that I thought every performance this week was very entertaining to watch but I was forced to pick a bottom two or would be Millie and Thirsty which clearly Ru agreed with as they were placed in the bottom this week. Millie frantically pulled out every one of her tricks including, the Drag Race staple, the splits but Thirsty contained an unmatched staged presence where she owned every inch of the stage! I do have to say that Thirsty did take off her shoes during this performance which usually is a no-no for me! At the end of the number, Ru announced that Thirsty would be staying in the race but sadly Millie is leaving. This meant she had to reveal herself and behind all the make-up was none other than Jenna Ushkowitz from the hit musical TV show Glee! I think that Jenna did excellent in this competition and her performance of “Dancing On My Own” will be forever iconic!
Overall , this was an episode that addressed some of the issues I have had with the season so far. With the queen supremes being given a much more clear purpose and a connection being forged between this season and the other Drag Race seasons! I thought that all of the performances were of very high quality and kept me very entertained throughout with an elimination/reveal that came as a total surprise!
