‘Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race 2×06’ Review
I have to admit that last week’s episode of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race was one of the best episodes this season with every queen sticking to the 90s influence of the episode with a fabulous range of different perspectives which was great to watch! The episode ended with an expected top two lip-sync between Donna Belisama and Chakra Seven which saw the former claim her first-ever win of the season! This slight twist in the competition structure made total sense in my opinion as every performer did very well in their individual performances so having a battle for the overall winner made was appropriate! However, this was not the only dramatic twist of the episode, as it came to an end with Ru Paul announcing that as of next week there will be no more secrets. Usually, this sort of twist would have been reserved for the finale of the show as it is these episodes which people remember the most (as it appears chronologically the latest) but also usually serves as the pay-off for viewers who have dedicated their time to watching every episode before the last one. This is why the creative teams tend to go above and beyond for finale episodes with bucket loads of production value, conclusive ends to season-long storylines and dramatic plot twists. This week’s episode of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race defiantly had the vibe of a season finale without actually being the end of the series!
To begin with, all of the secret celebrities graced the stage and were forced to reveal who they were behind all of the make-up which I thought felt a bit unnecessary considering this was not the end of the show. The reveals really negated the “secret celebrity” element of the show’s title and this was made a focal point of this second season. Also, I thought the way in which this was done was fairly lacklustre which each performer simply saying “you may call me ….. but real I am …” which felt fairly repetitive after the first couple of reveals! As a quick-fire run through Donna Bellísima is Daniel Franzese aka Damian from Mean Girls, Poppy Lobe is AJ McLean from the Backstreet Boys, Thirsty Von trap is Mark Indelicato from Ugly Betty, Chic-Li-Fay is Kevin McHale from Glee and Chakra Seven is Tatiana Lee from Fresh Prince of Bel Air! For this season I was under the impression that the hints as to who is behind each performer would be mostly during the performances, whereas they seemed to be mostly hidden during pre-show interviews. I thought that the week-by-week song choices would have been a reference to the person behind the drag persona and had this been the case, the season finale could have logically been a homage to Ru Paul (as this episode was) as they l would have experience the Drag Race system together.
The performances this week begin in a rather unique way with the revealed celebrities sat in the werk room where the iconic “She-Mail” message is shown which was a nod to regular seasons of drag race (which is something I stated this season needed to do more of!) This video informed the queens that not only would they each be doing an individual performance but also must do a group number. They all had to perform “Baby I Made It” which is a song featuring the Drag Race Live in Las Vegas however we have already seen this song performed on the Drag Race main stage during season twelve of Drag Race! Now if I was told that I had to perform a Ru Paul song then I would probably have selected the song “Low” which is a collaboration between Ru Paul and Todrick Hall which is a unique retelling of The Wizard of Oz!
The first queen to grace the stage for her solo performance was none other than my personal favourite Thirsty Von Trap who actually delivered rather political remediation of the iconic “Sissy That Walk.” The misconception that queer men cannot be queer, combined with the historic homophobia apparent in the forces, came together to have a rather powerful undercurrent to this performance – which not only made it fun to watch but also interesting to think about. The creative team and Thirsty decided to stage the performance as if it was taking place in an army boot camp with everyone on stage donning cameo and the dancer showing incredibly physical activities such as press-ups and army crawls. Thirsty looked incredible in her thigh-high boots and absolutely smashed each section of the choreography! She appears to have developed newfound confidence which helped to make her performance even more impactful! I have talked all season long about how Chakra Seven is so unpredictable with her performance as each week is something so drastically different to the last! This week she decided to perform the song “Cha Cha Bitch” which had herself and the dancers dressed as dogs and completing dog-based skills such as the agility challenges popularised by the likes of Cruffs! Not only was this a unique performance due to the animalistic reference but also Chakra was able to lip-sync to the Spanish sections of the song. It is hard enough the master an average lip-sync but to be able to quickly switch from English to Spanish shows a whole other level of talent!
Chic-Fi-lay was next up with her rendition of “Peanut Butter,” which interestingly began with Chic in the audience. It is clear that Kevin/Chic was having so much fun during the performance and it was also very obvious that she knew every single word even the rapid-fire Freda rap! Chic managed to find a song that tapped into both her comedic tendencies but also the sexiness that she had been trying to tap into all season long! The other front runner in the competition (in my opinion), Poppy Love, followed directly after and took a bit of a gamble with her song choice. She chose to perform “The Devil Made Me Do It” which is not a Ru Paul song that I am particularly familiar with to be honest but Poppy managed to win me over as the song progressed. This number ties beautifully into Poppy/AJ’s own journey with overcoming addiction, which again added an emotional undercurrent to the number despite the performers themselves being so wonderfully over the top! It began with Poppy dressed as a preacher in front of a stained glass graphic with the performing emoting perfectly throughout the entire number. It is painfully clear that both Chic and Poppy are peerless iconic-like performers outside of Secret Celebrity Drag Race as their numbers are always of an insane quality! Talking about risks, however, no one took a bigger gamble than Donna Belisama (who has been known so far for her love of props and theatrics) who decided to construct a number where she simply stood still and attempt to captivate the audience that way. The storyline for Donna this season has been her journey with self-love and body positivity so I am glad that she manages to bring this story to a complete end before leaving the show. Her outfit this week was a total nude allusion as she performed the words to “Born Naked.”
It was announced at the end of the episode that Chakra Seven was the overall winner of the episode, which I have to agree was extremely entertaining! However, it was Thirsty and Donna who were placed in the bottom two, which honestly broke my heart. We have reached the point in the competition where we have come to know and love each queen and so Donna, who has shared a powerful message about self-love and is the wonderfully camp performer I usually adore, and Thirsty, who has captured my heart since the beginning of the season, battling it out? I almost couldn’t watch! At the end of the lip-sync, it was announced that Thirsty would be staying in the competition which meant, unfortunately, Donna was told to sashay away… which was very sad to witness! I am glad that Donna managed to reach the climax of her own personal body acceptance journey in the show before she had to leave but it was still very sad to watch her go!
Overall, this week’s episode of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race had a very unusual finale-style vibe to it (with all the queens being forced to reveal themselves, a group performance and a homage to Ru Paul herself) which was unusual considering there are a few more episodes to go. I also think the reveals have sort of negated the whole purpose of this season and should have been kept for closer to the end of the season. The performances themselves were all of a fantastic standard but I do think as a whole were not as impressive as last week’s masterclass.
