- RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 8: Grand Finale - 19 May, 2016
- RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 8 Episode 9: The Realness - 6 May, 2016
- RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 8 Episode 8: Book Ball - 28 April, 2016
Snatch Game, Snatch Game, thank God it’s the Snatch Game!
Since we’ve been waiting so long, it’s straight to the Maxi Challenge this week, and now I’ve used that phrase I’m going straight to the period joke I’ve been wanting to use for the past three weeks: What’s thick, white and covered in bodily fluids? Miss Fame at the end of the night!
Thanks, I thought it was funny too.
Snatch Games of days gone by have been marked by at least one queen’s failure to prepare a celebrity impersonation despite the fact that Snatch Game is in every fucking season, like they’ve never watched the show. This time everyone’s done their homework but – quelle horreur – Miss Fame and Violet Chachki have both decided to do Donatella Versace.
They solve this problem like sensible adults – or Miss Fame does at any rate, graciously giving way because she has a back-up and Violet apparently doesn’t. Sensible, however, doesn’t make good television, so Ru convinces Fame not to back down and Violet to, um, back down.
More a waste of time than an injection of drama, we end up with Fame as Donatella and Violet as Alyssa Edwards. I think it could have been hilarious to have two competing Donatella Versaces – I say ‘could’ because, well, despite months of preparation neither of them are that great.
Kennedy is undecided as to whether to try Sweet Brown (of ‘Ain’t nobody got time for that’ fame) or, ahem – Little Richard. Remember any time anyone has ever tried to do boy drag on Drag Race and how well that went down? Yes, never. Go ahead Kennedy, follow your dreams.
It’s time … for … Snatch Game! With Michael Urie and Tamar Braxton!
I only know who Tamar Braxton is through Roxxy Andrews‘ impression of her! She looks like a $2 version of Mariah Carey! Hooray!
Max has gone for Sharon Needles: she looks the part but that’s not all there is to this challenge. I scoffed at Violet when she suggested this choice was too ‘out of character’ for Max – acting, it’s called acting darling – but this Sharon impression reminds me of something, what is it … it’s Phi Phi O’Hara trying to do Lady Gaga in body language, and everyone’s worst Cher impression in voice.
Max, honey, you know you could have pulled off any old Old Hollywood siren and it would have been fine, so why inflict this upon us? She even explains one of her so-called jokes, and I still don’t get it. Poor baby. We all know where this is going.
I’m also not a huge fan of this self-referential Snatch Game business. It was interesting when Sharon did it, but remember she was at least impersonating a (nominal) female in Michelle Visage. A drag queen doing an impression of a drag queen is not nearly so much fun.
Speaking of female impersonation, or lack thereof, Kennedy as Little Richard is actually a hoot. Her reasoning behind the choice was, ‘He’s been in drag all his life’ – and that’s the schtick she plays up, putting on her lipgloss and making filthy jokes.
I’ve always wanted someone to do male drag well on this show, since Michelle Visage’s stringent gender policing (‘You look like a boy’, ‘All I’m seeing is boy’) has always seemed a bit amiss to me for a programme where men stuff their genitals up inside their body and put on dresses.
Well done Kennedy. Now remember what it feels like to make the right decision and do that in future, so we don’t end up with anything approaching last week’s shit show of a runway outfit.
Ginger Minj astounds as Adele with the best English accent this show has ever seen (i.e., marginally better than Dick van Dyke).
Vowels aside, her dim-witted, self-obsessed, constantly eating Adele is pretty funny, which is quite an achievement given that this is the kind of character that usually fails on Snatch Game: pop stars are known for their looks, not their personality. Ginger, as usual, has both.
Miss Fame’s Donatella is, in a word, shit, causing much just-about-in-character eye-rolling from Violet. Though Violet’s attempt to read Fame for sounding more Russian than Italian is somewhat undermined by the fact we heard Violet have a go earlier and it sounded – yep – 100% Russian.
Could it be that Violet Chachki is blind to her own flaws when she’s so keen to point out everyone else’s? Yes. Yes is the answer to that question.
Jaidynn‘s ‘That’s so’ Raven Symone is cute for about three seconds but she only has the one joke, and Katya and Pearl both do well as people I’m going to assume are on American television – and you know we can all Google these things, so why not see if they’re actually good impressions yourself? I don’t have time to do everything for you.
Leather and Lace on the runway, with everyone in black except Pearl and Ginger. You’ve already thought of any joke I can make about Pearl’s necklace (hint: it’s a pearl necklace), so suffice to say they both look great and do well to stand out from the crowd.
None of the judges seem to notice that Kennedy can’t walk in her dress, while Max has abided by Michelle Visage’s edict to wear something other than grey hair and wears black hair, which is still hardly outside her comfort zone. As a look, I feel it obeys the letter rather than the spirit of the law.
Violet is clearly not as avid a connoisseur of 1940s S&M porn as I am, since she claims her look is vintage but that’s some very modern bondage gear she’s got going on there.
In a Snatch Game first, we have two winners this week: Kennedy and Ginger, proving once again that a little bit of personality doesn’t go amiss.
Max has a moment when she realises she’s done badly, requesting her corset be loosened before swooning at the front of the stage and like, singing a bit? The performance is finished dear, and you blew it, so please calm your tits. She’s up against Jaidynn in the lip sync.
Now in my notes here I have ‘Jaidynn’s going home then’ as my first response to this state of affairs: Max has so obviously been a favourite, Jaidynn’s been in the bottom two before, etc. But Max, it seems, can’t lip sync to save her life and goes home. Shock twist, huh?
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. In another shock twist, RuPaul is going to bring back one of the queens who has already been sent home! Who could it be? It’s Trixie. That’s who.
See you next week, when, given how good I am at predicting RuPaul’s decisions, Sasha Belle will be back in the Work Room. Byeeeee!
