- 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
So we’re into double figures and things are getting close. Miss Fame has gone, leaving everyone life-affirming messages in note form, which no one cares about. Save it for your YouTube subscribers, bitch.
As it happens, Miss Fame posted her first music video exactly a week ago, lest we forget her so soon. There’s a great bit where she seductively puts a cucumber in a plastic bag and then fondles some onions. Check it out.
For the mini-challenge, the queens have to serve ‘rich bitch reality realness’ by taping their face up to make it look like they’ve had plastic surgery, and filming an intro sequence.
This is an old-fashioned, good, clean, fun mini-challenge, and we get some great lines. From Katya: ‘The best thing about being married to a sociopath is that the constant threat of danger keeps you so thin!’ And my fave from Pearl: ‘I’m not just a slut – I’m also an alcoholic.’
Violet Chachki wins on the strength of her turned-up nose, and gets to assign partners for the maxi-challenge: a Victor/Victoria half man-half woman dance mash-up/dance-off. Yes, that’s just as much of a mess as it sounds.
RuPaul says this is the first time in Drag Race herstory that the contestants have had to go half and half, and while strictly speaking that’s true, this is not without precedent. In Season 2 we had Raven, Tyra, et al, dressing as both halves of a married couple. But while they had to pose awkwardly with their imagined selves in front of a green screen, these girls have a real life partner to get to grips with.
Violet chooses Katya for herself, leaving the Russian doll less than thrilled, while Trixie Mattel and Ginger Minj get to enjoy each other’s company for another week.
This week’s odd couple is Kennedy Davenport and Pearl. Cue much frustration and sighing from one person in each pair who can dance directed at the other who can’t – I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you which is which in each pair. Obviously Pearl leaves Kennedy in the dust
No one is actually terrible at this, though, and the apparent tension about whether Violet is up to scratch is deflated by the fact that a) she’s clearly doing fine and b) she is apparently an aerial performer so presumably she’s capable of moving about on the ground without killing herself.
Even Pearl manages to hoist her legs up in the air for a lift. Ginger, however, is terrified, and if her little dad-shuffle performance of the electric slide is anything to go by, she’s right to be.
We get to see these 50/50 looks first, and my God if it doesn’t underscore how boring men’s fashion is. They’re doing semi-ballroom dances, so I guess they all had to go for a tux for the male half, but even so. Seeing half a fantastic gown next to a boring suit made me feel so damn sorry for men for roughly a micro-second.
Violet looks the best with half a moustache – in her own words: ‘I nailed the look, but then what else is new?’ Violet yes, we get it, you’re gorgeous, you’re smug, I hope you fall flat on your face whenever you sashay away – move on.
The dances are about as good as you’d expect a Charleston/twerk, country/robot and tango/vogue to be, but Ginger’s nerves are enough to put her and Trixie in the bottom two.
As this was so predictable, the highlight of the judging is Pearl so confidently coining the term ‘flaaah-zay daah’ that it takes everyone a moment to realise she’s talking absolute shite.
Trixie’s all a-flutter about the prospect of a second elimination, while Ginger immediately puts her stone-cold bitch face on, and goes right ahead and saves herself. Trixie must have known she was toast when Ginger starting using her as a prop for her own performance, shooting between Trixie’s legs and riding her like a donkey.
It’s farewell again to Trixie Mattell, and now we’re down to our top five. I do think it’s everything to play for at this stage (unlike last year where we all knew who was going to win from week two), but this season has been a little flat.
I absolutely blame all these acting group challenges – the queens themselves are great, but they’re not being given enough to do. Hopefully that’ll change for the last few episodes.
Oh wait, next week has something to do with puppets. Never mind.
