Another RuCap: All Stars 3, Episode 4

Well, it’s that time again, time for us to talk about the wondrous world of Snatch Game. It’s time to see what the queens have picked and who snatched the crown and who just crashed. It’s always the best episode of the season but with All Stars, it’s on a whole other level. Last All Stars had some of the best Snatch Game creations ever, let’s look at what this season brings us.

Walking in after the elimination, which according to Milk was bogus, we learn that BenDeLaCreme would’ve sent Chi Chi home. Honestly, I would’ve been absolutely fine with either one of those options. I love that the queens aren’t holding back and actually eliminating queens based on personal relationships because it really gives the bottom three a sense of anticipation, we have no idea who is heading home. Last season we could pretty much tell before we even got to the runway, this time there’s actually something to worry about.

Before we talk about the choices everyone’s made for their snatch game, let’s talk about note-gate. Shangela walks by Trixie’s station and spots a note hanging up on the support beam and see’s her name written on there, seeing Thorgy’s note which says “Fuck this shady bitch, Shangela”. Now here’s the thing, I’ve seen a few people saying Shangela overreacted and shouldn’t have been in Trixie’s station. The thing is, it was not only on the wall, it was on the side that faces the tables so there is no way on earth that it wasn’t going to be seen. I love Trixie, but she shouldn’t have hung that up. Put it in a notebook, hang it on the inside that couldn’t be seen, tear off the part about Shangela, SOMETHING. It’s not right, but it’ll be made OK later on. While they’re preparing their makeup, her and Trixie slip aside and talk about it and get everything out in the open and resolve it… so it seems anyway.

So Marc Jacobs comes by the workroom to see who is playing who and honestly? I have a feeling he was only there because Milk was on the show and they wanted a cute reunion moment but didn’t get Marc onto the set soon enough for that to happen. I genuinely don’t get why he’s there, he doesn’t seem to be helping anyone fix up their outfits and he’s not giving advice on characters. He does get to be there to see Shangela’s original choice of Miss Cleo, queen of the Irish psychics. It was genuinely kind of hilarious, I would pay to see Irish Miss Cleo but thankfully she changes and picks… we’ll get to it.

First up is Trixie Mattel as RuPaul which was an interesting choice and she started strong… and then died. It’s an impression that works for maybe 10-30 seconds with a quick one-liner but after a while, the pigeon neck starts looking weird, then the jokes flatline, then you realise that she just did a barely altered version of her normal makeup and one by one we see the cracks forming in this creation. I honestly just wish that she’d said “Fuck it” and done the Anne Frank impression that she auditioned with, the one the producers told her not to bring. Sure, it’d of been offensive as hell but it would’ve gotten laughs!

Kennedy Davenport played Phaedra from the Real Housewives of no one cares. Seriously, all future queens, STOP PLAYING REAL HOUSEWIVES! They are not big enough personalities, they aren’t funny enough, they aren’t unique enough to work in this context. I have no idea who Phaedra is or what she’s like as a person, and I have even less of an idea about who she is or what she’s like after suffering through what Kennedy did. I consider it suffering because Kennedy won last time, and here she bombed hard. Why couldn’t she have picked anything else? She has to have other characters she could play because this was a train wreck.

BenDeLaCreme played Paul Lynde and it is, without exaggeration, one of the greatest characters to ever be played in Snatch Game herstory. Everything about this is amazing. The look could not have been more accurate, the one-liners were the right amount of filthy and clever. BenDeLaCreme got Paul Lynde’s iconic laugh absolutely perfect and it sold me on the character. Every joke landed with absolute ease, we all knew that Ben was going to be hard to top but no one could’ve expected it to be this hard.

Chi Chi Devayne played Mya Angelou. Yes, MYA. Not Maya, MYA. Can we just all take a minute and appreciate how that mistake happened and no one on the crew pointed it out? I know it’s a competition, I know they’re not meant to help, but how the hell did no one spot her writing that down and go “Uh, Chi Chi? Want a new name tag?”. On top of that, this was just a toned down Eartha Kitt. The voice was the same one she used last time, the jokes were ones she told last week. Chi Chi honey, I love you but… girl! This hurt almost as much as the Phaedra one.

Shangela played Jennifer Motherf***ing Lewis and it is iconic. She doesn’t break character for a single second and get’s more laughs out of a look than most queens get with pre-planned jokes. She is giving everything I needed, she gave pure Jennifer Lewis fantasy and my only hope is that we eventually see video of Jennifer Lewis reacting to Shangela playing her because she will have to admit, Shangie did incredibly. This is a big step up from her Whitney Tina Turner impression in season 3. (Note: Originally said Whitney, thanks Tom for pointing out my mistake. In my defence… her Snatch Game in season 3 was really damn awful)

Aja came out as Crystal Labaija and I am so going to need to look her up. I sadly do not know much about miss Labaija and I should, I really should so thankyou Aja for introducing her to those of us who are dumb and don’t know these things. Even though I don’t know the reference, I know funny when I see it and Aja absolutely killed me.

Bebe played Grace Jones and it was funny at first, her introduction was hilarious but she seemed to fade away. I really wanted her to just start calling out “Pussy” in the middle of the match or something. She really was good though, she certainly looked the part and was really a lot of fun. It’s nice to see Bebe really getting to show off something other than the royal character that she does a lot.

Last up was Kristin Chenoweth… as herself, she just sat in and played the game. Can this be a thing? Can we just have the guest judge play the game along with the queens? It’s hilarious and amazing in all the best ways, she was such a great sport. Also, I need Kristin to just be cast in literally every gay show ever from now until the end of time because she is precious and perfect and the ultimate ally.

So, favourite lines of the snatch game.

Kristin: I always thought one of these queens would do me and no one ever did.
BenDeLaCreme: Sweetheart, none of these queens are gonna do ya

Rupaul: Maya Angelou. Poet, activist, actress
Shangela: Spelling bee winner

RuPaul: The US Congress is so dysfunctional, they can’t pass blank
Kristin: Gun Control

…OK that last one wasn’t funny, but it’s the best answer anyone ever gave. It’s also pretty clear that it’s Shangela and BenDeLaCreme up top because they had all the jokes in the world and then some. Even in the workroom, everyone pretty much knew wher they were going to land when it came to the rankings. The tops and bottoms literally were sitting together in the workroom, that’s how obvious it was to everyone and they were prepared for it. What no one was prepared for was how fast the runway was. It was a flower runway and the queens did look lovely, for the 3 seconds they got on stage. Seriously VH1, we will take an hour and a half show if you give us one. ESPECIALLY on Snatch Game week.

Aja looked absolutely flawless, I love that color hair on her and the fact it matches the shoes is a great touch. The outfit was trimmed, anyone else just loving how much Aja has upped her game on the runway? I keep being amazed at what she pulls off.

Shangela was Beyonce. She just became Beyonce. She saw the Beyonce twins announcement photo and said “I can do that”, then did it and did it flawlessly. She didn’t just come to win, she came to destroy everyone with how perfect she looks now.

Bebe had on a gorgeous batch of pure black flowers, it’s possibly the most elegant thing I’ve seen on her and I love it so much. Every petal is perfectly arranged, the black fingerless gloves are a great touch and the flower wig is just… perfect. Make it in every colour.

Kennedy had a black dress with a trail of sunflowers and honestly, I was down with everything except the one on her eye. That felt like it was a bit much. Now if she’d turned those petals into eyelashes, it’d still be a bit much but it’d of been amazing. I guess I just expected more because it’s Kennedy and I’ve seen what she can put on that runway, but it’s OK.

Chi Chi came out with a beautiful elegant white number, her hair was right, I wish there were more flowers covering the breastplate cos that’s where they stood out the most and it would’ve helped hide that little part where the plate and skin can’t connect. Still gorgeous though, and those legs? Damn!

Trixie brought her kawaii outfit and covered it with flowers and I love it. Pink always works on the tallest barbie doll in captivity and I genuinely loved that she just threw flowers everywhere, then created a whole new bunch of places to put more flowers. I do wish the wig was bigger though.

BenDeLaCreme just turned herself into a goddamn flower and I love it. The petals down the bottom were perfect, the head piece was lovely, the ruffles worked. Ben is on fire this season when it comes to the runway this season and I am living for it.

So as expected, Shangela and BenDeLaCreme are the top two. They don’t get a critique which sucks because I wanted to see them getting showered with praise. The bottom three were Kennedy, Chi Chi and Trixie. Really not that much of a shock, pretty much could’ve called this one right at the start of the game when they made their intro’s. What really did kind of stand out was Trixie breaking down on the runway and admitting her panic about being on the show is insanely high. It’s actually really sad to watch because Trixie has always been this strong fun queen and seeing her hurt like this just breaks my heart.

The discussion in the workroom afterwards pretty much has Chi Chi just saying “Girl, send me home” and I respect that she knows that it’s kind of getting silly at this point. Trixie and Shangela have an interaction that really does bring the earlier argument to the forefront of the audience’s mind, which is going to come up again. I’m sure of that. It’s definitely a tough decision to make and I don’t envy the girls for having to make this choice, especially Ben who has had to do it every single week now.

The lip sync is to I Kissed A Girl by Katy Perry and both queens gave EVERYTHING. Shangela had a nerd girl character that slowly grew into a slut and I lived for it, she brought props with her for jokes. I almost died laughing when she pulled out a container of mints and started throwing them at BenDeLaCreme. Ben was just bringing her adorable fun character and being adorable, but also being unafraid to basically go down on Shangela during the number. It was an absolutely incredible lip sync from the both of them, they worked together to create a piece of drag lesbianism art that was beautiful to behold. The only part that sucked was the shitty mix of the song. Seriously, lip syncs are a minute and a half and they butchered the song by cutting it down so much. How expensive could it be to just play the full song? Cutting the song up so much makes some of the moments very awkward, especially when it ruins the flow of the song. It’s just a bad edited version of the song and I wish they’d just played the full thing.

Both queens end up being named as the winner which means we could be having a double elimination. BenDeLaCreme goes first and pretty much instantly eliminates Chi Chi, saying explicitly that she’s just been in the bottom several times. Chi Chi actually corrects her by pointing out that it’s 4, it’s a simple sweet moment. Shangela gives us the best TV of the year by making a speech that lingers, makes it look like she’s about to eliminate Trixie and let’s that hang for a solid minute before she reveals that she sent Chi Chi home too. It was kind of amazing honestly, I know it’s messy to enjoy that moment but I can’t help but find it funny how they were just setting it up to look like Shangela was going to send Trixie home and then there was a pivot. Give this show the Best TV Drama Emmy for this moment!

And so we say goodbye to Chi Chi, and hello to a new week coming up where the queens will have to do a Andy Warhol challenge, but this is the end of my 15 minutes…. for now anyway (No seriously, if you do a video review of next weeks episode and you don’t purposefully make sure it’s exactly 15 minutes then you have failed)