So, who else is still gagging over what happened last week? I was so gagged that it actually lowered my immune system and gave me the flu, that is how intense the gag of last week was. This week though, we have so much to talk about and I better get to talking about it before I make another 4000-word review on a 40-minute show. Lord help me in two weeks when Season 10 starts.
When an episode begins with the classic trick of “Bring a random celebrity into the workroom for two minutes and have them do absolutely nothing”, then you know someone was out of ideas. Far as I can tell, this is another case like the Warhol Ball where there are two episodes worth of ideas that have been slammed together into one episode. While we have the majority of the time taken up with the main challenge, that’s several moments where they try to bring up politics. Now, they’ve done this before in season four when they had a debate for who would be the next drag president but here all they did was bring in Nancy Pelosi into the workroom for one minute and 50 seconds (I timed it) and mentioned calling your representatives at the end. It’s important but, for the show, it’s a missed opportunity. Either they needed to make the challenge more politically based and make that the theme of the week or they needed to get a politician on the judging panel… say, I don’t know, a former first lady who ran for president and right now probably has plenty of time to sit on a stage and judge drag queens for a few hours. I’m just saying.
Anyway, the politics stuff genuinely doesn’t even matter to the episode because the main challenge is to do a raunchy comedy trailer while also impersonating some Oscar-winning actresses. The script itself is just a list of references to semi-popular comedies and actresses with little else added to it. It’s not well written, every line is basically lifted from either the movies that the queens are pretending to be from or it’s something from Drag Race history. The title alone tells you that there was no attempt made, “My Best Squirrelfriend’s Dragsmaids Wedding Trip” is a title that’s so long and stupid that I literally just copy-pasted it from the Wikipedia page because I couldn’t be bothered typing it all. They literally just threw Bridesmaids, Girls Trip and Rough Night in a blender and hoped it’d work. Last seasons All Stars queens were better off because they just had to reference one movie, the shequels were funnier because they were more focused and they had the time to actually get out original jokes. This felt incredibly rushed. This whole season has felt a little rushed, almost as though producing an All Stars 3 within a year of All Stars 2 (While also preparing for Season 10) wasn’t a great idea because it gave no time to prepare this properly.
Morgan get’s to assign roles to everyone and, for reasons I will genuinely never understand, gives herself the most boring role of them all. The character of Beige Swan has almost no lines and no real jokes other than her entrance. That’s a role you give to someone you want to send home or to someone you know could pull magic out of that character. Shangela or Kennedy could’ve done something with that character easily, but Morgan just isn’t right for that role.
Speaking of Shangela, she get’s Actavia and basically destroys everyone. This challenge was designed almost intentionally for her to win because once you handed her Actavia, that was the end of the challenge. I could easily watch Shangela just recreate all of Octavia Spencer’s roles and be a very content man.
Kennedy brings us Lala and… eh, it’s not awful. I mean it’s not great, she has one “joke” and that joke is a high kick, but at least she’s trying her damndest. It sucks that she’s not doing more though because Kennedy is a great queen who I hope to see live someday, I’ll be going to her line at a meet and greet first. They bring up during the episode how she feels less than the other season 7 girls because she’s always the last one people go to and that’s just not OK. People, if you’re at a show with Kennedy Davenport you go to her first and you give her a big hug and ask her to tell you to shut up like Little Richard, she deserves all the attention.
Trixie does Sharon Frockavich, which wasn’t even a character that she wanted to play but she made it work. Whoever gave her the baby doll prop to work with is a genius because she uses that baby like she was trying to get a reality show on TLC. She really has to basically be the anchor for the sketch and she definitely keeps it on track with her gloriously over the top performance. It’s hard to say anything more intelligent than “She was good and did a good job at being good”, but I tried.
Bebe was The Queen and I’m not in any way interested in it. It was so bland and boring, she could’ve taken it so much further. Play the queen more like the queen from Blackadder and you have a shot at being interesting. This wasn’t, it’s the same demure performance Bebe gives every time she’s in some kind of acting challenge. Her performance as the virgin in The Bitchelor challenge had more to it, and that’s not exactly a high bar. I don’t get how it’s so bland because when she’s on the main stage doing a musical number she is actually alive. I may be in the minority about not enjoying what she did last week, but at least it was memorable and interesting. This wasn’t either of those and I expect so much more from her.
Also, did anyone else clock that Jason from the Pit Crew was obviously breathing when he was meant to be playing dead. How hard is it to hold your breath for 5 seconds while they get a pickup shot for that gag? Did no one call that out during the recording? Come on Ross Matthews, you’re meant to be directing, tell your cast to stop breathing when the joke calls for them being dead.
The runway was Red for Filth which is honestly pretty good, it does feel like either they wanted to call it “Red Carpet” or “GOP realness” since, again, they couldn’t decide if they wanted to just be joking about movies or be serious about politics but for the most part the runway was lovely. Shangela and Trixie were the obvious winners and had to lip sync to RuPaul’s “Freaky Money” and oh god… OH MY GOD YOU GUYS!
I’m calling it, this is one of the best lip syncs of the season. Trixie was fun and I do genuinely enjoy what she was doing but Shangela had everything planned out perfectly. That fat suit was a brilliant choice, the detail that the stripper outfit on top of the fat suit was in theme with the runway is a great choice. She brought glasses for the rap verse, completely changing her performance for that verse. She twerked her ass off, and she had a LOT of ass to twerk. She brought the house down and showed everyone else why she belongs at this level of the competition. I saw some people getting upset because she was in a fat suit and therefore is making fun of fat people… speaking as a fat person, that’s a load of bull. It was hilarious and if you got offended by it, why are you even watching this show?
Almost as expected, Shangela wins again which means she now has the best track record of any queen there with her 3 wins compared to Trixie and Bebe who have 2 while Kennedy has 1… but heck, after last season’s gag with Shea not winning after having the best track record of any queen I’m not about to call it a certainty just yet. Shangela does what we expect the winner of the week to do and sends Morgan home. It’s a shame because Morgan is a great queen but she basically eliminated herself the second she gave herself the least interesting character to play.
So now we wait for the big finale next week, which team are you on? Are you Team Shangela, Team Trixie, Team Bebe or Team Kennedy? Leave a comment with who you think should win and next week, we’re going to know who’s in that hall of fame and then forget who it is the week after because season 10 will start and the reign of the All Stars winner will be instantly over.
Best Lines Of The Show
- “I loved directing so much, I’m changing my name to Martin Scorsissy”
- “I’m filled with something and boy does it itch”
- “This is some How To Get Away With Murder shit”
- “What’s your favourite book, just off the top of your head” (Cos Trixie had on that book wig thing… it killed in context)
- “Who’s Ornacia?”
Movie Meister Reviews 