ANOTHER RUVIEW: SEASON 10, EPISODE 3

Every single week I keep being shocked at just how good this season is. This is the shot in the arm that this show needed, for 10 years in the game it’s nice to see that this show still has everything that we need it to have and it’s so good to see it.

The show begins with some of that great drama that the fandom genuinely enjoys, even though they say they don’t. Let’s be real, the fandom lives for moments like The Vixen vs Aquaria even if they don’t want to admit it. The Vixen looked truly amazing last week with her genuinely amazing slutty Princess Disastah look but, as we discovered this week, the wig wasn’t hers and, for some reason, Aquaria has decided that this means that it wasn’t really Vixen’s best drag. We’re jumping ahead a bit here but this does lead to a pretty intense fight between them when they get to the makeup station later, one that Vixen easily wins. Now I’ve made it no secret that I am here for The Vixen, she’s not taking anyone’s crap and will happily shut it down when someone tries to come for her. It’s really one hell of a fight that shows Vixen isn’t to be messed with but the real important moment happens in Untucked when the fight is brought back up and The Vixen points out something that’s been simmering under the surface for several seasons. She calls out the fact that, because she’s a person of color, that if she claps back to someone who comes for her first that she will instantly appear to be the villain. I wish they’d gotten that in a confessional for the main show because it’s such a good point. Think back through the series at every black queen who has clapped back at someone who came for them first, they all in some way got turned into the aggressor and we need to combat that however we can.

So the mini-challenge is to advertise RuPaul’s Chocolate bar with a commercial that references a series of banned ads from Calvin Klein that are more like a cheesy porn film than anything. The queens are given silly instructions by RuPaul in a creepy echoing voice-over, she get’s them to do things like dance (Leading to Blair St Clair giving us a Shirley Temple dance number that turns into some form of The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Anderson) or put on an accent (Monet X Change does a very bad Irish accent while singing and then Monique Heart does a fancy English accent). It’s the kind of outrageously silly mini-challenge that I can’t get enough of, everyone really found a way to shine in their little moments but Monique, Monet and Blair were the clear winners.

The main challenge is to make commercials for three dating apps. One for people who believe in the apocalypse, one for compulsive liars and one for people who have great bodies… but ‘er face. The good thing is that all of those have a ton of potential for big broad characters and there is no real way that anyone could say they weren’t put in a good group. It’s a challenge that really relies on teamwork and on creativity which some of these queens have in spades… others, maybe they have some but not in this challenge. It does become pretty obvious right away that Yuhua and Mayhem are the ones who are going to have the most problems. Yuhua because she just doesn’t seem to have good ideas (Or at least, none we saw in the edit, we have to always be aware that we’re seeing minutes of a 12 hour day so who knows?) and Mayhem just seems like she’s too shy to speak up. Either she’s too shy or she’s too polite, but it ends up looking like it’s going to cost her. Both of them are really obviously struggling from the top of the episode and it’s not looking like they’re going to be able to pull themselves out of that.

When they’re shooting their videos that suspicion becomes a certainty. The first video is the Fibstr one and Mayhem stumbles HARD because she just doesn’t have anything to work with, she could’ve had the Narrator part but she let Kameron Michaels have that part… Kameron also kind of fumbled with her less-than-exciting delivery of the narration. It’s painful to see because Mayhem can be really fun and would’ve sold that Narrator part. The other queens are OK, they have some funny moments in that video but for the most part it’s just painful.

Easily the best one is the End of Days video. Blair, Miz and Eureka just owned everything and Vixen was great, though she wasn’t anywhere near the other three who were so over the top that it was glorious. They really just keep trying to find ways to throw more and more gags into what they’re doing and even make little things like Eureka saying “We know girl” into side-splitting moments of comedy gold.

Yuhua’s section in her video is painfully unfunny, the joke is clearly attempting to be a sex joke about being put in many positions but it really doesn’t work. She’s not even in that outrageous of a position, I can get into more outrageous positions and I’m not exactly what you would call “A person who enjoys movement”. Seriously, if you’re going to do a “sex positions” joke then at least put your legs behind your head or something. Luckily everyone else is really good when they’re doing the Butterface app. Asia in particular just completely commits to creating some of the stupidest faces ever and it’s hilarious. Monet is a great narrator who charms the hell out of the audience and Aquaria also has a few funny moments, her big reveal joke works wonderfully well and sells the entire concept of the app in about 5 seconds.

Back in the workroom, there’s this genuinely heartbreaking talk about conservative parent’s and how they handle having a gay child, and there are two vastly different and equally important responses that we should all be aware of. Blair is lucky that her parents were conservative but they also loved Blair enough to support her no matter what she does, including being in drag which is the good story people should hear. There’s also Dusty Ray Bottoms who really shows us the heartbreaking story that is sadly too common, but needs to be told, with parent’s who literally got her an exorcism to try and get the gay out of her. It’s a powerful discussion about religion and how some people still sadly use it to attack the LGBT community, even if that LGBT person is in their own family.

The runway was feathers and honestly? Everyone here gets toots from me. There isn’t a single solitary look that doesn’t wow the actual hell out of me, they are perfection. Heck, the fact that they somehow got these giant feathery outfits into their suitcases without destroying them is incredible. There is a lot of queens who did the black feathers of the crow but even the one that was the worst (Based on judges critiques) is still pretty damn incredible. The judges definitely are clearly living for everyone, especially the guest judges Nico Tortorella and Courtney Love. It’s really one of the better pair of guest judges in a while because they were clearly superfans of the show, Nico even admitted to being a big Eureka fan and hosted the premiere of the season (And has a drag persona, Almond Milk, because of course he does).

The top three at the end of it all are Blair, Asia and Eureka while the bottom three are Mayhem, Yuhua and Kameron. The one who seemed to be saved by her outfit was Kameron, her glorious Malefi-Cher outfit was impossible to see going home. The winner was easily Asia, those facial expressions in her app commercial were lethally funny and her Tweety Bird coture was everything. Bottom two was Mayhem and Yuhua and I’ll admit, I was nervous as hell for Yuhua because I’ve seen Mayhem lipsync in the movie Cherry Pop so I’m aware of how good she is, it’s going to be one hell of a battle.

The lip sync was to Celebrity Skin by Hole and once again, this could’ve gone to anyone. I’m genuinely loving that this season every lip sync really could go either way, they’ve been fairly evenly matched and provide some real entertainment. Yuhua really had some great energy, losing her feathre dress in seconds just so she can look like she can show off her Celebrity Skin while rocking out on air guitar and knowing every lyric perfectly. Mayhem, on the other hand, is just full of pure raw passion that shows off in every single dance move and in her face. She has no intention of letting Yuhua beat her and even throws some subtle shade to her competitor. It’s one hell of a battle that was so close… right up until Mayhem literally started tearing feathers off her outfit and throwing them everywhere and then it was over. It was all over.

Mayhem stayed, thankfully because she’s fierce as hell, meaning that Yuhua is sent home. She’s truly a great diva who has some cool looks in her and some really amazing skills as a performer. If nothing else, this lip sync should make you want to hunt down her next show (Which you can find HERE) and go cheer her on as she dances and splits and does all that good stuff we love. Also, grab some of her merch which looks pretty famn fierce, she even took the Ankh from the first episode and found a way to capitalise on that so you know this is one smart queen who we’re going to be hearing from again.