In a season known for lame challenge themes, tonight’s RuPaul’s Drag Race goes old school. We knew we were getting Snatch Game (hallelujah!) but no one is prepared when RuPaul pulls out his reading glasses. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the library. Is. Open. Officially. I don’t really listen to Kameron’s reads. I’m hypnotized, watching words tumble out of his mouth. As I age, experiencing something completely new is a rare treat. In the battle of the comedians, Miz Cracker is surprisingly stale. The Vixen and Monét get strong laughs but Eureka is the clear winner. She begs Kameron for a kai kai. She callis Aquaria a pathological liar for telling herself she’s going to win. She drops the mic by thanking everyone in advance for their fat jokes. It’s a blow out. All hail Queen Eureka.
With Library business taken care of, the queens turn their attention to the maxi-challenge. Snatch game is a big deal. It’s kind of like making it to the merge on Survivor. Having RuPaul laugh at your celebrity impersonation is an honor and a privilege. Win or lose, you could be this season’s breakout star. But Snatch Game is no mere prestige grab. It’s also a turning point in the game. You can’t win Drag Race without Snatch Game. The queens who know their herstory come prepared. The rest settle like chaff in the bottom two, until RuPaul blows them away with only the words “Vanjie… Vanjie… Vanjie…” echoing in their ears.
In honor of how much we love Snatch Game, Bianca Del Rio joins RuPaul on his workroom walkthrough. Bianca is a Snatch Game legend (although I wanted to see her as Dora the Explorer) and one of the nicest people in the world (including dogs). She’s a good counterpoint to RuPaul. While he massages their spirits, she warns the queens they’re not being funny. How they react reveals personal strategy. Monique hears it as constructive criticism and reworks her act. Asia makes a game alliance. Her Beyonce and The Vixen’s Blue Ivy are Team Hive. It’s the first time I’ve seen queens make improv plans before a Snatch Game.
Miz Cracker wants to do Dorothy Parker, another gay icon the kids should know about (see: Carol Channing, Edie Beale, Marlene Dietrich) but don’t. Since Miz Cracker takes sketch comedy seriously, she is steadfast in the face of RuPaul’s concern. Dorothy Parker is begging to rise from the grave and sit on the Snatch Game stage. Bianca gets it, comedian to comedian. In contrast, Aquaria thinks her not being so good with the, what would you say, words? will translate nicely to her Melania Trump character. RuPaul, perhaps emboldened by the tall, sharp-tongued woman at his side, tells Aquaria she trips over her tongue because she’s overly consumed with how she looks to other people. That’s deep. The kind of read that changes lives. But Aquaria is too busy planning her next perfect sentence to notice.
Guest judges Kate Upton and Audra McDonald do double duty as Snatch Game contestants. From the moment the lights rise, it’s a battle between Eureka’s Honey Boo Boo and Monét X Change’s Maya Angelou (not to be confused with Mya Angelou). Eureka is silly but not stupid, mocking but not mean. Monét’s Angelou is everything we love about Snatch Game. Irreverent, raw, literary. “I will not hesitate to put thou in a ditch / because Maya Angelou ain’t no punk bitch.” Aquaria’s Melania Trump is an unexpected delight. She’s finally relaxed, silly. Her planned and off the cuff quips are sharp. This is the Aquaria Aquaria wants us to see.
The rest is an orgy of bad choices fighting for attention. Asia decides to Mommy Dearest The Vixen. Beyonce cuts Blue Ivy down until it feels like we’re watching a middle school presentation on child abuse. Asia’s alliance is headed straight for the lip-sync And much to my chagrin (I’m allowed to have opinions), Miz Cracker is a huge disappointment. Everything was lined up for her success. Her character has cutting remarks for every occasion. She’s a comedy queen. But in the challenge, she comes across one dimensional. Bitter. Cruel. The reason Dorothy Parker’s shade stung was because you wanted her to like you. Miz Cracker forgot to workshop charm.
The mood in the workroom is tense. No one feels safe. A good runway could make the difference between Untucked and the bottom two. Talk turns political. As a black gay man, The Vixen has grown up fighting. Fighting to survive. Fighting to exist. It’s exhausting, for her and for anyone she comes into contact with. Her shows shove racial injustice in white faces. You want entertainment? Check this out… Miz Cracker, her very name a racial slur, accurately predicts she gets huge applause. Yes, we can clap the white guilt away. Living in a former slave state, political drag has real-life repercussions for Monique. Her threats are more immediate and deadly than her Yankee sisters might realize. Not to mention how it might affect her coins. White Guilt pays well, The Vixen assures her. Nickel and dime reparations.
Pit Boys wheel the queens down the Mermaid Fantasy runway. Most of the looks are, well, mermaids. There are a few worth mentioning. Aquaria literally gasps for air, oil spill collateral damage. Asia O’Hara’s fish mask accents her tattered tail. So, ugly ugly? Monét almost succeeds to bring her look home as a battle weary warrior mermaid. And Eureka’s nude illusion goth mermaid is sure to get rave reviews (because they love everything she does).
Top three: Aquaria, Monét X Change and Eureka
Bottom three: Monique Heart, Asia O’Hara and The Vixen
The judges do what their job title promises. “Aquaria is amazing.” “Monét is amazing.” “Eureka is amazing.” So, you like them then? Michelle Visage calls Monique out on her 30 minute mermaid tail but nothing compares to Asia’s fish mask. When Asia admits she recently added the mask, I dream up a whole Showgirls fantasy about The Vixen conning Asia into wearing a Kabuki fish on her face. “It’ll look great. So avant garde.”
RuPaul asks the queens who they’d eat if they were stranded in the Andes. Eureka names Asia because she’s not as scary as The Vixen her biggest competition. The Vixen calls out Eureka because she’s petty PETTY. Everyone else chooses The Vixen. She has no best friends in this race.
Winner: Aquaria
The Vixen and Monique are up for elimination. They lip-sync (for their life) to Cut To The Feeling by Carly Rae Jepsen. Monique quickly loses her wig. It’s her boy head against The Vixen’s boy body. Monique forgets the words. All of them. The Vixen feels the power shift and shakes her boy body for all it’s worth. Of all the judges, only Kate Upton is smiling. She doesn’t realize how bad this lip-sync is. The Vixen, shantay you stay. Monique Heart, sashay away.
Next week: American Horror Story, Cher addition.
I just finished the show and am about to watch Untucked. But I have to comment on that lip sync. DID THEY LEARN NOTHING FROM VALENTINA? Girl, you better learn that song! Vixen wiped the floor with that girl! I wanted her to go home from the beginning of the episode though, She didn’t listen to a thing Ru told her about her Maxine Waters character. And from where I sit Maxine is hysterical. A laughing stock even. How can you do Maxine Waters and not be funny?
And the talking back to the judges? Girl bye.
I will be reclaiming my time after Untucked.
Well that was a heartbreaking UnTucked. I actually felt compassion for The Vixen. And her spot on lip sync seems even more spectacular knowing that she got a very emotional video from her mother.
Monique sobbing after being voted off was hard to watch. The financial burden on these queens is apparently a lot more than I knew.
This was by far the best episode of the season. Why aren’t we talking about it more/
Will Eureka finally be our first plus sized queen? Or is it going to be like when Violet beat Ginger and we get another skinny young look queen (aquaria)? Eureka has much better fashion than Ginger. Can’t wait to see how this turns out…kameron is great. I want to be her best friend. Still waiting for cracker to do or say anything funny…Anything.
Eureka has emerged as my favorite to win the season after the last 3 weeks. In all honesty, she seems to be the only fully-baked queen on the stage for most challenges. Her Honey Boo Boo was brilliant!
Aquaria completely surprised me. I hadn’t given her a second thought until this episode. Her Melania was absolute perfection in illusion and impression… and she was funny! Her mermaid dripping in oil was beautifuly inspired and fully realized.
Meh, I wasn’t feeling Monet’s Maya though. It’s just that everyone else was so bad that she earned a top 3 spot by default. And she got a few bonus points because she was a massive improvement on Chi Chi’s “Mya” from All Stars.
What the fuck The Vixen?! Why is it every time she wants to talk trash about someone/everyone, everyone else must be completely silent? The other queens wait patiently (in fear) for their turn to talk but when they start talking, The Vixen decides that she needs to keep talking again. She then berates everyone back into silence. She may be the most bitter and petty person on the planet. Ugh, I wish Monique would have done her homework and sent The Vixen home during the lip sync. At least next week should be interesting watching all of the other queens trying to avoid the turd in the punch bowl.
I agree it was the best episode of the season. I also think if Eureka hadn’t won the last 2 challenges that she would have won this one. Her Honey Boo Boo clearly was best. Aquaria did more with Melania than expected but not enough to win based on what was shown.
I wish Vixen wasn’t so bitter about Eureka successes. Eureka may be boisterous but she’s always kind.
I’m loving Kameron. It was nice to see her with Miz Cracker at the start of Untucked. Sadly Miz Cracker hasn’t shown much comedic talent. She’s lucky Asia, Vixen and Monique were so bad.
I don’t think The Vixen can help herself. She comes off as a angry bitter nasty piece of work. She seems exactly the type of person who is jealous of other people’s success. She has had problems with nearly every contestant there since day one before she finally settled on Eureka as her main sore spot. No doubt after the season is over with she will have some bullshit answer about getting the villain edit but this is probably closer to her true personality than it is a bad edit. Ironic that she came off so petty in her complaint to the judges last night about Eureka when Eureka was the only one of the women on that stage who did not say that she was the one that deserved to go home. All we keep hearing out of her mouth is how influential she is in the Chicago drag community and how she’s a role model for other queens in that community but she presents herself as a very poor role model with her behavior. She always spends most of her time whining about how talented she is and how she doesn’t understand how the judges don’t see it. Maybe the problem is that she isn’t as talented as she thinks she is. One of the reviews I read on another site said that she has spent the whole season sucking all the joy out of the show and that is a spot on observation.
I hate to say this but I completely agree, this is one of my favorite shows and I sort of dread watching it because I don’t want to watch The Vixen anymore, I also really don’t feel like her looks are all that polished and I think maybe she’s a bit upset because she doesn’t like Eureka and Eureka is killing it. Also I am loving Eureka and Aquaria and hope one of them win this season.
I haven’t been a fan of Aquaria from the beginning. In general I don’t want a NYC queen to win because they seem to have an advantage being in a big city with a firm drag queen circuit. And I loved Eureka on her first season. And she is doing great this time. And I’m a fat fuck so I’d love to have a fat queen.
But after that Melania Snatch game, and that AMAZING mermaid get up…. I’m reluctantly pulling for Aquaria.
Does this make me a fat chick sell out?
Dorothy Parker! Jersey girl shout out! She was from Long Branch of I’m not mistaken, I’m just not shore.
I’m not a veteran viewer of Drag Race, but I TOTALLY knew what you meant when you compared Snatch Game to the Merge in Survivor. My eyes literally widened when I read that. lol Both are epic turning points in the game that can determine the flow of the game moving forward. I feel like it’s always one of the most iconic episodes of a season, because it revolves around a lot of pop culture icons.
Your discussion of the work room scene was pretty intense. I totally get the irony of Mz Cracker’s name being a play on a racial slur. Based on my discussions with people, she’s kind of the run away favorite this season no? Really happy Vixen stayed!
“The reason Dorothy Parker’s shade stung was because you wanted her to like you.” YES and YES. Love this recap! I worship Dorothy Parker and I love RuPaul Charles from waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the Atlanta says and later in NY in the East Village days. Well done, Well damn done!!
Darling, Atlanta didn’t even like RuPaul during the Atlanta years.
Thanks, K. Cooper Ray!
I was disappointed that Monique didn’t know/forgot the words to the lip sync. The Vixen DOES suck the life out of the workroom and I’m beyond ready for her to be gone. I was pleasantly surprised by Aquaria this week and disappointed with Miz Cracker. Eureka has really moved to the top for me. I thought her take on Honey Boo Boo answering with pictures was both original and hilarious.
Great recap Lady C!