Following the split season 12 premieres, the thirteen queens all came together for the first time this week. After a staged stand off, it was clear there’s no real hard feelings and actually many of the queens know each other already.
The two winners of the previous episodes, Widow and Jaida, were set the task of ranking their opposite groups from Top to Bottom in terms of threat. Shade! Widow set about ordering the girls from group two, putting Sherry at the top and Aidan at the bottom. Jaida wasted no time in putting Gigi top and a slightly miffed Heidi at the bottom, although he was quite happy to be stood next to the pit crew’s Jason , telling him ‘I’ve been watching you on TV for a long time.’
Ru then announced the maxi challenge and threw a little twist with both Widow, Jaida and the two queens they voted bottom (Heidi and Aidan) all becoming team captains for the challenge and having to pick in turn from the remaining queens to make up their group for the task. Poor old Rock was left last in line and as all the other teams had three members he was allowed to decide which group he wanted to join, opting to join Jadia’s group.
The maxi challenge this week was World’s Worst and was an improv task based on a Britain’s Got Talent format but the world’s worst talent rather than best. For me, the whole thing didn’t work unfortunately. The girls had been given something of a script or storyline and characters ranging from elderly triplets to fruits, three girls with one brain to girl scouts. Trouble is that despite some good efforts, it just wasn’t funny and was cringey viewing.
Kicking off, Heidi, Jackie and Gigi played the aging Del Rio triplets with Gigi not saying much because her character had a heart attack and died during the interview before the audition. Something that Jackie and Heidi didn’t want made clear so they propped her up and played it as a threesome moving the corpse to animate her. It didn’t really give Gigi anywhere to go but Heidi came through strong against a solid Jackie.
Aidan picked Sherry and Brita and was soon talked over and dominated by the pair. Aidan is a really intriguing queen but definitely lacks experience and I felt sorry for him as he was belittled by the other two constantly in the work room. Their challenge was to speak in perfect timing as if one brain was controlling them all and they managed to pull it off through verrrry slooooow ennnnunication. All three delivered.
Jaida’s group had some internal tension with Rock asking a number of times if he could switch roles but Jaida was having none of it. The ‘gag’ here was they were a group of gays, dressed as fruits (you get it?) but the bad apple had been ousted for Brocolli. The latter was played by Dahlia, who looked to the others alot as if nervous and seems to only do ‘sexy’. She was definitely the weakest of the group.
She’s a FIERCE broc-ally! 🥦🌈🥦🌈 #DragRace pic.twitter.com/bER7mdzfT9
— RuPaul’s Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) March 14, 2020
The final group was Widow’s girl scouts with Crystal and Nicky; a drunk, a studious scout and a sexy scout. Widow held a strong character throughout and Crystal tried hard but ultimately struggled, but it was perhaps Nicky who was the weakest as she barely said a word. They didn’t really manage any decent repartee with Ross or Charo who were the fake show’s hosts.
Overall, it wasn’t a challenge that I enjoyed so I was happy to move on to the catwalk where category was Bows and Buttons and the special guest judge was American actress Olivia Munn.
Highlights included Sherry and Jan serving scary realness, the former with button glasses removed to reveal a black-eyed fiend. Heidi gave us Pinochi-ho and later revealed that as a child she was mistaken for a girl at a sports practise and ended up being mocked with ‘I’m a real boy’. Gigi was bringing the fashion in a totally button covered jacket and thigh length boots, complete with matching cases. Aidan’s look was too simple with lots of bows in her hair and a few on the shoulders of a plain short jumper dress and Crystal’s make up dominated his look (and face) in a bad way.
Category is: BUTTONS AND BOWS! 🧵🎀
Whose lewk was your favorite of the night? #DragRace pic.twitter.com/NBAy9tKQbr
— RuPaul’s Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) March 14, 2020
Ru dismissed seven of the queens to leave six as the tops and bottoms of the week; Dahlia, Heidi, Jackie, Crystal, Sherry and Nicky. It soon became clear that Heidi, Jackie and Sherry had impressed in both the improv challenge and the catwalk. Sherry was declared the week’s winner leaving Dahlia, Crystal and Nicky wondering which two of them would be bottom two.
Crystal teared up and explained that make up is her shield as she has trouble opening up to people, it saved her – she was the queen that escaped by the skin of her teeth and the other two prepared to lip sync to Ariana Grande’s Problem. Dahlia looked fuming that she was bottom two and never really seemed to get out of her head in the lip sync delivering a rather boring, trying-to-be-sexy performance. Nicky was slightly more animated and her lip sync was more on point than Dahlia, however she needs to up the entertainment factor.
Nicky was declared the lip sync winner and a moody Dahlia stomped off the cat walk. She really doesn’t have a great attitude and I think it was obvious from day one that she wouldn’t make it far in the competition.
Read my Episode 1 and Episode 2 recaps.
