Welcome to our weekly recap of each episode of the second season of Rupaul’s Drag Race UK.
If you want to avoid spoilers for Rupaul’s Drag Race, stop reading now.
It’s the semi finals and four queens are in touching distance of being in the final three; Bimini, Lawrence, Ellie and Tayce. It is obvious that Lawrence still feels somehow betrayed by Ellie for her ‘f**king everyone’ in her choice of running order for last week’s stand-up challenge. Leave it alone Lawrence! Unfortunately, it’s put me right off her as she’s coming across as entitled by saying things ‘What if I’d gone home?’.
1. Puppets aren’t always funny
As Ru entered the Werk Room (looking slightly strange with black eyeliner and possibly some freckles painted on his cheeks?) he declared a good old bitch fest was needed and what better way to do it than with puppets. Why? Because everybody loves puppets!
Each queen had to reach into the glory hole and pull out a puppet version of their fellow competitors which they then had 20 minutes to drag it up. Ellie pulled Tayce who in turn got Bimini, who got Lawrence who then pulled out Ellie; how ruthless would she be?
Ellie did a fairly good (at least in places) impression of Tayce but much like his stand-up from last week it was missing the punchlines. Lawrence did bring up the Rupeter badge but didn’t put the boot in too much, which I was glad about. Bimini focused on Lawrence’s pink diseased look from last week and managed to get Ru laughing and Tayce’s version of Bimini focused on his veganism. It wasn’t that funny if I’m honest but Bimini was definitely the best of the bunch and was crowned the winner of the mini challenge.
2. Lawrence is STILL upset by Ellie’s choices
As fan’s of Drag Race well know, Tatiana said it best, it’s all about ‘Choices’ and Lawrence is still fuming about Ellie’s with regards to the running order last week. I had hoped she would let it go this week but the atmosphere was still a bit tense and the pair had a heart-to-heart whilst preparing for this week’s maxi challenge. I still think Lawrence is coming across badly and acting like she deserves special treatment or something. I’ve said it from the start, there’s an air of superiority over Ellie from her and I don’t like it one bit.
3. All the girls are pretty good ‘bad’ actors!
This week’s maxi challenge was to overact in soap opera parody ‘Beastenders’ with Bimini giving the choice of who would play which character. It was a pretty amicable assigning of the roles as Bimini instantly wanted the Kat Slater role, Lawrence the female Phil Mitchell, Ellie the Dot Cotton character and Tayce the Sharon role.
In rehearsals the girls were directed by Michelle Visage and Lawrence appeared to be struggling not only with his lines but opening the set door! Ellie actually gave a very convincing real-acting performance as God-loving Thot Bottom who was secretly a sex maniac. I particularly enjoyed her sex scenes with Dicky the mannequin!
In the finished product, all the girls had proven themselves to be pretty good at overacting with Lawrence the standout for me.
Oh and a special mention to the legend that is Natalie Cassidy who gave the girls an acting masterclass.
4. Dicky is my new crush
This week’s guest judge on the runway was Dicky the mannequin from the ‘Beastenders’ sketch. I wonder if Danny Dyer was due to appear and had to pull out for some reason? Either way, it made for comedy genius TV to have a deep voice over giving quips from the mannequin throughout the runway. Proper!
UPDATE: Could it be that it was actually a well-known TV host all along?
5. Ginny is coming back (for one week at least)!
Next week is the final and in the teaser it showed Ginny will be amongst the eliminated queens returning for the season finale. It was so nice to see her face! Didn’t clock Veronica so it’s uncertain if she will be appearing or not.
This week’s runway theme was Panto Dame with Lawrence adding a Werk Room twist with a sewing machine on her head and a tape measure cinching her waist. Tayce looked like she was wearing a cheap fancy dress version of Kylie’s Showgirl tour opening outfit, with added wings; allegedly a fairy godmother look. Bimini stomped on to stage like Kevin the teenager, dressed in a Greyson Perry inspired look with a big pouffy baby doll dress and Ellie served a real Dame as she gave a royal twist on the theme.
Ru declared Bimini the winner and told Lawrence he was safe, which left a disheartened Tayce to lip-sync against Ellie. The former’s fourth time and the latter’s first. The song was the Steps classic ‘Last Thing on my Mind’ and both girls gave an energetic performance. I couldn’t call it as I waited for Ru to deliver the verdict. She turned to Tayce and told her ‘Chantay you stay’ and then turned to Ellie and told her ‘Chantay you also stay’. It was a double save and all four girls would be going through to the final!
It was a good result as they all did quite well in the acting challenge, although I would’ve sent Tayce home for her outfit which was neither Panto nor her usual classy look. I can’t see either of her or Ellie winning and it’s pretty much Bimini’s to lose. Ru does seem to have rather a fondness for Lawrence however so she may sneak in and steal it yet.
Rupaul’s Drag Race UK Series 2 is available on BBC Three through iPlayer with new episodes each Thursday at 7pm.
