Welcome to our weekly look at what has been going on in the Werk Room and Main Stage of Rupaul’s Drag Race stateside.
If you want to avoid spoilers for Rupaul’s Drag Race, stop reading now.
Last time the queens had to create and market their very own fizzy pop brand and Ru seemingly ignored the lip-sync to save Utica and send home Tina Burner. As the girls returned to the Werk Room, Utica was sad at Tina leaving, but happy to be a lip-sync assassin. The other girls didn’t look impressed that Tina had left instead of Utica and I was surprised that Kandy kept her mouth firmly shut for once.
As a new week in the Werk Room began, Ru entered to set the girls a mini challenge that would see the remaining six contestants pair up to do a make up tutorial for Anastacia Beverley Hill’s new colour pallete. Of course there was a twist – one would be the face, the other the hands.
Kandy and Rosé were the first pair up with the latter being the face with Kandy’s arms. Ru was joined by Norvina from the make up company who looked like a Lady Gaga impersonator. Rosé was a natural as Kandy powdered her face and drew lipstick over half of Rosé’s face.
Next up, Olivia provided arms for Symone and yet again she ably handled Olivia missing the right part of her face, creating a smokey eye starting at the chin. Lastly, Utica made Gottmik look like Mrs Tickle with her extremely long arms already making Ru laugh before they’d said a word.
Rose and Kandy won the challenge and soon found out it gave them an advantage for the maxi challenge – A Nice Girl Roast of three previous Miss Congenality winners; Heidi N Closet, Nina West and Valentina. Ru announced that Rosé and Kandy would get to decide the order the queens performed in. Surprisingly, as they talked about later they decided they wanted to push themselves with Kandy opting to go first and Rosé closing the roast. Risky move, ladies!
Each girl got the chance to run through their routines with Michelle Visage and guest judge Loni Love on the Main Stage. Kandy pulled out a c-bomb straight away and was advised she might want to tone it down for fear of getting bleeped (despite Netflix airing the word from both Kandy and Michelle repeating her). Gottmik was the most nervous about the roast, but actually had some really good material lined up. Olivia, however, didn’t have many funny lines and was told she could play up her nice girl persona instead. Rosé was very relaxed and had some great punchlines which had Michelle and Loni laughing. Symone struggled with her jokes and felt like she had lost some confidence and Utica was just plain rude to Michelle and Loni – very risky and not a way to win over those who hold your fate in their hands!
There would be no runway category this week, just the roast. As Ru took his seat on the panel alongside, Michelle, Loni and Ross, the contestants were sat to the side of the stage as first Nina, then Valentina and then Heidi came on to the stage. The lights went down for the show to begin…
Kandy was first up and had a super-cinched waist, looking very fishy and glam, but her rough voice cut straight through that. She poured out joke after joke and had everyone in hysterics – smashed it! Symone followed and she struggled from the off, stumbling over her words and never really delivering any zingers.
Utica started strong with a jab at Symone and then she got all flustered and started to revert to just insulting everyone; it was cringey to watch! It did however turn out to be one of the funniest sets but more for the heckling. Loni retorted to a jibe by pointing out that Utica was bombing and when asked to stand up Ru gave Utica two middle finger protests!
Gottmik followed Utica and as she said herself, it was going to be easy to follow that! She had an ease about her that instantly won everyone over and the jokes were all there. Good job Gottmik! Olivia tottered on to stage next trying to give the sweet girl routine, but apart from a couple of age jokes aimed at Ru, there wasn’t enough laughs.
Finally, Rosé came out and showed the other queens that this is what she does. That said, she was funnier in rehearsal, as Loni later pointed out.
When it came time for the critiques, Kandy, Gottmik and Rosé were clearly the tops of the week with the judges heaping on the praise for all three. That meant that Symone, Utica and Olivia were in trouble. It was pretty obvious that Symone had the worst performance as she didn’t seem to land any jokes, whereas the other two had at least one joke each that got a laugh. After the deliberations, it was Utica who would face Symone in the lip-sync which this week was to Arianna Grande’s ‘No Tears Left To Cry’.
Both girls did gave strong performances, but it was no surprise that Utica’s time on the competition had come to an end. As much as I love Symone, it’s going to be interesting to see if she can still win the whole thing as she has been in the lip-sync a couple of times now.
We now have our Top 5 queens, but who will win? I’m still predicting a Symone, Gottmik and Rosé final three.
Rupaul’s Drag Race Season 13 is available on Netflix in the UK with new episodes added every Saturday.
