The ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Queens Strive for Heaven, but Go to Hell
Hot on the six-inch platform heels of last week’s stellar, two-hour premiere, the second episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 It is significantly shortened. These are the last seasons. Drag Race The show has been stretched into episodes of 90 minutes each with a half-hour. Untucked nightcap.
Now, Drag Race Has been shaved back down to an hour, presumably to make room for next week’s premiere of The Real Friends of WeHo—a decision that upset Fans who cherish every moment with their favourite franchise are loyal. The editors are faced with a daunting task when they have to combine that short runtime with 15 highly talented queens to showcase.
Luckily, a compact episode doesn’t mean that watching these queens compete is anything less than heavenly. Literally! In this week’s maxi-challenge, the queens are divided into three groups to shoot infomercials advertising their vision of the afterlife. “What Heaven actually looks like is anybody’s guess,” Ru says, to a hilarious cut of Sugar nodding wisely, like the world’s twinkiest theology scholar.
The formation of teams is quick and Princess Poppy sets a course for unstoppable karmic retribution. Poppy is the final queen chosen by team leaders Amethyst and Anetra, leaving the five remaining queens who weren’t picked to form the third and final group, cruelly named Team Leftovers. “Sorry, losers!” Poppy says, skipping over to her team. A tickled RuPaul—who, like a middle school gym teacher, lives to see the queens create drama with their team choices—warns her, “Those words may come back to haunt you.”
The workroom planning stage immediately feels troubled. Queens from each team are prone to exhibiting a haphazard form of popper-fueled psychosis that could be called Queen Heaven. Marcia Marcia Marcia makes an Ariana Grande reference. She suggests that God is a woman and should be played in the role of Sasha Colby. It’s perhaps the only inspired choice in the planning phase; God Is A woman who has a confessional appearance, especially if she is a female Madonna on Letterman meets Bimini Bon Boulash.
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The rest of the group is shaking more than the floor at Sephora when NARS Beauty sales are on. In Amethyst’s group, Poppy suggests a sort of Heaven-as-spa experience, complete with a lazy double entendre facial joke and “anal bleaching on your halo!”
Meanwhile, the group of last-chosen leftovers is being overtaken by Sugar, suggesting a Heaven for “all the hungover bitches” and a horribly offensive joke about a “cracked-out Beyoncé” that made me suck the air through my teeth. Maybe the bimbo routine isn’t a total act? When Jax shuffles Sugar to the side, she complains about needing her twin sis Spice to hype her up, which doesn’t bode well for her ability to succeed in the competition on her own.
Michelle Visage is ready for the queens to start filming their infomercials. Things look even worse. Sasha Colby may be as strong as her legend, but even legendary queens can trip themselves up when the cameras begin rolling. “Y’all think that if you had this challenge, you’d be like, ‘Oh my god, I’d be so good,’” she says. “But once you’re there, it’s like all the nerves just kicked in.” Lucky for us (and incredibly unlucky for all the other queens), Sasha knows how to take a note.
Filming is done in a flash, and the editors aren’t giving us any idea of how the final products might look. Once the queens have walked down the runway, they will face the judges. Drag RaceWe get to experience the high-end metallic looks for ourselves. Blessed be, because Anetra’s team slays the challenge, resulting in the rest of us mainlining the purest drug in existence: RuPaul’s screaming cackle.
The team’s idea of Heaven is complimentary plastic surgery, getting tips for doing nothing, and free therapy—aka, Palm Springs, where drag queens go to die. It’s a perfect kicker joke, and each team member gets their moment to shine. But it’s Sasha Colby perfecting the ingenious running joke of breaking her own neck to jump between scenes that clinches her spot in the top.
But a little taste of Heaven is just a reminder that life’s unending horrors are always right around the corner. Amethyst’s team is up next, and immediately off the rails with a blowjob joke that lands so silently, even the crickets fell asleep. While Heaven could work if executed better, the stale sex jokes lack punchlines and are not funny. Sugar’s continued, one-note bimbo act threatens to flatline the team completely, but Loosey LaDuca’s perfect impersonation of Dolly Parton as God saves them from eternal damnation.
When the infomercial ends, the team made up of leftovers makes it worse for these angels. Their group’s idea of Heaven is some sort of purgatory for drag babies who form their entire personalities over loving Drag Race. The whole thing feels so convoluted that it reminded me of watching Season 7 with Mono. CityMD has yet to diagnose my case.
To no one’s surprise, Sasha Colby is crowned this week’s winner, and the rest of her team is safe despite the queens being judged individually this week. Princess Poppy, Jax, and Amethyst float down to the ninth circle of RuPaul’s Inferno, with Jax barely skating by the fiery flames to safety. Amethyst and Princess Poppy’s dual abysmal performances leave them both in the bottom to lipsync to Diana Ross’ cover of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
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Poppy takes the camp route—spreading her legs in a strange exorcist demon crawl as Diana Ross sings about low valleys—while Amethyst keeps it cute and classy so as to not endure the wrath of Ru by fucking up a song performed by his idol. If I bore witness to RuPaul’s crumpled face of disgust while flashing my tuck to the judges, I’d send Myself The afterlife. For Princess Poppy, this is a tragic decision that will result in her being sent to Palm Springs Heaven.
For the first hour-long episode, Season 10’s 10th season. Drag Race The show’s editors and audiences stumbled a little. It’s not surprising that both the show’s editors and audiences will need a bit of extra time to get used to this change. The season will likely move at a more steady pace as the queens decrease and tensions increase, especially since the 14 remaining queens know how easy it can be to bomb a maxi challenge.
These shorter episodes could be a good thing because there is so much talent on the screen. There are no obvious leaders here yet, and with each queen fighting to pull focus, we won’t be stuck with anyone getting a winner’s edit too early in the season. Are there two more months of shock wins and eliminations? It sounds heaven to me.
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