TV

Drag Race scrapes the barrel with lacklustre challenge and embarrassing fart jokes

Drag Race queens Daya Betty and Willow Pill

Daya Betty and Willow Pill. (WOW)

This week’s Drag Race opens with Jasmine Kennedie gloating about her success in sending Maddy packing following their big blow up on last week’s Untucked.

She got the last laugh ultimately. But it’s a new week, and as we’re almost at the halfway point of the season the competition is stiffer than ever. As Jasmine basks in her survival, Daya Betty is still harping on about Jorgeous’s win in last week’s maxi-challenge being undeserved. This sore loser look on her is almost as tired as the Diet Crystal Methyd looks she’s been sending down the runway the past few weeks.

Just before RuPaul enters to inform the girls about this week’s challenge, she sees sense and apologises to Jorgeous, who has been understandably put out by Daya’s remark that her winning look was akin to a napkin. Jasmine says in her confessional that she believes Daya’s apology is “as fake as my breast plate” and we’re inclined to agree – perhaps Daya remembered that the previous week’s winner is often rewarded a game-changing power and needed to do some damage control?

She would have been right to suspect so, as shortly later Ru enters the werk room to inform the queens that this week’s maxi-challenge will see them act in a Dynasty-esque soap opera entitled “The Daytona Wind”. Sure enough, Jorgeous is granted the power of choosing who will play what role, though she decides to play nice and mostly lets everyone choose their own roles after she’s had first pick.

In last week’s recap we mentioned there was a famine of charisma amongst this cast, and boy, oh boy did an acting challenge support this statement. It really must be said, comedy is not this group’s friend. While truly nobody stood out as particularly strong in the soap opera, there was fierce competition for the title of  Least Valued Player. DeJa Skye’s attempt at a southern US accent left a lot to be desired, and Jorgeous, who has struggled in previous acting challenges, managed to raise the bar a little for herself – but it’s still really lacking. She’s just so damn sweet though that you tend to forgive her for her shortcomings.

At the very bottom of the barrel you’ll find the always-wooden Kerri Kolby. Beautiful and all as she is, she has the same energy as the least fun girl at a Halloween party who’s shown up in a black boob tube and a pair of cat ears. Angeria, typically considered strong when it comes to acting and comedy challenges, struggles to recreate her previous successes which begs the question: is she good at acting or does her natural southern drawl just make everything she says a little bit funny?

Lady Camden does her best impression of Kate Winslet in Titanic, through both her plummy English accent and her head of fiery ginger curls. It’s not funny, per se, but she has enough charm to render it a success. Bosco, Daya Betty and Willow Pill also deliver perfectly serviceable performances.

Back in the werk room we’re treated to some harmless banter between the girls as they continue to rib Daya Betty with Crystal Methyd comparisons, a known sore spot for her. Jasmine also reveals that Maddy left her a sweet note to make amends before she packed her bags and went home last week. It seems this short-lived fued is over before it’s even really begun.

This week’s runway helped to elevate the overall episode significantly. The queens were challenged to channel their inner Xtina and serve their best looks centred around cowboy chaps. Highlights include Willow Pillow giving us Born This Way-era Gaga in an outfit that was more slingshot than chaps, but was a feast for the eyes nonetheless.

Jorgeous looked typically, you guessed it, gorgeous, Kerri Kolby wore an outfit made almost entirely from human hair, while Angeria looked like she as auditioning for a part in the “Waterloo” performance bonus scene at the end of the first Mamma Mia movie. Bosco compared her look to that of a contestant on season two of Rock of Love and for that alone deserves some props, though she looked amazing to boot.

The absolute runaway winner was undoubtedly Lady Camden, who left us momentarily jaw-dropped when she suffered a nasty fall, landing face first and sending her wig flying. Of course, it was a reveal – she picked herself up from the ground sporting a new Freddie Mercury-inspired look. She really got us there, we’ll admit it.

Next up, we finally get to see the fruits of the queens’ labour as they play the first and only episode of “The Daytona Wind” which, much to the queens’ surprise, has been entirely dubbed over with fart noises between all of their lines. Sigh. We actually don’t have the mental strength to get into how deeply unfunny and painfully long this section lasted. Let’s just say, the only thing that could have made the soap less funny than the filming seemed would probably have been the addition of a fart joke and well… that’s what we got.

As is becoming custom to this season, the judges once again hinted that they are watching an entirely different show to us as RuPaul announced she felt the standard was actually so high this week that there would be no bottom two and no elimination. We guess Kornbread’s unexpected exit due to injury set the show back a little and they needed to retain numbers a little longer?

In lieu of an elimination, Lady Camden and Daya Betty were named the top two and had to lip sync for their life in order to be crowned the week’s winner. It was another strong lip sync, set to Blondie’s “One Way Or Another”. Daya Betty gave it a fair whack but she couldn’t compete with Lady Camden, who finally got the opportunity to remind us she’s a classically trained dancer. She took the crown with what was probably one of the most joyful and effortless performances we’ve seen from a queen all season, thus cementing herself as a frontrunner in this competition.

 

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