Despite this, I was delightfully confused. Kasha Davis did a very upbeat number about social justice that I was … perhaps slightly confused by the tone of, given the rock track, the mom-rapping about social justice, the bright outfit, the wig changes, and the transition into storytime. While it was nice to have someone take away from the typical monotony of “original song after original song” that can sometimes overwhelm these affairs, Naysha has an issue where you can always see her thinking of the dance moves ahead in her head instead of performing. Next was Naysha, who did a flamenco number. The overwhelming praise for her was one of the times when I felt like the show was handling the contestants with kid gloves to the point of rudeness. Unfortunately, Monica still has an issue punching through on the stage and would have been in the bottom if it was a typical episode. The judges only said positive things this week, but I shan’t be taking that path. Sure! Monica Beverly Hillz went first, doing an original song. The queens performed in the talent show in the order they went home in, with Jimbo and Kandy nominally hosting, which amounted to a few jokes at the beginning and then just saying the names of each queen. I’m going to skip right past the Werk Room segments because nothing notable happened other than Alexis apologizing to Lala and Lala accepting the apology. (Yes, Jimbo did do the best, but they were never going to let her win this.) Kasha Davis four reads while most other queens got two, so I figured out pretty quickly that it was hers. I don’t necessarily think anyone stood out so tremendously that they had to win, though Darienne had the best delivery on her Kandy read, and Jaymes had my favorite read of the night when she said that Kasha had the only drag queen story hour that kids were protesting. Alexis’s reading voice was strange, but that’s Alexis. After years of the reading challenge being the first challenge out of the gate on All Stars, it was nice to see the girls be able to read each other for things that actually happened in the competition. I did enjoy the return of the reading challenge. No critiques sometimes means that they don’t think it’s worth giving you critiques. And when it’s just a relentless showing of positivity for a group of queens with no chance to win the competition, it honestly starts to feel a little condescending. No slight to these queens, but when an episode is this stakeless, it’s just not a good episode of TV. Even seeing the queens walk back into the Werk Room at the beginning just reminded me that I spent most of the season bored. The stakes weren’t that high (a queen could still win the Fame Games without winning this episode), and the talent show performances, despite what the judges were saying, definitely weren’t good enough to make up for the fact that they had no stakes. Here, the lack of conflict settled into a malaise that nobody really managed to break through. And, even then, I got pretty bored by the end. The All-Winners season, which was pretty much all positive all the time, only really worked because the queens were so next level that they made it worthwhile to just watch them do a drag revue show each week. When Drag Race descends into “Life Is Good” territory, I tend to glaze over. The only beef mentioned was quickly squashed, and, by the end, everybody was happy, everybody got good critiques, and then two people won. No, the “Fame Games” episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race came and went without so much as a lick of drama. These queens sent each other home, they fought, they tussled, they competed, and only some of them were successful. Usually, when they bring the queens back on All Stars, it’s with the pretension that there will be some drama. That was … positive! This episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race seemed to have one rule - good vibes only.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |