RECAP: “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK 6” Episode 5 (Talk Show)
I had a particular treat for “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK” Series 6, Episode 5 — I was able to watch the episode live IN THE UK! I’ve been visiting London since Sunday, as my podcast Great Pop Culture Debate (you know, that website you’re reading this on) has its very own panel Saturday, October 26, at MCM Con London. If you happen to be attending the convention, please come to the panel! It’ll be highly interactive and a lot of fun as we blather on about comic-book bad guys. And if you read these recaps, I’d love to meet you!
But back to the topic at hand: I had the pleasure of watching this week’s “DRUK” episode at Zodiac Bar. Lovely venue, great cider on tap, and a wonderful host for the evening in the form of Eileen Eiffel, who is a riot on the mic as well as a talented live singer. Following the episode she hosted easily the most entertaining drag bingo I have ever attended. And she clocked my Yankee ass at 20 paces. It was also an enthusiastic and respectful crowd of “Drag Race” fans. I don’t know if that’s normal in the UK, but let me tell you: in the States, if you go to a “Drag Race” viewing party at a bar, you go in assuming you aren’t going to hear a fucking word being said over the nonstop talking and shrieking. Not so at the Zodiac; had no issues making out exactly what was going on this episode.
And it was a great episode! I found myself thinking at numerous points, This cast is really clicking. While not everyone is necessarily operating at the same level, they’re all giving it everything they’ve got, and they’re delivering good TV AND good “Drag Race” week after week. I was worried that it would be hard to follow up Series 5, which I considered a return to form after two rough seasons. But “UK6” has put my fears to rest. I love this group of queens, and I’m enjoying the challenges. I actually think this week’s main challenge should be a standard challenge going forward.
Read on for my takes on “Drag Race UK” Season 6, Episode 5, “Sofa Showdown.” SPOILERS AHEAD!
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Following Zahirah’s exit, the remaining nine queens started to assess their roles in the competition. Chief among them, Charra Tea, the most invisible member of this cast so far. Four episodes in, Charra’s track record was Safe Safe Safe Safe — she’d never been critiqued by the judges, good or bad. Charra was all over the talking heads this episode, which if you know anything about “Drag Race,” either meant she was going home this episode, or kicking off a new arc. Which will it be? Read on.
RuPaul interrupted the pink-table talk to introduce “Drag Race” icon (and Ru’s personal make-up artist) Raven, who I just realized has now officially been doing Ru’s make-up on this show longer than original “Drag Race” make-up artist Mathu Anderson (Mathu left after S9 E1; that means he did U.S. seasons 1-8, plus “All Stars” 1 & 2. Raven has beaten Ru’s mug for seasons 9-17, “All Stars” 3-9, and all of the international seasons. That’s kind of nuts. Anyway, that is pointless trivia, just as Raven’s appearance was pointless. She was just there to assist Ru with the mini-challenge, which had absolutely nothing to do with make-up.
It was, in fact, a joke-telling challenge. One by one the queens got into a giant pink chair and told a joke. If they made Raven and Ru laugh, they succeeded. If they did not, Raven pulled a lever and the chair tipped back, Sweeney Todd style, and the queens were beheaded and their corpses sent down a chute. Kidding. They just tipped back. And in fact, I think all but ONE queen got tipped back, and that includes the queen who eventually won: Kiki Snatch, who did a corny but unexpected Dubai/Abu Dhabi joke. Overall I thought this challenge was silly fun, and I’m all for a bit of that these days.
Kiki’s prize was the power to select the teams for the main challenge: the queens would be split in half and join an ad hoc version of “The Graham Norton Show,” live from the “Drag Race UK” mainstage. I don’t know why we haven’t had a challenge like this in the approximately 5 million “Drag Race” seasons that have come before. Yes, they’ve done talk-show bits before, but they have been the queens interviewing celebrities (Tori Spelling in Season 1 — “Loca, I said HIV” — and Chaz Bono in Season 6 come immediately to mind). We’ve had the queens being interviewed by reporters (Season 2’s memoir challenge; the “All Stars” 1 finale challenge). But we’ve never had an actual professional talk-show host just chat with the queens as themselves, and that is a valuable skill to have in this business. There are a million podcasts and YouTube channels where these queens can build their brands through interviews like this. (“Drag Race” queens, if you would like to guest on our podcast, slide into my DMs). And it allows the audience to better know the queens’ stories and their personalities.
Kiki opted to not be strategic (mistake) with her team assignments, putting herself on the team of 5 along with Kyran Thrax, La Voix, Marmalade, and Lill. Actually, this was a mistake x2, because not only did she put herself on the more crowded couch — tougher to stand out — but she also put herself on the team with four of the frontrunners this season, and at least two of the biggest talkers (Kyran and La Voix). That left Chanel O’Connor, Charra Tea, Rileasa Slaves, and Actavia as Team 2. Without question a much more laid-back team with a sleeper vibe. That said, throughout the episode queens took potshots at Chanel for never shutting her mouth. Memo to Chanel O’Connor: they can never make me hate you. Not ever. You keep talking, girl. I think she’s hilarious and gives great talking heads.
The five-person group smashed this challenge. They all had their moments, and most of them made the most of it. Lill is a natural at this; she’s such an odd person, and you only get a true glimpse into the way her mind works when she starts telling stories (see last week, when Lill gave us a National Geographic lecture on the fake penises of lady hyenas — literally fucking iconic). Kyran was solid, confident, and has real camera presence. La Voix instantly jumped in as soon as they all sat down, and effortlessly inserted herself into the conversation throughout, dropping bons mot as though she were the star guest at the most fabulous dinner party; it all felt so natural. Marmalade blew me away with probably the funniest story of the night. She’s quiet, but when she speaks, she knows how to work a room.
And then there was poor Kiki, who was just out of her element here. I was hoping after last week — which I thought she could have won — Kiki was on an upswing, but everything was a miss here. That crazy outfit she wore to the challenge. I don’t even know where someone would wear that — a Vegas titty show about parent-teacher conferences? — but this sure was not the place. That tragic bus-driver wig. And a story about skydiving in drag that just fell flat (poor turn of phrase given the subject matter). I wonder how she would have fared in the other group, because she went into this the longshot of her team, and ended it ever further afield.
On Team 2, I think Rileasa probably did the best, but I still remain concerned about her detached delivery. I said about that Kyran holds the camera. They pull focus even when not speaking. Rileasa is the opposite. Rileasa almost disappears when she’s not speaking, and when she is — even when she’s funny and charming, as she was here — the tone with which she speaks does not grab the viewer. At least, it does not grab me. Chanel was close behind, with a funny story involving an Alien-obsessed hook-up (I think she could punch up the material a bit, and there is no shame in hiring ghost writers to help there). Charra got a flop edit at first, when she failed to nail her initial story about a misleading gig advertisement. But I thought she recovered beautifully, and got in some of the funnier moments later in the segment. Actavia, bless her, gave a fairly middling story and lacked punch in the telling of it. What’s interesting is, Actavia is naturally charming in her talking heads. I wonder if she just got overwhelmed here.
Before we get to the judges, there was an interesting segment between La Voix and Kyran Thrax we need to discuss. First, it seemed to me that Kyran and La Voix were literally the only queens in the work room for this (maybe the others were there, and just REALLY quiet?). The whole set-up felt a bit odd. But, basically, La Voix asked Kyran about their confidence, which led to Kyran sharing their story of being groomed and abused by an online predator when Kyran was 13, and the predator was in his early 20s. This was one of the most heartbreaking, heavy topics I’ve seen on any “Drag Race,” and I respect Kyran for sharing their truth in such a public form, even if it was difficult to watch them have to relive this deep personal trauma. But I do think Kyran explained why it was important to share this story, as many other children and teens have been subjected to this abusive behavior, which can have significant emotional and mental consequences for the victims that can go on for years. By putting this story out there, by naming this behavior and speaking about the helplessness and confusing feelings they struggled with throughout the situation, I suspect that Kyran has brought attention to something that we don’t talk about often enough, and hopefully will lead to young people who are experiencing these dangerous situations to seek out help. So, bravo, Kyran.
On the runway, the prompt was How’s Your Headpiece? and it gave us a slew of standout looks. Special commendations go to Marmalade’s exquisite Ziegfeld Follies-inspired silver look; Kyran’s multi-headed flesh suit (my jaw literally dropped at this); Lill’s stunning, intricate headpieces paired with a luxurious purple gown; and La Voix’s full-out Carmen Miranda fantasy. (I do wonder if she’ll get accusations around cultural appropriation for that; before you laugh, look at what happened to Leona Winter on “Drag Race France 3” for incorporating box braids into a runway look.)
The tops of the week were Marmalade, La Voix, and Lill; I think Kyran probably just missed out, and I was lowkey surprised her runway didn’t push her into contention, but those three definitely did best in the challenge. The lows were Kiki (in addition to flubbing the challenge, she had the worst runway of the night), Actavia (bad challenge, cool runway look but underwhelming headpiece), and Charra Tea.
I disagree with Charra being in the bottom, although I don’t know who else I would put there from the Safe group. While Charra did biff her main story in the talk show, I thought she came alive toward the end of it, and her gumball machine-inspired runway was one of the coolest looks of the night. She may have been Bottom 3, but she was nowhere close to the Bottom 2, in my opinion.
And that opinion was shared by the judges, who put Kiki Snatch and Actavia into the lipsynch to David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” And HONEYYYYYYYY, this was a lipsynch. I thought both queens did well, giving us interesting interpretations of the song. But there was no question that Actavia was more keyed into the energy of the track, and man does that queen captivate attention with her movements. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like it. She’s so exciting to watch, and even though Kiki is a very strong lipsyncher, she lost that lipsynch, and Kiki was eliminated.
I feel for Kiki, because you could tell she REALLY wanted to do well here, and was struggling with her uneven performances. She broke down in “Untucked,” not unlike Zahaira the week before her. You can see how much these queens want this, and how frustrating it must be to be so good in your drag in general, but finding that you’re not stacking up favorably against the rest of the cast. But that’s also a testament to how strong this cast is overall, because again, we barely had three queens justifiably in the bottom this week. And we had 9 queens competing in this challenge. That’s a good goddamned showing.
Speaking of good showings, La Voix was named the winner of the challenge. Also like last week, I’m not sure I agree. Top 3, for sure. But just as I felt the judges were overexplaining why I should like Rileasa’s verse more than I actually did, I felt like they were telling me why I needed to be wowwed by La Voix more than I was. Her wedding story was excellent. She was the glue that held that group together. I understand that’s what put her over the edge. But to me, Marmalade had the funniest talk-show story, and definitely a stronger runway; Lill may have even edged out La Voix based on runways, if I’m being honest. That’s two challenges now that Marmalade could have easily won (group sewing and this one), and we should keep that in mind as the season progresses. Because personally this win felt more like racking up points for certain queens than it did based on the merits of that particular episode.
But, hey, the bar I was at cheered loudly at the La Voix win. And I’m happy for her! She’s a living legend, and has been doing overall well this competition — she obviously hasn’t been given any favoritism the past few weeks. So good on her for grabbing that RuPeter Badge.
NEXT: It’s Snatch Game, and a Victoria sandwich as two queens plan to do the late monarch.
What do you think of this season overall? Drop your thoughts in the comments.