‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Recap: Little Snatch Girl
At this point in Drag Race herstory, no episode comes loaded with more expectation than the Snatch Game, and no Snatch Game has more riding on it than an All Stars edition of Snatch Game. This week, RPDR mixed up the standard Snatch Game format by turning it into a Perfect Match-style dating show, the “Snatch Game of Love”. So, did the mix-up make our hearts sing, or are we celebrity impersonated out?
Game Game but Different
This week marks the twelfth time Ru has rolled out the Snatch Game (Seasons Two – 10 plus All Stars 2 & 3), and so after all these years you can understand why RPDR thought it was time for a format refresh. Unrealistic expectations from fans often results in them declaring every new season’s Snatch Game “the worst episode ever”.
via Simpsons Drag Race
Dividing the eight queens into two separate groups was the most jarring aspect of the dating show format – part of Snatch Game’s appeal is seeing all the queens competing for airtime. It’s really the only time you get at eight or more of the cast up against one another without being segmented into teams. It makes the cream rise to the top and reveals which of the girls are truly expectational improvisers, impersonators, or interpreters.
Coincidentally this is also Andrew Broad’s profile name.
On the flip side, the new format meant we could focus more on great performances and not get crowded out by inexperienced improvisers falling back on “romper room fuckery” (Latrice Royale, 2012 & 2018). The new format also meant we got more screen time with guest judges Gus Kenworthy and Australia’s own Keiynan Lonsdale as the “snatchelors”.
I spent longer photoshopping these two together than I did writing this damn article.
Trivia! Keiynan Lonsdale is the fourth Australian to judge on RPDR, joining Mathu Anderson, Susan Powter, and Olivia Newton-John. Also trivia: this is the first All Stars Snatch Game to not have a previous winner come back for a chance to snatch the game once more….and it showed.
If this cast were all onstage at once for a standard Snatch Game, I suspect it would have been a funnier episode – the skilful queens could have bounced off one another, and there is nothing more fun to watch in a Snatch Game than a comedy queen seizing on a gag when another queen drops the ball. For that to happen, you need to feel the madness of it all.
“I didn’t come with a backup” but Gia did come with a print-out Jenny Bui name tag? The fuckery, the fuckery of it all.
There was a moment, which they put on camera, when Gia tries to push her way into Monique’s answer and Manila just turns to her out of character, cuts her off, and tells her to shut up. That just about sums up Gia’s Snatch Game performance as Cardi B’s nail technician, Jenny Bui. This is quintessential fish out of water territory on Snatch Game: a queen who knows how to play a bitch in the workroom but can’t be that bitch in an improv challenge. Ms Gunn threw Latrice off her game, but that’s not all on Gia.
You can’t stan an underwhelming Della, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh
Latrice is one funny queen. She’s the “Get Those Nuts Away From My Face” queen who has won every reading challenge she has participated in, and her cutaways are comedy gold. But a celebrity impersonator/improviser she is not. Last time Latrice played the Snatch Game, the unprofessionalism was far too much, and it threw her off. In All Stars 1’s replacement Snatch Game challenge, Gaff-In, Latrice’s Oprah was pretty average. Thankfully, you don’t need to win Snatch Game to win the crown…sometimes you can even bomb (see: Trixie).
Jenner? I hardly know her.
Trinity as Caitlyn Jenner was a Snatch Game performance of Olympian proportions. Sometimes, a funny queen just needs a vessel to be able to riff with Ru and the other queens, and that’s what Trinity’s performance was. Caitlyn wasn’t the butt of the joke, which meant her transgender status was off the table (a wise move). Ross said it was one of the best SG performances he’s seen – I don’t know about that, but Trinity is definitely a comedy queen wrapped up in a showgirl package and if she doesn’t make the top four, it’ll be down to tomfoolery, buffoonery, and straight up riggery with the lipsticks.
Manila was one Funny Lady
Speaking of potential lipstick riggery: Manila is here, ladies and gentlemen. It was so great to finally see someone do Barbra Streisand on the Snatch Game. For those of you younger than me, which is hard as I am very young, Barbra Streisand is a legacy gay icon in the same league as Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli. Barbra did A Star is Born before Gaga but you should start your Babs education with Funny Girl, it is a camp masterpiece.
Just like her talent show act, Manila does impersonations using broad brush strokes. Like her Imelda Marcos on Season Three, Manila’s Barbra a parody of a parody, like Coffee Talk with Mike Myers via a certain bridal shop in Flushing, Queens. Manila does that well though, and like Trinity, her performance was a vehicle for her to riff with Ru and the other queens.
I don’t have a lot to say about Monet’s Whitney. I am a huge fan of Nippy Houston, and I watch this video on average once a fortnight. I’m also a huge fan of Maya Rudolph’s beloved impression of the OG voice. Whitney is fertile ground for a comedic performer, but Monet’s version couldn’t get out of second gear. To do her well, you need to be completely in love with Whitney the icon as well as Whitney the “crack is wack” hot mess. Monet seemed unable to grasp either, and like Monique last week, reminds us of her inconsistent RPDR skill.
“Eartha? I know her really well!” – Valentina
What in Eartha Kitt’s Wikipedia Page hell was that performance? The only thing more head-scratching than Valentina’s Eartha Kitt trivia-informed impersonation was her impressively deluded notion that the other queens were wrong to compare her performance to Gia’s. Girl…
The Lip Sync and the Lipstick
One thing the showrunner seems to be getting right this season is the BTS drama being more about the doll’s interpersonal dynamics and friendships, instead of just straight up reality TV drama. This is hard to achieve in All Stars, as the queens all literally know each other as part of the RPDR sisterhood, and they understand the game.
In All Stars 2, we saw dear friends interacting (who also happened to be some of the most beloved queens) – so the BTS drama was minimal. In All Stars 3, it felt more like a sorority than a sisterhood – everything had a weird pass-agg edge about it. All Stars 4 has so far gotten the balance just right.
This week, the top two queens, Manila and Trinity, talked turkey about who should go home and Manila made the most compelling argument for a strategic elimination yet. That made for a somewhat tense one-on-one with Valentina, who was up for elimination.
Julie Bishop begging Julia Banks not to quit the Libs got pretty dramatic.
Ultimately, Manila won the lip sync because we all knew Trinity was sending Gia home and producers need tension and drama…but then Manila sent Gia home. It was an apt end for the villainous Gia Gunn – without someone to bully, she reverted to a narrative arc that was part sob story and part, one hopes, self-reflection. Gia claimed that being trans made her feel isolated from the other queens, but it’s also fair to say that her being a total bitch probably did more to keep them at arm’s length.
RPDR’s problematic history with the trans community is well documented, but queens like Gia, Sonique, and Peppermint also show that there are trans women and other queers who do drag, enjoy drag, and want to be part of that community – and are happy to wade into the incredibly high-profile world of RPDR. This is the most diverse cast of any RPDR season, and hopefully, we see more trans/GNC queens competing in the Drag Olympics.