‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ S13E12 Recap: Utican’t Cook, Utishouldn’t Roast

Oh please, no you really Utishouldn’t have! Utimustn’t! Please. Uti-never again.

Where Ellie Diamond’s bizarre set during UK’s recent roast was so bad it was incredible, Utica’s belongs to the ‘Kenya Michaels as Beyoncé’ school where it laps back around again and lands on ‘incredibly hard to watch’.

It’s a terrible note to leave the show on, and I feel bad for her: she’s apologised on Twitter for the body-shaming barbs she made repeatedly, and given how much we’ve seen her fret over offending anyone, I’m sure she’s taking the criticism to heart. But like Kandy wrote in response, Utica’s “just not funny and that’s ok”.

girl, don’t beat yourself up over this. you didn’t say those jokes in mean spirit, you’re just not funny and that’s ok. love u 💞

— KANDY “producer” MUSE (@TheKandyMuse) March 28, 2021

You can see how she landed on her set, which was part of this week’s ‘Nice Girls Roast’ of S9, 11 and 12’s Miss Congenialities Valentina, Nina West and Heidi ‘N’ Closet (but no Monet, unfortunately).

It’s a sprinkling of jokes that have worked well/been rewarded on Drag Race before, and it’s not like she was the only queen to make fat jokes, but there was no warmth in the performance. Her tone was off, as was she, all episode: right off the bat where she talked about being a ‘lip sync assassin’, Utica’s oddities suddenly congealed into delusion.

And, if this isn’t clear by now, this is a pro-Utica recap. She deserved her spot in the top six and easily should’ve be on two wins (that sleeping bag look!), but I think after so many mixed critiques about ‘being weird’ and ‘too much’, she started to overthink things. And gassing herself up in response, too: in rehearsals, Loni and Michelle both tell her outright not to say certain jokes, but she keeps them in.

I’m not sure if that’s overconfidence as much as it’s overcompensation, but she came off quite arrogant this episode, lending weight to that Untucked where the girls said she could be hurtful with her ‘jokes’. The hate online against her is expected but no less frustrating: the ‘fans’ should remember she’s from a literal 300-person town. It would be unfathomable if she wasn’t weird.

I will say that joking about ‘skittling’ on someone’s dick was as equally as jaw-dropping as calling out Ru allegedly taking off her drag from the waist down while filming. Straight from the Pearl school of fighting the show you’re on, though I don’t think that was her intention at all. Speaking of…

Can’t u put on a nail for ur show pic.twitter.com/iMGKT9Vyb2

— Pearl (@pearliaison) March 27, 2021

Congratulations Loni Love, You Are The Winner Of This Week’s Challenge

For the mini-challenge this week, the queens pair up to film faux YouTube videos to try out ‘Monica Beverley Hills for AS7‘ cosmetics. Paired with Utica, Mik’s body proportions are out of control, and because I love physical comedy, this is my favourite pairing.

It’s a great mini-challenge, the right blend of ridiculous concept and a test of wit. Gottmik is absolutely the true comedy queen of the season and makes me laugh a lot here, but Kandy and Rosé are given the win, which means they decide the order of the roast.

Unlike UK, where Ellie’s order caused enough drama to make people sour on Lawrence completely, the queens really don’t care too much — probably because Kandy and Rosé give themselves the ‘hardest’ spots of opening and closing, respectively. They both vie for the opening slot, but Kandy butters Rosé up by saying she’ll kill it wherever she’s placed: it’s amazing Rosé falls for it.

Someone’s been drinking her soda: she later laughs a lot while writing her own jokes in the werkroom, giving off Alyssa Edwards’ level of self-love. It’s very endearing.

In the werkroom, Symone and Mik are the most nervous about the roast, but while Mik rises above it, Symone makes love to her inner saboteur. Clearly UK is on my brain bang bong, but it’s all quite similar to Lawrence’s deflation towards the end of the competition.

They’re both clearly absolute stars and the obvious frontrunner, but have a couple of confidence issues that, now we’re towards the end, have shown that they’re not as perfect as we first thought. (Meanwhile, Mik, like Bimini, is really hitting his stride in the competition.)

It was hard to watch Symone’s set, where she used all her Symone-isms to no result: the mispronunciations and her very specific physicality didn’t really translate to this challenge’s needs.

Then there’s Olivia, whose natural charm can’t hide that she’d only been doing drag for 18 months before the show. It’s just a little green, which is why the branding and makeover challenge was so hard for her: she doesn’t quite know what her brand is yet. Relatable queen.

Her decision to play up her own congeniality during the roast wasn’t a bad idea as a way to format her set, but the method made me uncomfortable. Olivia has a childish wide-eyed persona, but using the cutesy girl voice and acting like she was eight was a bit too much. Coco Montrese’s terrifying little girl crawled so Olivia could speak like a 30something woman who isn’t aware that other tables at a restaurant can hear when she’s talking with a baby voice about not-so baby things to her boyfriend. Yikes!

Rosé and Kandy are both naturals, though I think going last hurt Rosé: some of her jokes were variations on ones we’d already heard by that point. Kandy’s set wasn’t the most original in the world, so it was smart to go first and she sold the hell out of them. I love that ‘bitch’ is her place-holder word instead of ‘um’ or ‘stream Vox Lux OST’.

I’ve said this before, but I really don’t understand how anyone doesn’t like her. I hope the naysayers have turned over a leaf and are looking at the other side of the leaf.

I thought Mik was going to take the win, but it was really nice to see Kandy nab her first of the season. I think it’s pretty clear that Olivia’s next to leave after a couple of rough episodes in a row, and it’s nice that Kandy won’t have to do the Ellie D ‘I don’t have any wins but I want to be the season winner!’ storyline, when everyone (including Ellie) knew she had no chance.

Symone and Utica wind up in the bottom, and lipsync to Ariana’s ‘no tears left to cry’, making her tied with Britney for Drag Race‘s most-lipsynced artist. Both are fun, but Symone’s performance style and facial inflections are just unbeatable — as is her track-record.

Next week, we’ve got an acting challenge spoof of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids: it looks horrifically dumb. Can’t wait.

We’re edging towards the finale now, but there’s no word of how it’ll play out and whether they’ll recreate S12’s Zoom special. It’d be worth it for another Ru facekini.

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RuPaul’s Drag Race S13 is available on Stan, with episodes dropping 3PM AEDT each Saturday.

Jared Richards is Junkee’s Drag Race recapper and a freelancer who has written for The Guardian, The Big Issue and more. He’s on Twitter.