‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ S13E4 Recap: Stop! Stop! She’s Already Dead
We haven't seen a lip-sync so one-sided since Charlie 'i only sing live' Hides.
After three non-elimination episodes, we were all calling for blood: but did Denali really have to tear apart Kahmora limb-by-limb in that lipsync?
The Mackie Doll has really struggled on the show, landing in the bottom every episode she’s been in so far (not officially, but we all know where that ‘Phenonenom’ verse would have stood last week, even if I’ve been singing it sporadically all week).
She’s lost a lipsync, was ‘late’ to the runway, the judges can’t find her personality, and she’s revealed that she doesn’t feel comfortable doing drag in her eight-year-long relationship: it’s a lot of hurdles for two episodes.
And then she was cast as a tree in this week’s acting challenge, a role only Scarlett Johansson could pull off. And then she had to lipsync in a beautiful gown she could barely move in, against Denali, who ripped off the bottom half of her outfit and pulled out every single move she knew: sorry to UK queen Asttina, but this was the Mortal Kombat allusion of the week.
Still, Kahmora should hold her head high — to go out looking like perfection is an achievement, and we will be following along on Instagram to see what else she would’ve worn on the runway.
It’s a shame she couldn’t remove her outfit, but it also would have been a crime to destroy this garment.
Hate to see her go, but love to see the competition finally begin: this week, the two groups became one and did their best to make the challenge’s ‘RuPaulmark holiday movie trailers’ as enjoyable as possible.
The Most Ambitious Crossover Event In Pop Culture History
Before the ‘winner’ group ambushes the ‘b team’ as they return from last week’s mainstage, Elliott decides to hide and catch the queens talking shit about her.
Very ‘my parents are arguing in the other room’ energy.
She then confronts the queens about their decision to ‘send her home’ on first impressions and aims at Tamisha, who instantly squashes it down.
I was willing to put aside last week’s beef with Kandy as Elliott overstepping how familiar they were out of social awkwardness in joining their group, but she’s got a lot of bark this episode/makes a point to centre herself during Untucked — and the ‘shade’ tends to be directed towards the queens of color, too.
I love the respect Tamisha commands: when she does speak up, the queens listen. I would too, with that stare.
Maybe she’s just trying to assure camera time and storyline, but she’s not coming across particularly well. Then again, getting the Porkchop would have really shaken her confidence, so it’s understandable if she’s a little insecure. It’s almost like the twist was a little cruel?
Moving on, the queens are divided into three groups for the acting challenge, which sees them create trailers for same-same but different cheesy holiday films.
On one level, it’s a great challenge because (except for Kahmora) the roles are pretty even: it’s not like Denali can get mad she’s in the bottom when Gottmik did a solid job with essentially The Same Part(s).
On the other, I cannot believe this show has the gall after the repetition of E1 and the mirroring challenges of E2-3 to have three long skits that are more or less identical.
My notes for the second scene was literally “how dare they repeat this”.
Still, the queens really pull through and mostly polish the material into gold, considering it’s three mashes of references to Mommy Dearest, I Love Lucy, Cher and shitty movies designed to be so inoffensive that the whole family can be equally bored.
The best part of it, ironically, was Kahmora’s insistence on padding her green screen body, depsite being just a face in the final product. The commitment to beauty: she’s the most glam-or-ous of thissss race! (It’s also a sign that she had absolutely no idea what she was doing.)
The Queer Art Of Failure.
The other highlight was Kandy Muse’s clown makeup for her role as ‘Woopee Cushion’ in the April Fool’s Day film (this… show…). Name a cuter queen.
Chromatica fact #291: Stefani originally called the song ‘Sour Kandy’ but was sent a cease and desist.
Werkroom Revelations
We spend a fair bit of time in the werkroom this episode, which is welcome: it’s the first time the cast has been together, and it’s just fun to see how everyone meshes.
Rosé channels Jenna Maroney during rehearsals with spite acting when she sees Tina Burner outperform her; Utica sends Ru and the girls into hysterics as she makes every face imaginable when asked if she smokes weed; Kahmora hates Elliott’s voice and Tamisha commands respect, amazing them all when they learn she was a teen dad. This Atlanta peach has a story to tell, and I want her to stick around for as long as possible.
Me to myself each time I reference Vox Lux in these recaps, despite the film making a very small cultural impression.
About half the queens really struggle with the material (taste!). Beyond Kahmora, LaLa Ri, Denali, Utica, Joey and Tamisha all flop their lines while filming or don’t give a big enough performance, but the latter three pull things together enough to avoid the bottom.
In Untucked, Kandy flat out says Eliott should have been in the bottom, but she’s perfectly middle-of-the-road, though the show easily could’ve made her out as much worse. They’re clearly keen to keep her around for a little while longer.
Meanwhile, Joey is surprisingly eating up screentime via confessionals. He’s cute, sure, but pretty charming and funny: it might be a good time not a long time though, as the show really undersold his ‘tongue train runway’.
The Drag Race fandom (and me, maybe mostly me) falling for another white-bread twink.
‘Trains Rights!’ – RuPaul
The runway this week is all about trains. Assumedly it’s an ode to Ru’s tweet after his first comments about not letting trans women compete on Drag Race, where he seemingly accidentally typed in ‘trains flag’ into Google and posted the first result, an Ellsworth Kelly painting, alongside his non-apology.
Choo choo!
Unfortunately, GottMik then misunderstands the misunderstanding and comes with an allusion to the trans flag. Oops.
On Instagram, Mik revealed this was her 2nd choice after realising her and Tina were going for similar ‘train condoctor’ looks. That makes sense: the sentiment is great, but this dress isn’t quite up to what we expect from her.
Kandy also makes a last-minute outfit change, and you can tell. She looks beautiful, but the simplicity takes her out of the running for the win.
Her face screams ‘red carpet at a store opening I was booked for and will soon be firing my publicist over’.
Well, the other thing separating her from the win was Symone, who didn’t only manage to make her scenes funny but came out in a Durag-train.
It’s such a clever, fun take on the theme, deserving of a whole thesis to unpack it. We’ve seen queens celebrate Black femininity in powerful ways on Drag Race, but Symone here is honouring Black masculinity, all the while unravelling how it’s coded and treated as a ‘threat’ by ‘queering’ and ‘gentling’ what’s seen as a ‘hyper-masculine’ clothing item.
Between this and her boxer look, Symone is doing really interesting, sharp things with masculinity in drag. She also just looks so fucking cool.
She is the moment.
It’s impressive that she’s creating completely original moments on Drag Race after 20+ seasons in the empire, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else taking the crown (though Gigi seemed like a sure-winner early on in S12 before fizzling out, too).
I suppose this is the ‘artist vs. workhorse’ thing I mentioned last week while discussing Rosé and Denali’s technically excellent but somewhat art-less performances so far. This week, Denali really shifted that: her feather look was much more personal (an ode to the Quetzal bird and her Mexican heritage), and her lipsync wasn’t just of-the-books and calculated. She threw herself into it, and I hope we see more of that.
It also was… very pretty, though all this talk of ostrich feather is a bit annoying. It just sounds like bragging that she has money.
Rosé is great! But this look, again, tells me very little about her.
LaLa Ri saves herself on the runway, and while Utica has a weird moment in Untucked when she says her look and performance could’ve won the challenge (not quite), the runway is super impressive, when you learn she made it in the werkroom. It’s a shame they saved that detail for Untucked.
“La!” – Olly Alexander in It’s A Sin, and also Olly Alexander, hypothetically, saying who his favourite S13 queen is.
Wiggle to the top! Wiggle to the top!
The camera work really undersold what this was? It’s not amazing, but it’s cute, and deserved a bit more attention.
Symone, rightfully, is given her second win of the show, which means she’s won both challenges she’s competed in. But next week’s a sewing challenge, and, as per the preview, she is not a seamstress. I smell vulnerability!
RuPaul’s Drag Race S13 is available on Stan, with episodes dropping 3PM AEDT each Saturday, and UK episodes 8am AEDT Friday.
Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and is waiting for his Tamisha Iman hightop sneakers to arrive. He’s on Twitter.