‘RuPaul’s Drag Race UK’ S1E6 Recap: Brands! Brands! Brands!

The best horror films — aka Under The Skin — add in a touch of sexual intoxication into the mix. But it turns out getting flaccid is the truest terror of all: nothing complicates my love for this show quite like RuPaul saying “I love advertising” with as much emotional intensity as she brings to conversations about trauma.

RuPaul loves money: lots of people do. To piggyback off Homer Simpson, “money can be exchanged for goods and services” but also allows for fortitude. If anyone deserves that, it’s a 6ft7 black drag queen who came up in the ’80s and ’90s.

But that same strength can shut you off from the world; you need to merely listen to Ru’s pseudo-psychological babble with Michelle Visage on their What’s The T? podcast to hear that, though nothing quite sums it up like that anecdote he gave BuzzFeed about sending a man drowning in the Hudson River “loving energy” rather than calling 911.

Having said that, drag is, like everything, a capitalist endeavour, and this week’s challenge to create a water bottle brand is both one of Drag Race‘s best and most practical, as it echoes how the queens will have to sell themselves as a ‘brand’ if they want to reach the same heights as the show’s biggest alum. Unlike most reality TV stars or influencers, queens get to be more irreverent in the way they shill themselves.

The wink-wink of a RuPaul chocolate bar or a catchphrase afflicted-tee laughs at the stupidity of it all, but hearing Ru and co. this week genuinely critique whether they’d actually buy the water brings in a solid ‘Jeffrey Moran from Absolute Asai Berry Vodka’ vibe into things.

For RuPaul, everything is an opportunity for branding — and while his upcoming semi-autobiographical Netflix show AJ and The Queen seems to be a genuine passion project, something he’s worked up to by branding himself so hard, it sucks a tiny bit of the joy from the air.

We can ignore it, and it’s easy to, because RuPaul’s Drag Race UK remains much more than a franchise opportunity, continuing to be its own distinct thing. The UK queens are so clever and intelligent, lacking much of the self-producing we see on the US version: authenticity, even if its from a drag queen dressed as Liza Minelli-as-an-umbrella.

Is It Okay To Say This Episode Made Me Pre-Cum? Just, Like, A Little

Maybe it’s just Scorpio season, but this week’s mini-challenge was the only time a Pit Crew have made me genuinely horny.

The queens had to guess whether the Brit Crew were wearing boxers, briefs or going commando, the last of which referring to camo-print briefs. Like Baga, we were both disappointed and disgusted with ourselves.

We need to move on, and the show does just that by continually bringing up some Divina taking offence at The Vivienne’s dig at her always wearing a silver dress and a red wig. Clearly, it strikes a nerve with the DDC: much like James Dean’s estate or Jim Jarmusch, she can’t let the dead die, and keeps coming back to it throughout the episode through snide remarks.

While it does add a solid Plot Line to the episode, Divina’s defensiveness lands quite genuinely — it must be frustrating to have decades of career-building pushed aside even as a (quite funny) joke.  The two do seem to patch things up towards the end with The Vivenne apologising and continuing to poke the bear online.

Bottled Water? I Hardly Even Know Her

A dumb improv challenge allows the queens to really shine, and the bottle advertisement sees most of them lean into their established brand.

RuPaul’s a little harsh in the workroom when he tells Blu she’s “not quite found her voice yet”, but she’s also not wrong: the decision to go hard into, ahem, blue humour in the advertisement is pretty lazy, and shows she hasn’t quite nailed how to hone that as a comedy trope. Rely on it too much, and suddenly you’re giving head to a water bottle for no reason, like a teenage boy desperate for his friends’ approval.

The other queens all pretty much nail it: Cheryl’s is a little weak too, but her Alyssa-like charm makes her a joy to watch, even if it doesn’t make complete sense. In the workroom, she gets in her head about having no ideas, given the other queens have filled out their storyboards and she’s struggling to put texta to paper. But if she had seen their storyboards, she probably would’ve felt fine.

The queens are a little lost while watching Divina’s filming, and Baga plays asleep for the cameras, but the joke’s on them: she has a clear vision of what she wants to do and does it well.

Drag Race UK’s cinematographer deserves a RuPeter badge of their own for the framing of this scene with Cheryl pointing towards her water bottle. Just divine.

Before we see the videos, Katya appears for some reason, and a different baby doll from the one The Vivenne uses keeps popping up in the workroom without discussion. I believe it’s haunted, and Katya was on a covert mission to destroy it.

Category Is: Rainn-y Wilson Day

All the videos were quite good, as were the runway ‘rainy day’ looks. The Vivienne, of course, stood clouds above the rest, though attention has to be paid to Ru, too.

The judges kept hammering on about how Divina’s video had an “environmental message”, which is utterly ridiculous. It’s not a real water bottle; it’s the equivalent of celebrating someone for saying, “what if, like, sexism didn’t exist???”.

We get what they were going for but the over-emphasis on it feels like celebrating just saying the word ‘environmentalism’, which, to be fair, is how advertising works — SodaStream are currently advertising by saying ‘one plastic bottle is better than lots’, which, sure. It makes sense she wins.

Baga remains an absolute hero, and I’d watch her shovel down shit for hours on end — she ends up in the bottom three, purely because there are only so many queens left. It’s a little frustrating to hear her backstage talk about how she doesn’t know the song and will just ‘go home’: it’s a bad look, and makes us think the show might not crown her after all.

Then again, plenty of past winners (Alaska, Violet, Aquaria) have had tantrums, and she’s certainly leading the pack: those ‘Much Better’ t-shirts will sell themselves, but being crowned wouldn’t hurt.

Cheryl and Blu wind up in the bottom, and lip-sync to an interesting remix of Cheryl Cole obviously pulled straight from RuPaul’s meticulous iTunes playlists. It’s Blu’s time to go, but she’s shown a lot of talent — we’re sure in time she’ll be unstoppable.

We’re already down to the top four, and next week is a makeover challenge featuring the queens’ sisters and mums. After longing for breathing space, we’re sad to see Drag Race UK almost over: for all our complaining and critiquing, Ru’s once again sold us, after-all.

---

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK streams on Stan, with new episodes arriving each Friday 7am AEDT.

Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and co-host of Sleepless In Sydney on FBi Radio. Tell the Brit Crew to find him on Twitter.