‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ UKVTW E4 Recap: Instant Rugret

There are, to my knowledge, two perfect non-verbal definitions of the word ‘regret’: the slowly sinking piano at the start of Fiona Apple’s song of the same name, and the above screenshot of Blu Hydrangea realising she sent home the wrong queen.

Well, ‘wrong’ might be a little harsh: Blu voted with strategy in mind, getting rid of her strongest competitor as soon as she could. And in comes the revolt, with people tweeting about how we must ‘hold Blu accountable’ for her actions as if UKVTW was the drag UN, and she were Russia (this particular tweet has since been deleted, lol). In terms of the show, it’s sad to see Pangina go. She was an amazing competitor, funny, charming, hot, and was, so far, the ‘righteous’ winner of the season. In terms of actual life, who cares?

Writing 1000s of words on this show a week, I constantly wonder how to articulate feelings about the show without adding onto pile-ons. Yes, Pangina and Jimbo’s premature eliminations were frustrating to see, in that they prevented two excellent TV characters from being on TV.

Maybe the All Stars rules need to go after six seasons of them fucking up our fantasy leagues, frustrating fans and ensuring that queens get death threats? There are rumours the (all but confirmed) All-Winners season will get rid of eliminations completely and work off some kind of point system, but that’ll just allow us to get angry at the judging. There will always be something; life’s not fair, and reality TV even less so (Rebecca Glasscock made top three in S1, for Santino’s sake!). Getting frustrated is fair (it’s like half of my job here), but Kim, there’s people that are dying.

All this is to say that Blu Hydrangea made some excellent TV this week, but I am sad to see it – and to hear Pangina’s sobs (kudos to the editor who overlaid them with Ru’s ‘if you can’t love yourself…’ speech).

Wait, This Isn’t RuPaul’s Smooth Ball Race?

It’s time for Snatch Game, albeit with a slight ‘Family Feud’ twist. The queens are divided into teams headed by Michelle Visage and Katie Price (who I have Googled so many times, but will never remember a thing about), which means different prompts: it worked pretty well, keeping up the pace so that we didn’t just have 3 questions before it ended, as in recent years. Less ‘at Sea’ and more of this!

Ru announces the Snatch Game variant with a S5 throwback, saying “we, as gay people, get to choose our own family”: I really expected it to be followed by a, “which is why I’ve partnered with Tescos, who make sure I live my life authentically while I’m on the go with their ready-to-eat meals”. A missed opportunity; maybe the BBC stepped in to prevent any advertising.

Before that, we learn Janey would have sent home Jujubee last week — you’d think from her lip sync moves she might do freestyle dance teacher Renata Bliss, but instead she tells Ru she’s planning to be Tan Mom, the mom who is tan. Ru advises her to do her backup James Charles, which is an act of sabotage as YouTuber characters never go well. Ru also advises Mo to throw out both her planned characters, Gordon Ramsey (!!) and Bebe Zahara Benet (!), and instead do Pose star Billy Porter because they’re both loud Black queers. Since the show is RuPaul’s, Mo goes for it.

When we get to Snatch Game, we have two Drag Race firsts: neither Mo nor Baga, who is playing Kathy Bates’ Misery character Annie, are wearing much makeup. All drag is valid! It’s clear that Baga is killing it, having switched out Annie’s obsession to RuPaul and clutching a copy of GuRu (a ‘book’ I have ‘read’, in as much as you can read a book with ~100 words). It’s not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s one of those performances that nails the brief.

The other clear winner is Blu, whose Austin Powers (and, mid-Game, Dr. Evil) is more than just catchphrases from the films. Blu is fast on her feet here, always interjecting with a well-placed one-liner, and can go back-and-forth with Ru while breaking the fourth wall (“I’m not the real Mike Myers!”). I do think playing an actor’s character is a bit of a cop-out, as you can just say some of their lines and be safe, but both Blu and Baga add more to it.

In the middle of the pack is Jujubee as Cher, which is an impression so lousy it’s funny: it’s pretty much exactly what I’d do on Snatch Game. It was nice to see Juju’s comedy chops come out, but this did feel a little ‘easy’, as did Mo’s Billy, which is more just things Mo would say with some references to Pose.

Both Janey/James Charles and Pangina/Mariah Carey flounder, missing a few too many punchline opportunities. It is interesting that the clear bottoms are the two ESL queens: it’s not necessarily why they’re struggling (neither considers themselves as ‘comedy queen’), but that wordplay and wit is already hard under a quick time limit, without then translating it in your own head.

Despite the clear tops, safes and bottoms, the judges put everyone but Baga and Blu up for elimination. Before that, the queens have an odd conversation around ‘cancel culture’ in the werkroom, where they deride that their careers can end at any moment for one or two off-colour jokes.

I don’t necessarily disagree with where they land, but we’re also conflating too many things — when Baga weighs in, for example, the show neglects to mention she’s been ‘cancelled’ (AKA received genuine criticism) not for making a silly joke but for previously voting conservative. It’s a conversation that needs space to breathe for nuance, but we just get a few minutes; I like that Drag Race continues to make an effort to tell the audience to not send death threats to these queens, but this was far too truncated to offer anything substantial about ‘cancel culture’.  The biggest take-away was that Blu lived in constant fear of saying the wrong thing or upsetting people, and then sent home Pangina, pissing off the entire show’s audience: that’s growth in just a few minutes.

Luck Be My Lady Tonight

On the runway, we’re promoting Tom Waterhouse. Slay!

Baga and Blu come out in very similar outfits, which is a shame for Baga.

And then there’s Jujubee, who comes out in a tight dress that alludes to a maneki-neko, those Japanese cat statues with a moving paw, said to bring luck to their owners. It’s a nice concept, but the delivery isn’t there, which makes me start to believe theories that Jujubee was a last-minute alternate for the cast as she was already in the UK filming Queen Of The Universe, and had to scramble to get ready. It makes sense, no?

After the runway, Blu and Baga chat to each of the bottom four about who to pick. All episode, the show’s foreshadowed that Baga will send home Pangina as revenge for her best friend Jimbo, but I have a feeling she might’ve picked Janey’s lipstick; meanwhile, Blu all but tells Pangina she’s safe, and then decides to eliminate her strongest competition.

It’s BRUTAL. At least last week we got a Vengaboys lip sync to make up for what was to come; this week, we get ‘Let It Go’ by Alexandra Burke, which uh, maybe will grow on me?

Michelle and Ru both look absolutely shocked, and Pangina’s sobbing is hard to watch. Bless her: in three episodes, she’s established herself as one of the best queens of the franchise. Blu, meanwhile, is shell-shocked by what she’s done, and will be hearing those cries for nights to come.

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RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs The World is available to stream in Australia on Stan, with episodes dropping each Wednesday at 10am AEDT.

Jared Richards is Junkee‘s Drag Race recapper, and a freelancer who writes for NME, The Big Issue, The Guardian and more. He’s across the internet as @jrdjms