‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ UKVTW E5 Recap: Finally, Some Good Juju And A Much Better Baga
With one more episode to go, is it too late for these last-minute turnarounds?
And just like that, we’re at the semi-finals of UK vs The World. Even the queens know it’s a little odd: when they discuss if this was the top five they imagined, everyone pauses. But the magic of this season is that its pure low-stakes chaos, where nothing matters and everyone’s just there to hang out. Enjoy the ride!
This week, our top five record verses for and perform the debut of RuPaul’s new track “Loving My Life In London”, which the show calls a “hit” despite it not being out. As Mo says of Baga, “delusion! But we love her”. With three singers/artists in the mix — Mo, Juju and Baga — it’s tough competition this week, and the competition finally feels a little equal, if only because Pangina is no longer there to shit on everyone else.
Still, her absence doesn’t matter, as queens who have been in the background like Mo (which is wild considering how big her personality is and how great she’s been for most of the competition) step up to the plate. Even Jujubee decides to show up, filling the empty space with the werkroom banter, wit and charm we love that’s only previously appeared in flashes this season. Like all the queens say, now Pangina and Jimbo are both gone, it’s pretty much anyone’s game — except Janey, who knows the show well enough to see that her time has come, and doesn’t fight as hard as she could to stay.
With Jujubee nabbing a win and Mo landing in the top two this week, any of the top four could take the crown. For chaos’ sake, I pray it’s Jujubee; otherwise, I’m rooting for Blu or Mo, who are both immensely talented, charismatic performers. I’m fearing it’s Baga, but I also don’t really care: this season is barely canon at this point, and each episode is just 70 minutes of colour and noise, baby stimulation perfect for each Wednesday.
jujubee: the queen I’ve chosen to go home is… janey jacke 😭😭😭
rupaul: pic.twitter.com/fMRkx9WXkT— drag colibri tany (@SizeFourBabe) March 1, 2022
British People, It’s Wild That Your ‘Reject Shop’ Is Called ‘Poundland’ And Not One Queen Has Made A Single Joke About It???
Before the challenge, the queens debrief on Blu’s choice to eliminate Pangina, with Blu saying she took the shot as she couldn’t trust Pangina after she eliminated Jimbo. The others agree, and Baga had pulled Pangina’s lipstick too, but it creates a target on Blu’s back, a kind of Samara’s Drag Race scenario where she might have doomed herself (I haven’t seen The Ring and can’t elaborate further on this metaphor). If this season was longer, we might begin to see some really bizarre, overthought elimination strategies worthy of Survivor (sorry, changing the reference).
The show takes so much time this episode to spell out that these queens have every right to “play the game” with their eliminations, with Ru even stopping judging later in the ep to ask Blu about the eliniation, building in an anti-trolling message that arrives a week too late. (The UKVTW Twitter account released just yesterday a very earnest video of Pangina asking fans to stop attacking Blu, which suggests it got pretty bad. Don’t make me hyperlink to my 2019 thinkpiece!!!)
It’s infuriating, though so is 90 per cent of people tweeting/posting about TV (“not Cassie being DRAGGED 😂😂😂😂”) as culture is broken forever (I say while writing a recap, probably the precursor). Looks like we’ll be bullying drag queens for providing good TV for years to come.
Jujubee’s refusal to take ‘UKVTW’ seriously is actually an anti-consumerist, anti-Drag Race empire stance that mocks the machine from the inside, rusting the cogs to slowly destroy it. In this essay, I will-
This challenge asks the queens to write a verse repping themselves and their home-town, which is a lot to bit into 15-30 seconds. Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall and producer Ian Masterson provide genuinely helpful feedback around cutting errant words and making it sound better, which is more helpful than Michelle Visage trying to get tone-deaf queens to sing ‘up an octave’ (I don’t think singers understand that some of us simply can’t control our voices like they can).
Baga, Mo and Juju are all rightly confident, and Blu is in The Frock Destroyers so can hold her own despite not being a singer, leaving Janey as the obvious weakest link. She’s quite nervous after her recording, but Mo reminds her they’ll autotune the fuck out of it and she can out-dance most of these queens, but she sees the writing on the wall.
Blu’s line about “gays getting married” is kind of cringe in that it feels outdated and a bit basic, but Blu points out that Northern Ireland only legalised same-sex marriage in November 2020, which was just a few months before they filmed this season. Any queer Australian knows how grueling that public debate is even if you don’t really care about SSM as an issue or believe there are bigger causes. Either way, it becomes a referendum (or, for us, a non-legally binding plebiscite…) on the morality of queer people, and I kind of had to remind myself that that line understandably meant a lot to Blu, and there’s no need to do the whole ‘there’s bigger issues’ speech.
Were the Canadians destined to be gone by now because their flags aren’t red, white and blue?
Speaking of, we get two pretty raw moments in the werkroom as the queens get ready. Baga and Jujubee talk sobriety and alcoholism: Jujubee has been sober for a few years now and spoke about it on All Stars 5, but this, to my knowledge, is the first time Baga has addressed her own struggles on the show. It was Drag Race UK that made her step back from her ‘2 bottles of gin a night’ lifestyle, fuelled by a career in nightlife. I appreciate that Jujubee and her discuss how being ‘completely sober’ isn’t necessary for all alcoholics, with Baga still enjoying a beer or two as per her lyrics: to be very sincere, I have a lot of time for people being open about their addictions and recovery, and am glad this conversation occurred.
From there, we whip around to Mo’s experiences growing up religious and attending conversion therapy, which I don’t believe we knew about previously (AS4 is a real blur, so it’s possible I’ve forgotten). I really, really love Mo a lot; she’s an amazing queen, and just radiates light, like her new name says. As long as Drag Race continues to introduce people like her to me, it’s a gift.
The camera never showed it in a close up, but this mullet wig kept flying off whenever Mo jumped up while dancing, which I loved. To live on the edge of danger… that’s art…
‘Phenomenon’ 3.0 (2.0 is BTDQ’s A Capella Cover)
The performance is fun! Mo and Juju are the obvious winners, but no-one is ‘bad’. Even Janey’s verse sounds great covered in autotune and in a different week, she’d be comfortably safe, but if you’re not in the top, you’re a bottom, so she, Baga and Blu are all up for elimination.
This week’s runway is dedicated to the A of legendary Drag Race song ‘C.L.A.T’, as the queens play off famous (mostly 20thc) artworks. Drag Race España did this too, and it was one of that season’s best runways: I’d love for it to become a staple theme. The queens aren’t necessarily picking deep-cuts, but who cares: Janey’s Warhol-Marilyn look is proof that sometimes the most obvious references are the best.
So well-executed.
I just really love pop-art makeup or cartoon-esque drag, like Jojo Zaho’s makeup. I just think it’s neat :)
The judges critique Blu for getting too loose with her Picasso reference, but I appreciate that she didn’t just reference one of his artworks and call it a day. Blu loves to really think about her looks, and if that means this isn’t as accessible, so be it!
To quote my favourtie TikTokker, we love!
Baga’s cutesy play on Van Gogh’s sunflowers is really fun, and while I think Jujubee’s Art Deco dress might be something she had prior to hearing about the theme, it’s easily the best she’s looked all season. But the best of the night is Mo Heart, whos Dalí’s Woman With Head Of Roses look is just gorgeous, the bouquet opening up to reveal her gorgeous face. I really think Mo is one of the most beautiful queens on the show, especially now she has the bank to back it up.
Gorgeous.
Michelle dresses in theme too as her favourite artist, TikTok Girlie.
Would cop those glasses though, kind of reconsidering my entire Mardi Gras outfit to work around them.
Mo and Jujubee lip-sync to 2019 Eurovision winner Netta’s song ‘Toy’, and despite Mo killing it, Jujubee makes Ru laugh twice and so wins, sending Janey home. That’s now the majority of challenge winners sent home, meaning there are only two badges between the top four (though everyone’s been in the top two once). Crazy, but also who cares! Next week, we crown a winner in a lip-sync to the finish, which makes me think Baga might not actually win. Prove me wrong Ru!
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