So to the handful of people that were reading this blog last year, there were a few intense weeks where I watched, back to back, Drag Race Mexico, Drag Race France, and Drag Race Philippines. I had initially wanted to watch Drag Race Brazil and Drag Race Germany as well, but after those weeks I quite honestly was all Drag Race-d out. I was also watching Drag Race España before those three shows and I just didn’t blog it!
But now that there’s a new year and a new season of the mothership, RuPaul’s Drag Race, I think it’s time to get back to it and watch the Olympics of drag!
First in the Werk Room is Q with a stunning green outfit and face. Whether it’s work done on it or skincare, it is working very well for her and yes she does look good in the mirror.
Up next is Kandy Muse’s child, Xunami Muse, who is giving me a little bit Naomi Smalls, a little bit Lineysha Sparkx, and a lot of fabulousness. She really is the more graceful Muse! Signed to a New York agency!
I love, love, love Amanda Tori Meating’s name but enterting the Werk Room with your breastplate clearly visible? It just breaks the illusion for me!
Morphine Love Dion in the Werk Room and the confessional is painted. She says her mug always has to be exquisite and it is. She even reads Amanda Tori Meating’s breastplate and honestly, Amanda shouldn’t be surprised she’s getting read for it.
Up next is Sapphira Cristál who is giving grand dame of drag energy. I can’t clearly explain but she gives off that air of someone who has been doing this for a long time and knows what she’s doing.
There’s yet another drag relative (?) competing this season and this time around it’s Anetra’s drag sister, Mirage. Truly do not want to put any pressure on her shoulders but to come in related to someone who went toe-to-toe with Sasha Colby is daunting. The expectations are huge.
And just because everybody needs to see it again, here’s Anetra versus Sasha Colby.
Up next is Dawn, who instantly charms with her opening line. Also, Dawn out of drag is exactly the type of artsy white boy I would go for I am a stereotype. And she seems like such a nice person in the confessional!
The entrance of new queens ends with Dawn, which Q says probably means that this is a split premiere. It doesn’t say so in the episode title but let’s see!
Ru walks in and says probably one of the best things the queens will hear during the show — the prize money of $200,000! Thank God Season 15 bumped up that prize money because inflation, girl!
The photoshoot is…different! Let’s say that! I guess they ran out of money to hire a photographer because they’re using one of those door cameras that’s so popular in the United States nowadays. The Love Connie addition isn’t working for me either but who cares!
After that whole thing, the two queens that really charmed me were Sapphira Cristál and Dawn. They made Ru laugh too! That said I do miss the seasons when Ru would just endanger the lives of the queens when it came to the first photoshoot.
Sapphira wins the mini challenge and a cash prize of $2,500. I don’t know how much the drag she brought costs but hopefully that pays for at least some of it!
Ru then reveals that the first Maxi challenge is talent show that is also an homage to MTV’s Spring Break. I feel my whole being collapse into dust when Q says she wasn’t even born in 1993, when Ru was on Spring Break. I am an ancient decrepit being end my suffering.
Ru then hits the queens with a number of surprises. First, the winner of the Maxi challenge gets a $5,000 cash prize. Second, they get immunity, something that hasn’t been awarded since Season 3! Q says it was still being awarded in Season 5 but what does she know she’s like three years old.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! Ru finally reveals the Rate A Queen thing that was teased in the…uh…teasers and one word that wasn’t shown in the teasers is that this system is in place “this week”. So will this only be for the first two episodes? Or will this system be in place the whole season? We shall see!
Less than 30 minutes into the hour-long episode, we’re already getting the queens on elimination day, which really makes me think it isn’t going to be a split premiere.
As the queens are getting ready for the talent show Charlize motherfucking Theron enters the Werk Room with Malva puddings from South Africa! That she baked herself! She also twirls around in a Dior outfit and this is probably one of the few times that an actually Dior creation was in the Werk Room and not just the queen saying they took inspiration from Dior.
The queens then do the Emotional Talk TM before the Maxi challenge and this time around it’s about Morphine Love Dion still hiding her queerness and her drag from her parents who she lives with. It’s really depressing that 16 seasons in, this is still something that these queens and the wider queer community are still worried about.
The talent show stars and Derrick Barry is hosting! The show should really do this more often because they launch so many drag queens into the population and it would be really great if they also provided them with work opportunities since these queens are what made the show as big as it is.
Gotta say the Q show was funnier than the Dawn show. Or maybe it was more accessible? Or maybe Dawn’s show wasn’t shown in full? Sapphira’s opera number is awesome I had my mouth open the whole time.
After the talent show we get the runway and Morphine Love Dion walks in wearing a towel dress and Viñas Deluxe would like to have a word with you!
To be fair, Morphine’s dress unwinds to a swimsuit which is…well it’s a swimsuit!
Dawn’s outfit is so her, if that makes any sense, and I wonder just how quickly she does her face because while the general outlines of it are the same, there are always tweaks that make it match the outfit that she’s wearing? I don’t know if I’m explaining it properly I am not a make-up homo!
Amanda Tori Meating’s outfit, I feel, was memorable because of the wig mishap, while Xunami’s was…well…conventional? It’s not like the look was bad, it’s just that it was very safe compared to what’s been shown so far. Especially when shown next to Dawn’s. As for the rest of the outfits, I wasn’t exactly gagging other than for Q’s and Sapphira’s…before the reveal.
After the runway, we finally get an explanation of Rate A Queen. The judges are there to provide critiques, but only to help out the queens when they make their decisions, as they will be the one determining who’s going to be the top and bottom queens of the episode.
AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT WAS UNNECESSARY DRAMA BECAUSE NO ONE’S GOING HOME ANYWAY WHAT WAS RATE THE QUEENS FOR? Q and Sapphira end up the top two queens who lip sync for the win to Beyonce’s “Break My Soul” a lip sync which Sapphira of course ends up winning.
Ron Does Stuff 
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