Ron Does Stuff

My original plan for this month — and this year, to be frank — was to read more, but real-life obligations have not been kind to me. I can’t regularly post about books because I haven’t been able to read as much as I wanted, so it’s a good thing that there’s always shows I can look forward to and blog about during the weekends.

So let’s get started on this new episode of All Stars 9!

Angeria Paris VanMichaels is very happy going into the Werk Room this week and why wouldn’t she be? She just got her third badge in the previous episode and she’s now won $30,000 for the National Black Justice Coalition.

Not having a good time is Gottmik, who got blocked the second time this season and feels like it wasn’t a fair decision. And Angeria doesn’t do a goob job explaining her decision either, because she’s basing it off of Plastique’s “mathing”. But either way, she doesn’t regret blocking Gottmik, who she believes is a legitimate threat. And who did block her earlier in the season.

The next day, Gottmik literally breaks one of the Werk Room lights and I don’t know how they’re going to make it a foreshadowing device during the rest of the episode but they gotta!

This week’s mini challenge is a photobomb challenge and…this really stopped being funny pre-pandemic. Let’s move on from this. It’s enough. Anyways, Nina West wins the mini challenge and Shannel inches closer and closer to having her gag-worthy television breakdown.

The Maxi Challenge is making outfits inspired by RuPaul songs and there’s a little bit of drama when Ru asks Shannel to be the first one to pick the song and the accompanying fabrics. It’s only a little because just like the mini challenges on Drag Race France, the tension really has no bearing on the rest of the competition.

The real cause of tension this episode is Angeria’s choice to cut off Gottmik from earning another badge, clearing the way for Plastique to at least get a top placement considering the clothes she made on her own for the previous design challenge.

Roxxxy, meanwhile, is itching for a design challenge win since she does make her own outfits. And to Roxxxy’s credit she fully gives Plastique and Gottmik their flowers in the previous design challenges. And now that she’s been given this storyline I fully believe she’ll be one of the top two queens alongside Plastique.

Elsewhere in the Werk Room, Nina is troubled about the hand she’s been dealt this design challenge. She’s very aware that she’s not exactly the best sewer or designer, but the fact that she got a lot of sheer fabrics for the challenge is also making her issues about her body come to the fore.

Shannel’s plan to enlist Angeria as a worker elf — because Shannel picked Ru’s Christmas song — is working out to her favor as well, since Angeria doesn’t think twice about helping her out. Now will this ultimately benefit both of them or will one of them end up regretting this? None of them are going to be sent home anyways so maybe they’ll just go “Meh.”

Gottmik is feeling pretty good about the fabrics she’s gotten for the challenge, but unfortunately she won’t be getting a badge even if she does end up at the top. But I don’t think anybody’s who been snipped or blocked back in All Stars 7 ever got to the top after? Or maybe I’m misremembering.

Plastique is also saying in her confessional that she doesn’t plan to lose this challenge either as she hasn’t been snipped yet and with three badges on her she’s definitely a prime target. Which really just tells me that her storyline this episode is either a top queen or she’s getting snipped.

Gottmik also has a soft moment with Ru when she talks about how she felt a little mad about the critique she got a few episodes ago. Now does Ru’s response about the song directly address that? Maybe not really but it was nice to see Ru tear up a little bit talking about the friends she’s made and still working with since the 80s.

Shannel also gets a moment with Ru where they get to talk about her inner saboteur and normally I would think this means that Shannel is being set up for a win today but I honestly think they really want to break her down and get that Shannel moment again. Crying in the Werk Room isn’t enough for production.

When it comes to Angeria, Ru is the very external saboteur, telling her that while her gown idea for the song is good, maybe she should consider doing a jumpsuit? In the limited time they have? Angeria you are getting snipped,

Plastique, meanwhile, looks set to get another badge and become this season’s frontrunner. But she’s not going to be getting any money anyway because if her past lip syncs are any indication, she’s going to lose anyway.

Angeria, meanwhile, has let external saboteur RuPaul get to her and tried to make that jumpsuit only for it to not work, and now she has even less time to make a garment that she actually knows how to do because she’s also been helping out Shannel and yeah, it’s a mess.

Even up on runway day itself, the queens are working on their outfits, Plastique especially. And when she does get on that runway? Well, that outfit looked beautiful. Maybe not as much as her cherry blossom one but given the fact that she was still working on it even on the day of? Stunning.

Up next is Jorgeous and…well at least it’s not a napkin wrapped around her!

Gottmik and Shannel’s outfits are…very them, if that makes sense? It’s just what I expected they would come up with. Meanwhile, Roxxxy’s ass does a lot of work when it came to that outfit. Not that I know anything about making clothes but Roxxxy’s ass really was the star there.

I actually really liked Nina’s outfit because it was something I didn’t expect from her? I didn’t think she would be able to create something like that, especially taking into account her previous fashion creations. Good job Nina!

Given everything that she had to go through, Angeria’s outfit was also really good. Again, I didn’t expect her to come up with that given the lack of time she had.

We get to the judges critiques and it is so obvious that Plastique is going to be one of the top queens. Let’s see which queen she’s going to lose to in the lip sync! And from the critiques onstage it looks like she’s going to lose toeither Gottmik or Roxxy! and Roxxxy of course brought us the iconic “I’m Roxxxy Andrews”.

Roxxxy is the queen that joins Plastique in the top two so I guess that’s congratulations to Roxxxy’s charity then! Plastique doesn’t care about Asian-Americans. Just kidding. But it really is clear that Roxxxy won this lip sync once she brought out the nail file. And to be fair to Plastique she did marginally better compared to her previous lip syncs?

Now with Plastique out of the equation, Angeria really is the only queen left to snip. She’s the one with the highest number of badges! However, this is the last time this snipping is going to happen so I wonder how the dynamic’s going to change in the next episode. Let’s see!