The previous episode saw Dixxxy become the season’s first eliminated queen. Who’s going home next? Let’s find out!
As expected, the queens are sad about Dixxxy’s departure, and Andy is also feeling a little more motivated to work harder since she was almost the one to go home. Let’s see if she redeems herself in this episode.
The next day, Maureen is happy that she’s finally stopped being a Safe girl, but it’s made her a little too cocky, especially when she just cut off Bhorj like that. And I’m not even a Bhorj fan. The lady was just saying it wold have been nice if she won. At least she’s aware that she’s got anger issues.
Mama Pao finally enters the Werk Room and tells the queens that today’s mini challenge is going to be an improv game! And it’s an improv game that became popular here, and not something that we’re adapting from a different country! Exciting! And it was genuinely funny, and also I did not think they would allow the things that the queens said? Refreshing! Merckz ends up winning the mini challenge, and aside from winning money, she also gets to assign roles for this week’s Maxi Challenge, which is the Rusical.
Okay, before we get to that, can I just say that there has not been one Drag Race Philippines Rusical that I liked? They have all been consistently bad, in my opinion, and this ongoing trend of parodying Western productions isn’t helping it. Can’t we parody something local?
The queens are going to stage The Greatest Shokla, and I was actually surprised that there’s a fight for the aerialist role when Manza is the obvious choice? But it’s not just the aerialist role that the queens are fighting over. A few plum roles are being fought over by multiple queens, so I hope that there’s at least an entertaining fight that comes out of it.
And we sorta get that entertaining fight! Bombalicious points out the Nectar alliance that Merckz already mentioned in her confessional, while Bhorj is not letting Merckz just reject her application for the role that she wanted. Maureen’s anger issues are flaring up again as Merckz and Manza shut her out of the aerialist role that she wanted, but production probably wanted those anger issues to rise up right at this moment. That said, I think whoever gets assigned whatever role doesn’t really matter, because I just feel like it’s going to follow previous Drag Race Philippines Rusicals and just be uninteresting for me.
The next day after rehearsals, Merckz wants to know if anybody had hard feelings about the roles she handed out, and quite honestly, I don’t care. It feels like a staged conversation that the production wanted to turn into a ~learning moment~. I also thought the same with the conversation about bullying that happens afterward. This is not to say that conversations in other franchises weren’t equally staged. It’s just that they were better at hiding it. Drag Race Philippines was also good at this as far as I recall, but there’s something off in this episode. Or maybe it’s just the second episode felt so authentic that the conversations in this one feel inauthentic in comparison.
I’m sorry, but right from the opening number I am already not feeling this Rusical. Why is the whole thing in English? Why is it so unfunny? Why is there no plot, even a crazy, nonsensical one? And this isn’t unique to this season, by the way. There’s not one Rusical from this franchise that I’ve liked. And it’s not the performances of the queens. It’s the choice of material and the writing.
The runway is so much more entertaining than the Rusical, and the addition of Clara the Carabao was a hilarious choice. They are dalagang bukid, after all. And the outfits were generally great! I think the only ones that weren’t as impressive were Andy and Manza’s.
Andy, Taylor, and Manza are the safe queens of the episode, which, okay. I literally just kept rolling my eyes during the Rusical so I couldn’t tell you who did well or didn’t do well during the performances. Katana eventually wins her second badge, while Bombalicious and Ghulli are up for elimination. Bombalicious wins the lip sync, especially since Ghulli’s wig just flew off her head.
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