DISCLAIMER: This post discusses spoilers for RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season 2 episode 2. If you haven’t seen the episode yet, don’t say we didn’t warn ya!
Last week on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, we witnessed a robbery, folks.
Joe Black unfortunately went home, and girl, when I say that was a choice? It was the ultimate choice — and not a good one.
If you ask me, eliminating Joe Black is like eliminating Bianca Del Rio.
The fans aren’t the only ones who are shook about Joe’s elimination — the queens are too, and it’s obviously made a few of them wake up and realize anyone can go home at this point.
However, a new week means a new mini and maxi challenge, so let’s move on, shall we?
MINI CHALLENGE
For this week’s mini challenge, the queens must “flood his [a member of the Brit Crew] ballot box,” meaning each queen must fill out a ballot voting for a queen that best fits the following four positions:
- Secretary of Shade – Who is the shadiest out of all the queens?
- Trade Minister – Who is the hottest out of drag?
- Leader of Lording It Up – Who is the cockiest queen?
- Baroness Basic – Need we say more?
The results are in:
- Secretary of Shade – A’Whora
- Trade Minister – Tayce
- Leader of Lording It Up – Lawrence Chaney
- Baroness Basic – Tia Kofi
MAXI CHALLENGE
For this week’s maxi challenge, the queens need to sing live in their rendition of RATS: The Rusical (a play on Cats: The Musical).
Singing live is always interesting for these rusicals — because when it comes time to perform, you’re going to be in awe one second, and cringing the next (not everyone can sing, and this challenge definitely tells us who can and who can’t..)
Since Tia Kofi was elected Baroness Basic, she will be assigning all the roles to the queens. GAG.
Are we surprised though? Meh. Usually when queens do some sort of ‘voting’ for the mini challenge, almost always the queen who receives the ‘worst’ ranking (in this case, Baroness Basic), is the one who gets to assign the roles as a form of revenge.
This is definitely a shady twist, because Tia can easily give the queen who is the worst at singing the toughest role, meaning that queen will likely go home. But girl, we LOVE a good twist!
Unfortunately, Tia doesn’t take the shady route, and instead says she wants the rusical to be “as good as it possibly can.”
However, there’s a little bit of tension when it comes to casting Evita von Fleas, the love rat — Veronica Green says she’s been doing musical theatre and singing for 15 years, even as a living before she started drag, but Cherry Valentine also wants the role.
Cherry Valentine says Veronica’s musical theatre experience “doesn’t mean anything.”
I’m sorry — in a MUSICAL THEATRE challenge, wouldn’t you want the person with the most experience in musical theatre to do that role? It doesn’t make sense.
Eventually, Tia puts Cherry’s cockiness aside (maybe Cherry should have been elected as Leader of Lording It Up!), and gives Veronica the role. I guess we’ll see if that pays off or not!
Lawrence Chaney, on the other hand, who’s usually the loudest in the werkroom, hasn’t said anything so far. We can definitely tell she’s nervous because she mentions not having any singing or dancing abilities.
The official casting goes as follows:
Jane: Asttina Mandella
Evita von Fleas: Veronica Green
Dame Doody Stench: Ginny Lemon
Depravity and Miss Dysentery: Bimini Bon-Boulash and A’Whora
Scat Rat and Scabies: Tayce and Ellie Diamond
Rat Pack #1: Sister Sister
Rat Pack #2: Cherry Valentine
Rat Pack #3: Lawrence Chaney
Specimen #1: Tia Kofi
In rehearsal, the queens have Michelle Visage and Dane Chalfin as their vocal coaches. The Rat Pack has a bit of nerves they need to shake off, and A’Whora is told she’s holding back, compared to Bimini who is giving it. Needless to say, Veronica is SLAYING in rehearsal — I’m definitely glad Cherry didn’t get the role of Evita. Tia is told she needs to work harder since she’s only appearing in the beginning of the Rusical, while Tayce needs to work on her enunciation.
Jay Revell and Kieran Daley Ward will be choreographing the Rusical this week. A’Whora is struggling to be a “punk” compared to Bimini (again), while Tayce and Ellie picked up their choreo like no tomorrow. Veronica and Asttina also had no problems (are we surprised?), but on the other hand, Lawrence is on the struggle bus EXPRESS and starts getting emotional in rehearsal.
In Tayce’s confessional, she definitely isn’t here for the tears, and takes a jab at Lawrence for crying in “only week two.” This is a difficult show, Tayce!
In terms of the final performance, I think all the queens SLAYED, and I was definitely laughing along with the judges. There were also no particular queens who I felt did absolutely terrible, which is great, because during rehearsal it seemed like the final performance could have gone either way.
RUNWAY
On the main stage, RuPaul is joined by judges Michelle Visage, Alan Carr, and this week’s extra-special guest judge, Sheridan Smith.
Category is: Surprise, surprise! (meaning we can likely expect all the queens to have a “Ruveal,” or a “2-in-1” as part of their runway).
A’Whora entered dressed as a groom in a black tux with a cane, and ripped off her suit and top hat to ruveal a wedding dress. Lawrence Chaney entered with a flag of Scotland-inspired jumpsuit, which transformed into a kilt patterened dress. Ginny Lemon went with a classic “Ginny Lemon” look with yellow tights and chunky Crocs and a granny patterned dress, which she ripped off to reveal.. the same dress?
But then she turns around, and we see a hairy you-know-what.
Anyway..
Cherry Valentine is wearing a big, poofy yellow dress with black polka dots, which she reveals into a yellow mini bodycon dress with a pregnant belly. Along the belly has the word “gender.” Tia is wearing a bodysuit with a fake six-pack on it and leather harness, which she ruveals into a red flamenco dress. Ellie Diamond is serving scarecrow realness, which transforms into a Tin Man dress, and then the THIRD reveal turns into a scared, Cowardly Lion dress. This was definitely a serve — I didn’t expect three looks!
Tayce enters wearing a grim reaper cloak, which she rips off to ruveal a pink ninja look, while Sister Sister goes from conservative southern belle to sexy, red lace dominatrix. Veronica is giving us 1950’s housewife in a blue and yellow floral dress with a pink apron, which she ruveals into a gold robotic look. Tayce went with three looks, all of which were red: an overcoat, into a jacket, into a catsuit, paired with red pumps and a platinum blonde wig, while Bimini went high fashion with a corset made of canvas, which had mini black heart-shaped balloons attached to it, paired with black latex gloves and stockings.
CLOSING
The safe queens of the week are as follows: A’Whora, Ginny Lemon, Asttina Mandella, Sister Sister, and Bimini Bon-Boulash.
Meaning, the tops and bottoms of the week are Lawrence Chaney, Cherry Valentine, Tia Kofi, Ellie Diamond, Veronica Green, and Tayce.
The judges critiques of the week:
Lawrence got a bit lost (but recovered) in the Rusical, and her look on the runway was “like watching Cirque du Soleil.” Cherry’s enunciation was a bit off, and the judges blamed her ‘inner saboteur,’ while her surprise in the runway was “predictable.” Tia was praised for her hilarious performance in the Rusical, but clocked for her simple runway; Ellie Diamond hesitated a bit in her performance, but the judges loved her Wizard of Oz inspired ruveals. The judges, to no surprise at all, fell head over heels for Veronica’s performance, and felt the same way about her runway. Tayce, on the other hand, was harder to understand, and was clocked for her look on the runway being too simple.
Based off the queen’s performances in the Rusical, along with their runway looks, the rankings this week are as follows:
Tia Kofi – HIGH
Veronica Green – WINNER
Ellie Diamond – SAFE
Lawrence Chaney – LOW
Tayce – BOTTOM 2
Cherry Valentine – BOTTOM 2
Tayce and Cherry Valentine face off in a lip sync for your life to “Memory” by Elaine Paige, which is a slow song — something we don’t see often on Drag Race. It was definitely not my favourite lip sync as both queens didn’t really do much, but there’s only so much you can do when lip syncing to a slow, emotional song.
Unfortunately, we say goodbye to Cherry Valentine this week. We’ll miss you, lady!
NEXT WEEK: The queens must craft a look for the runway that “totally outshines their fashion frenemy.”
What did you think of this week’s episode? Let me know in the comments below!