‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Recap: These Queens Suddenly Don’t Know How To Read

Remember a few weeks back, when the S11 queens showed utter contempt to Mariah Carey? Well, they’ve redeemed themselves with a whistle tone-perfect impersonation in this week’s reading challenge: much like Mimi, when these queens puts on shades, they suddenly don’t know how to read.

Was that the show’s worst reading challenge? Sure, Yvie, Brooke and A’keria landed some solid reads (even if Brooke’s ‘precious’ line was lifted from a Mimi Imfurst routine) — and everyone else, for the most part, weren’t just unfunny, but borderline non-sensical.

On the other hand, the main event, an improvised Cops-esque acting challenge featuring daylight drag, felt like a throw-back to the super-campy, dumb challenges of earlier seasons — albeit with no single Jada Pickett Smiths up in here or celebrities waving to the bus and giving CoCo Montrese her life. It offered something new, rather than a rehash.

Add in an excellent, club-kid leaning runway, and you’ve got a stellar episode. It was largely inconsequential to the pecking order, sure (sorry Plastique), and devoid of too much drama, but it let the personalities shine.

We’re reaching the tail-end of S11, and it feels like it’s only just heating up now that the competition’s getting a little more serious. As A’Keria jokes in the reading challenge, the reality is a lot of these queens have been resting on other people’s (lack of) talent, but there’s no hiding now — even under a ‘facekini’.

‘Can You Bring The Volume Down A Little Bit?’ ‘And Also Make It Funny’

Honey, these girls took a lump out of Shuga’s jar, because these reads were mostly just words said in a Drag voice, girl — and I was not living, honey!

Last week, I mentioned a repeated critique in Vulture’s What The Tuck recap podcast. According to hosts Matt Rogers and Mano Agapion, this season lacks any queens attacking drag with the sharp, savvy intelligence that made so many previous winners and fan-favourites (Raja, Sharon, Sasha, Violet, etc.) stand out.

And while in the excitement that was last week’s lip sync, I argued that Yvie and Brooke Lynn have sparks of that, I think, overall, it still stands — and it was evident watching the reading challenge.

Sure, it was fun to watch the queens read the reads, but most of them fell super flat. It’s especially odd, given these queens know this is a staple of each season.

Nina could’ve nailed this, but over-produced herself (much like last week’s Snatch Game). Plastique was fine; Shuga continued to speak in drag clichés, girl; Vanjie just yelled; and Silky screamed — and called Plastique Japanese, which was so unfunny the show glossed over the casual racism.

The show’s leaving in these moments of irritation with Silky for a reason, and I’m sensing the beginning of a last-minute turn around. No one can deny her charisma, but she leans on it too much — and this week’s lazy runway was proof of that.

In a scene reminiscent of any too-cocky teenager not studying properly before their final exams (hello), Silky refusing to do any make-up (or de-ash those knees!) while the other queens painted was an exercise in hubris. Judging by her comments in Untucked post Michelle Visage’s critiques, maybe she’ll push herself a little further soon.

911? I’d Like To Report A Crime. Cheyenne Jackson Is Too Handsome.

Brooke’s a calculated queen, and makes the most of her mini-challenge win to strategically pair the teams together for the challenge. Each team has a stronger and weaker actor (except for Plastique and Vanjie), though she seriously underestimates A’keria, who is this week’s deserved winner.

Snatch up the full episode L.A.D.P.! ?‍♀️?#DragRace ? https://t.co/HKZSGq4Pzf#Untucked ? https://t.co/8HtYcAd8cj pic.twitter.com/sfhXAdPzAL

— RuPaul's Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) April 26, 2019

As a twerking girl on the street, she was quick on her feet with banter, has a developed character that is loud and ridiculous but also not always at a 10. The storyline with Yvie — re-uniting with her long-lost daughter with Mark Whalberg — added a nice moment of reprieve, and was oddly semi-moving?

There was a lot going on, but she also let Yvie breathe, which couldn’t be said for most of the other groups.

Silky, for example, was incredibly funny, but barely let Shuga have a moment. As someone who was top of his drama class from year 8 to year 11 (we don’t talk about year 12!), I can safely say it’s shoddy improv to hog a scene. Girl, while Shuga, could have given it a bit more or had a stronger story arc, honey, it would have meant matching her partner’s energy — and that easily could have gone off the rails, á la Plastique and Vanjie.

To be fair, it does feel like the ‘literal catfight’ set-up gave the girls a little less to play with than ‘nudist sunbaker’, ‘bootleg hip pads’ or ‘illegal twerkers’. But ugh, what a mess. Like Ru said, I was waiting for it to be over.

Brooke also completely overshadowed Nina as the nude, limber yoga instructor. Normally I’d never say this, but someone has to be the straight man, and Nina was good enough to swap with a nervous Brooke and let her have her moment.

Unfortunately, Brooke didn’t return the favour. In her excitement of nailing the scene, she didn’t let Nina do very much. In a confessional, Nina said she was a little disappointed by Brooke’s team-woman-ship, but happy for her that she did well and felt comfortable.

It wasn’t a shady moment, and I’m glad the editors kept it in as the measured narration it was. Ambitious or career-driven people can easily be carelessly selfish or myopic when they see a chance to run with an opportunity, often without awareness.

Brooke wants to win, and to her credit, she carved out her own narrative of growth this week by letting her hair down and tuck flop out.

‘Girl, It Was Camp.’ ‘No, It Was Leigh Bowery RuPaul’s ‘Iconic’ Apocalypse Look’

This week’s ‘Facekini’ runway was neat — anything that pushes them to go a little oddball is always welcome, especially from the ‘pageant’ queens. If anything, Yvie under-delivered a little here, while the likes of Nina and Shuga turned it out.

It did feel a little weird it wasn’t a straight-up Leigh Bowery runway, and instead presented as inspired by Ru’s apocalyptic look from S10, but perhaps that was to make sure the queens didn’t go all the same? It let them go in a few directions — some more successful than others.

Shuga is saved from the bottom by Plastique and Vanjie’s abysmal acting. Vanjie didn’t know all the words to the Fantasia song (can you blame her?), but her moves suit the song’s energy a lot more, and so we say goodbye to Plastique — but not before the narrative about her ‘fake Asian voice’ went further south.

On the runway, Michelle “no knowledge about code-switching mouth” Visage critiques Plastique for falling back into her stereotypical Asian immigrant voice for a second in the challenge, telling her “she’s more than a stereotype”.

It’s a well-meaning moment, but it’s a little uncomfortable as it lands like Plastique is lying about it being her “original voice”, when in reality, many children of immigrants switch between accents when facing their family and the general world.

It was clear Plastique did just slip into it in nerves and while her repeated use of a stereotype in acting challenges was …notable, it’s also just not something Michelle has a right to point towards as a trace of ‘Asian shame’, as her comment about ‘staying in Asian pride’ implies.

The fact Plastique leant upon a certain voice or character says more about how the show presents achieving success to racial minorities more than it does Plastique’s relationship to her race.

Despite briefly pinning her for top 5 a few weeks back, Plastique is a lovely eighth alternate. And as much as I regret to say it, I think it might be Vanjie’s time to pop-off too, as she’s struggling to offer much more than her wonderful self. Great for TV, not so great in the competition. Hope she proves me wrong.

Most of my predictions haven’t been right (Shuga is still there and deserves to still be there?) but, um, nether-less, I think the top 5 should be, at this point: Nina, Yvie, Brooke, A’Keria and Silky. Let’s see how that pans out.

Next week’s challenge is a magic show. Sure!

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RuPaul’s Drag Race streams on Stan, with new episodes available 2pm AEST each Friday.

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Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and co-host of Sleepless In Sydney on FBi Radio. Follow him on Twitter.