‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ S13E10 Recap: Ice Cold
That was brutal - but it was also one of S13's best episodes so far.
Way harsh, Ru: as Denali said just before her elimination, she was only in the bottom because her makeover challenge partner did a bad job. That was brutal, but it was also one of the best episodes of S13 so far — now we’re in the final half of the season, things are heating up.
And so, the ice queen was sacrificially melted. I feel a bit bad for Denali: I don’t necessarily think she was gonna make it to the end, but this was a sad week to go out on. She left not even looking like herself! Or Olivia, for that matter. I’m not sure what Mrs. Lux was thinking with that makeover — did she not trust Denali with the knock-off Jacquemus mini-bags? Worst of all, the two lip-synced with Denali restricted by the damn gown that got them there. That’s gotta hurt.
Can’t deny it made for great TV though, a capstone on an excellent episode. S13’s COVID-friendly take on the makeover challenge — always a highlight — saw the queens pair up to make their partner in their image, and it ended up offering a bounty of insight into each queen.
During Untucked, GottMik said that to act like another queen, you really had to know yourself, too. And seeing them explain their walks and personas to each other was really interesting — by the top eight, we’ve got a cast of queens with established and unique presences.
Watching them teach that presence and trying on others’ was just fascinating, and a testament to how drag is a constant performance: even the ‘non-actors’ of the group have a clear physical language and presence, regardless of whether they’re actively aware of it.
This episode gives me hope that when UK2 wraps next week, S13 will really pick up: the first half has been a bit of a slog with the non-eliminations, but the competition’s on now.
Reading Is What? Probably Fake
In lieu of a mini-challenge, the queens get a psychic reading by Char Margolis, whose Wikipedia page suggests she’s perhaps not actually psychic.
I’m sure her readings of Rosé and Denali’s mutual crushings and messages from Tina’s distant father and Utica’s cow were absolutely not things that the producers were across.
Whatever! It was a cute if not completely dumb segment, though Rose Dommu is right to suggest that the real Allison Dubois would have made for a much better segment (if you don’t know, it’s time for you to know). Know that.
Was she not available? pic.twitter.com/vdYulKYSF7
— Rose Dommu (@rosedommu) March 13, 2021
But Dubois probably couldn’t have matched the queens up for the challenge as well as Margolis, who does so under the guise of each pair offering each queen the most to learn.
Denali and Olivia don’t learn that much, really, which is maybe why they fail the challenge as a pair. They bond over how matrilineal family figures have informed their drag, but lack the breakthroughs, real or faked, that the other groups have.
Tina and Rosé are an interesting pair, two New York queens who have crossed paths but not necessarily connected. If you remember way back five years ago when E1 aired, Rosé was shocked to learn Tina was on S13, and implied there was some bad blood between the two: it hasn’t explicitly come up, and the two quickly bond, so I guess we’ll never know.
Tina might secretly be a contender for Miss Congeniality: she’s unafraid to say something shady, but between this week and her moment with Elliott, it’s clear she’s a really warm, empathetic person underneath the foghorn.
The two oddball groups are Mik and Kandy, if only for the issues of swapping drag given their body differences, and Utica and Symone. Symone doesn’t look thrilled by the pairing at first, and Utica’s incredibly nervous to take on Symone’s drag as it centres Blackness, this week’s BAPS recreation no exception.
Utica’s reluctance to culturally appropriate is fascinating, because both here and with afro-gate last week, it’s a complete misunderstanding of what is and isn’t offensive.
The BAPS thing is definitely awkward, given paying tribute to a Black classic as the whitest person alive is inherently awkward. But there’s a clear context here, and I’m glad she listens to Ru and Symone or, in a worst-case scenario, doesn’t try and ‘act Black’ on the runway to do it justice, whatever that could’ve looked like.
Utica clearly wants to stay in her lane, and while the trepidation is a little silly, it’s also very real and no doubt echoes a lot of ‘well-intentioned’ whites who worry they’ll fuck up in similar ways.
Utica was basically eating her hand at this point.
Utica captures a very distinct white anxiety around practicing anti-racism, and the thing that’s come through two weeks in a row now is that her anxiety isn’t the important thing here. It’s not her feelings/fears that she needs to act on, but considering the effect it’ll have: unlike Snatch Game where she goes with the former, this week she trusts Symone and they nab a win for it.
There’s almost something a bit too tidy in it. You can kind of feel Ru in the werkroom brace himself for an Emmy-winning speech on cultural appropriation, and this ep’s really given an edit big on smiles and eye contact between the duo, giving it a cheesy finish that screams ‘teachable race moment’. But ultimately, even if it is produced to hell, it’s so sweet to watch Symone and Utica’s friendship blossom.
Jigsaw when he gets to put yet another bear-trap onto a victim.
Symone taking on Utica’s floating skin conceptual muumuu is really fun, too. They both deserve the win for throwing themselves fully into the challenge.
And that footage of them teaching each other a runway walk is all-time Drag Race: Utica mentioning her ‘modern dance improv class’ establishes once and for all that she’s actually just an SNL sketch character who’s escaped onto the wrong show.
But the most animated of the episode goes to RuPaul herself.
Someone’s had their coffee enema.
Sister Sisters
While I do think Symone and Utica deserved the win, props must be given to Mik and Kandy, who overcame the challenge of fitting each other’s outfits by altering their looks in the room.
It’s basically another challenge in itself, one the other girls didn’t have to do — or if they did, they would have been minor alterations.
Utica looks like a completely different queen. I love how much they changed their runway styles too.
And they look gorge! Kandy’s in great hands with Mik, and Kandy does a solid job too. Mik is a little awkward on the runway and both over- and under-does the Kandy impersonation, but it’s good enough.
In the werkroom, Mik expands a little on why he got into the clown-esque makeup, explaining that as a trans man, it was a way to establish that he wasn’t a ‘bio queen’ or that drag invalidated his identity.
Mik looks good, but Kandy is a work of art here.
He talks about the joys of passing as a cis-gay man while in drag, and how it took a long time to embrace where his femininity landed with his gender, before realising lots of gay men are just as, if not far more, feminine than him. It makes sense that drag allowed him to explore that, and I’m glad the show aired this conversation later into the season, rather than force him to explain it all straight away.
The bottom two teams, without question, are Rosé and Tina, and Denali and Olivia. Rosé and Tina both look rough, Rosé especially — but as she jokes, that’s pretty accurate to Tina’s brand.
The judges agree, which is a pretty brutal sledge from them: I’m not sure Tina has much longer in the competition after that.
Tina looks like a chipmunk version of Nina West. This is bad.
And Rosé is Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig as Tina Burner.
Then there’s Denali and Olivia. Denali does a solid if not amazing job of transforming Olivia, but it’s not reciprocated. When asked, all the queens but these two say Olivia deserves to go home on this challenge, and I really wish they weren’t judged as pairs here.
Tina deserved to lip-sync against her, and while I’ve enjoyed partying and playing with her, I don’t really see her offering much more in the competition at this point.
Denali looks absolutely crushed: she’s had a rough go of the competition, and I think she knows it’s unlikely she’ll beat Olivia.
A Woman Under The Influence.
For the lip-sync, we get another repeat track: Mary Mary’s ‘Shackles (Praise You)’, used back in S1. And while Denali claims to have a whole lotta ass, she can’t quite break out Shannell’s shake-and-go cheeks from S1 in that gown.
Despite the outfit, it’s pretty neck-and-neck, but Denali sashays away — and displays a lot of grace in Untucked, too, which is surprising given her whole arc seemed like the show was trying to push her to breaking point. But she didn’t snap, and for that, I praise her.
RuPaul’s Drag Race S13 is available on Stan, with episodes dropping 3PM AEDT each Saturday, and UK episodes 8am AEDT Friday.
Jared Richards is Junkee’s Drag Race recapper and freelancer who has written for The Guardian, The Big Issue and more. He’s on Twitter.