‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ S14E5 Recap: Home Is Where The Head Is

Drag might not be a contact sport, but it comes with its risks: Kornbread is the third queen to leave Drag Race prematurely because of an on-set injury.

And, while it pains me to say it, her absence this episode let the whole cast of S14 shine more, no longer under the shadow of such a clear star. With several previously overlooked queens stepping up to fill Kornbread’s previously more or less assured spot in that top four, Drag Race actually feels like a race now.

This week, Bosco, Lady Camden and Daya all showed they’re gunning for the crown, giving Kerri, Angeria and Willow a nice little reminder that they’re not just competing in a three-horse race.

While the ‘branding’ challenges often encapsulate almost everything frustrating about Drag Race (namely: arbitrary eliminations, and a conflation of commodifying yourself with artistic success), this week sidesteps that. Instead of having the queens market themselves, they work in groups to rebran three first-out queens with a charitable ‘Save A Queen’ video That’s two interesting, fresh maxi challenges in a row!

And while Kornbread’s premature exit is sad, it also helped clean out the sheer number of queens: 14 is a lot of personalities to start with, and now we’ve dropped from 12 to 10 in a week. Compare it to UK vs. The World, which started this week (as did my recaps) and has only 9 queens competing. God bless the BBC’s under-funding & RuPaul’s ceaseless filming schedule, which allowed for just a 6 episode series. Let’s keep this pace going!

Just As An Aside, The Amount Of Injured Queens Is Starting To Not Look… Great

The real villain of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 14 pic.twitter.com/ocTJLVYSQK

— Joey Nolfi (@joeynolfi) February 5, 2022

Kornbread gets to say goodbye to the S14 cast via a pre-recorded message from her hotel room, after rolling her ankle during last week’s challenge (which she didn’t realise until after filming, which means she shot a whole day on her feet! ah!). There’s a sweet send-off to her new ‘frenemy’ Jasmine, and BFFLs Kerri & Willow, who were both pretty emotional about her leaving.

We’ve seen how Willow opened up to Kornbread about how her illness affects her during the competition and not having that emotional rock could really throw her off, but a later werkroom chat around her cystinosis suggests she’s being a bit more open with the other queens.

The race stops for no one queen, even a front-runner, and we’re off to a delightfully dumb mini-challenge where the queens pop balloons by thrusting into pit crew members. It alternates between steamy (Bruno bouncing back onto that balloon????) & completely sexless, as with Maddy (bless) and Jorgeous, who doesn’t have the weight, height or experience to thrust successfully.

Out of this, three teams are made, paired up with S7’s Tempest DuJour, S9’s Jaymes Mansfield and S13’s Kahmora Hall, who are all here to crush every single moment of camera time they have. (If this ep tested the waters for an ‘early outs’ season, I think it showed they all have so much more to give.)

Tempest gets Kerri, Jorgeous, Angeria & DeJa; Jaymes has Maddy, Willow, Orion & Jasmine; and Kahmora gets Daya, Lady and Bosco, who are the standout group/have no low-energy queens bringing them down.

The challenge itself is a little simplistic: the queens have to storyboard their scenes, sure, but they’re writing all their dialogue to a rhyming scheme. Every queen gets around 6 lines each, and just have to write and perform a funny punchline or two in that. It’s evidently harder than it seems, though as Orion, Jorgeous & Jasmine all struggle to add personality onto their lines, and most of the others beyond Kahmora’s group are perfectly fine. I liked this challenge in that it was fun to watch, but there wasn’t really a lot to judge them on.

When it comes to the actual end package, there are a few good lines but nothing made me laugh quite as much as Jorgeous trying to thrust into a man four times his size. I’m a man of simple wants.

Of the teams, Bosco & Maddy both really lead their groups with great ideas and direction, with Bosco barely letting Michelle butt in with any misdirections. Most of the best parts came from Tempest, Kahmora & Jaymes directly, like Tempest throwing darts at Kandy Ho’s face seven years after Kandy called her old and sent her home.

Of the groups, the best is Kahmora’s trio: Bosco, Daya & Lady, maybe because all three haven’t had their real breakthrough moments yet. Later, Bosco & Lady wind up in the top alongside Angeria, leaving Daya frustrated (‘but not crying, like Jasmine’) in Untucked that she was merely safe. Not sure if it’s the producers planting the seeds in their heads, but there are a lot of queens having mini tantrums that they don’t have a win after 4 episodes. Chill out!

Spring? For A Runway Theme? Groundbreaking.

After RuPaul makes it very clear he has no idea who guest judge Ava Max is (may I suggest Ru become a Wholigan?), the queens pay homage to Midsommar. Willow comes as Dani’s family home, a site of death and horror.

Bosco goes a two-in-one reveal from stormcloud to sunny, which, naturally, reflects the journey Dani thinks she’s taking to sunny Sweden, though it turns out the days are worse than the nights.

Maddy has a similar idea — the festival’s warmth can’t obscure Dani’s internal clouds — but also wanted to pay homage to Orville Peck.

Angeria made the film’s flower dress, but didn’t finish it before filming; Kerri, in an attempt to show ‘ugliness’, went for an ‘LSD flowers’ moment which doesn’t quite work for me for some reason.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but Lady arrives to ‘spill the T’ to Dani: your boyfriend’s gaslighting you, babe! (I’m now beginning to think Midsommar wasnt the best film to run with here, but we’re this far now!)

Jasmine had a Poison Ivy costume and thought it was close enough; Daya shows the darkness underneath the idyllic ‘butterflies and endless fields’ scenes that greet Dani and co. at the film’s beginning.

DeJa and Orion both seem to remember a bunny featuring in the film, but it did not. DeJa is another queen very in her feelings during Untucked, serving ‘shade’ that’s a little too barbed to come off as a joke. If she or Daya don’t win soon, we might see a mini-meltdown (good TV, but I feel bad they feel the pressure so much).

Jorgeous is too pretty to watch movies, duh.

The runway really belongs to the returning queens though: Tempest runs with a fun Sunset Boulevard nod, Jaymes is ever the bizarre Barbie, and Kahmora comes out in a stunning olive 2001 Mackey original.

The tops this week are Bosco, Lady & Angeria. A little rude to nominate Daya’s two teammates and not her, but not invalid: I get why she was pissed off in Untucked. The bottom was clear — Jorgeous and Orion lipsyncing, with Jasmine narrowly safe. (Orion is just… high this whole show, right?)

The lip-sync is to one of Ava Max’s many songs that interpolates a better song, and it is an absolute merciless killing of Orion. Jorgeous owns every second on stage, and there’s simply no way any queen could have beaten her: it was like Denali vs. Kahmora, except even more brutal. Before she goes for the second time, Orion gets to open a chocolate bar while dressed as a bunny and look sad.

Next week, the queens are sewing together looks from random items Michelle bought online. I really hope Jorgeous can make something a little better than her ball dress; I don’t want her to go, but she’s really been in her head the last few weeks.

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RuPaul’s Drag Race S14 is available to stream in Australia on Stan, with episodes dropped each Saturday 3pm AEDT. 

Jared Richards is Junkee‘s Drag Race recapper, and a freelancer who writes for NME, The Big Issue, The Guardian and more. He’s across the internet as @jrdjms