‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ S14E6 Recap: Rigga-Jorgeous AKA The Jan-ification Of Daya

Kennedy Davenport said it best: “b-b-but she’s beautiful”. As Ru now likes to say of any racer around ~20 years old, Jorgeous is “born to be a drag queen”, and yes, she is one of the standouts of S14, but to win this week’s design challenge essentially for wearing a really nice wig? Rigga-Jorgeous.

I also don’t really care! Sure, Lady Camden was robbed, but Jorgeous needed that $5000 prize so she can hire a social media manager and stop Tweeting as a secretly 85 Year Old Woman Who Writes In Max Caps. (This whole cast is very fun on Twitter by the way, which is especially impressive given the site incentivises being annoying).

Did she deserve to win for sticking some cookie cutters to some fabric? No. Was it a nice redemption? Yes. Did it royally piss off the ‘continually safe’ Daya and make for great tv? Yes! I’m more annoyed when eliminated queen feels unjust than an unfair winner, and with Maddy going after putting some fabric on a blow-up sex doll, I can’t say I’m too upset. When Ru asks you if your pussy is fire, you don’t dare say “um it’s warming up”!

I Dreamt That Selena Gomez Went Home On A Sewing Challenge

This week’s maxi challenge sees the queens create looks from Michelle’s Amazon shopping surplus, contained in boxes that Willow Pill is unable to easily open because her fingers are struggling due to her cystinosis. It’s odd that the show doesn’t (seemingly) accommodate her with scissors, box cutters: just seems a little cruel to use her illness for plot/character depth and then film her struggling without assistance.

Daya and Willow both have ‘baby doll’ ideas for their looks, and Willow backs down after Daya essentially forbids her from doing something similar. I always admire more of a Bianca Del Rio “I’ll help anyone because they can’t beat me anyway” attitude. If you’re confident, let Willow do the same idea and see who comes out on top!

But Daya probably isn’t that confident. She’s cracking under the show’s pressure, which is possibly a tactic of itself: no-one’s going to compare you to Crystal Methyd when you’re replicating Jan’s S12 facecrack. Both comparisons are unfair, particularly to Crystal: yes, they have similarities, but they also started drag around the same time, meaning they probably share an aesthetic more than Daya ‘stealing’ it. Crystal also doesn’t think they look alike.

I literally look so pretty. This is so rude. pic.twitter.com/OngbNKtm5t

— Crystal Elizabeth Methyd (@CrystalMethyd) February 12, 2022

Daya’s mini-implosions this episode make sense, as she’s found herself stuck with a storyline she doesn’t agree with at all, and is realising she has to engage with it lest she be eliminated and forever remembered as a Crystal-copy. It’s great TV (clearly the show has decided breaking a queen per season works well) but I feel for her — still, an interesting choice to land on her cutesy, cartoonish outfit, rather than something more distinct.

Carson joins Ru in a werkroom walkthrough, which is a nice addition for this challenge. As a Carson apologist, it’s nice to see him give useful feedback. Lady Camden might put on a bigger lip, but it’s Jorgeous who gets the best advice of the week, which is essentially to scrap her idea completely as the fuzzy purple fabric she’s using isn’t quite working out.

Starting again from scratch halfway through a challenge is usually rewarded, and I guess while Jorgeous’ end look is a bit simplistic, it’s certainly worthy of a safe against some of these other looks.

Before we get to the runway, the queens discuss coming out to their parents. Kerri shares that her dad couldn’t bare to be in the same room as her when she was a kid because she was so effeminate (God), and Maddy says he’s told his dad about drag but not his mum, who has been pretty absent in his life.

It is oddly comforting to be reminded that straight men, too, have complicated relationships to their parents — perhaps this isn’t shocking to anyone else, but I cannot recall the last time I talked to a straight man about their family.

If You’re Not Watching Untucked, That’s Okay, It’s Kind Of What This Recap Is For

When it comes to the runway, the tops of the week are Lady Camden, Jorgeous and Angeria: I would swap out Jorgeous for Willow or Daya, but whatever.

Lady Camden is slowly coming into her own/getting more screen time, and while this week’s dress was a little ‘fairy at a child’s party’, she really embraced the materials of the challenge. I love when the queens cut up shit and turn it into other shit, which I believe is the official term. Maybe if Lady Camden incorporated that skincare she found in a box (the same skincare brand that sponsored the challenge??? Hmmm), she would have won.

On the safe end, we have Willow, Bosco, Daya and Kerri, who absolutely should have been in the bottom. Bosco is radiant in her blue tarp pants, even if these looks will always make me think of this Ikea dress by Sydney’s Amyl Clooney.

Bosco is killing it, even if she’s not getting a heap of love from the judges just yet. She’s also very funny on Twitter, and just came out as s14’s secret straight queen, AKA she’s announced she’s trans. I have one word to say with complete sincerity: slay!

Willow’s monstrous look is a perfect mix of ugly-yet-fashionable (her niche), but up close you can see it’s a little wonky, probably because she designed the dress part last minute. A justifiable safe!

I’d probably swap out DeJa’s bottom placement for Kerri, even if DeJa basically wrapped some sheets around herself and called it a day.

And then there’s Jasmine and Maddy, who got into a huge fight over absolutely nothing during Untucked.

Maddy makes an awkward comment about how he hopes Jasmine loses their lipsync, and Jasmine takes it as shadier than it’s intended to be and they end up screaming at each other. It’s Housewives-esque, and gives them both a lot of fire to work with for the lipsync to ‘Suga Mama’, a Beyoncé Bday cut. Jasmine is MAD, and while Maddy gives it a red hot go, she can’t compete, especially in that dress.

Could Maddy be the holder of the golden tick-

And as it is written, so shall it be. Next week, the queens overact in a Southern-style soap opera, which probably would have really been Maddy’s thing. Oh well!

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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