“You are all stars,” Penny Tration has scrawled on the mirror in lipstick before making her final departure. Serena wipes the words away and tells us that she stumbled last week, and that’s okay. It’s clear that most of the dolls had hoped Penny would stay and Serena would go. “I’m just gonna smack her like a fly over a cow patty,” Jade says of Serena. The Season 5 villain has been cast, and her name is Serena ChaCha. Alliances are also being formed, namely: Ro-Laska-Tox. “It’s a new prescription drug for people who are gagging,” Detox tells us. Join me after the jump for my full recap and a look at this week’s Drag Race Index.
You’ve Got Shemail & Mini Challenge
“The queen who doesn’t know her herstory is destined to repeat it,” Telvision Ru tells them.
Man Ru enters the workroom and explains that they have to put their money where their mouths are. They have to lip sync RuPaul songs with their mouths peeking through RuPaul carnival cutouts. It’s part sideshow, part gloryhole. They compete in groups. Serena, Detox and Ivy Winters each win in their respective groups. This is of course all preparation for the…
Main Challenge
The three Mini Challenge winners are team captains for the Main Challenge, a Lip Sync Extravaganza. They’ll be recreating moments from Drag Race herstory in their own viral videos. The teams are:
Serena ChaCha, Roxxxy Andrews, Alyssa Edwards, Jinkx Monsoon, Jade Jolie
Detox, Alaska, Monica Beverly Hillz, Coco Montrese
Ivy Winters, Lineaysha Sparx, Vivienne Pinay, Honey Mahogany
They receive envelopes informing them of what scene from a previous season of Untucked they will be performing. Predictably, Jade is unhappy about working with Serena.
Detox’s group is playing in a scene from last season, and Alaska has decided to be Pheecees O’Hara. “Does anyone have any orange paint?” she yells across the workroom. This should be good. Ru asks the group what the biggest challenge is. “Honestly, just listening to Phi Phi’s voice over and over,” Detox tells her.
Serena’s group is doing a Season 3 scene with Raja, Delta, etc. Although Jade didn’t choose to be Delta, when Ru asks for them to show her some lip syncing so she can see where they’re at, Jade is clearly already well into the character of Delta and knows her lines very well. Serena, on the other hand, sucks.
Ivy’s group is doing Season 2 Untucked, and Lineaysha seems to be struggling. Ye Olde Language Barrier Problem™ rears its head.
We watch Serena’s group go first, and Jinkx finds herself very frustrated by a group that will not allow her a moment to regroup between takes. In their second scene, Jade and Serena must perform a conversation between Delta and Raja. We don’t get to see any of Jade’s work (I suspect because it was very good), but we do see Serena do a strange performance of Raja, in addition to listening to her pontificate about drag as performance art.
Next up is Ivy Winters’ group. The first scene is the showdown between Morgan and Mystique, played by Ivy and Honey. Lineaysha strangely tries to insert herself into the scene by headbanging or something. The second scene is Vivienne and Lineaysha playing Tatiana and Tyra. It seems to go well from what we’re shown.
Finally we have Detox’s group. The first scene is a fight between Sharon and Phi Phi, played by Detox and Alaska. The second scene is the fight between Jiggly and LaShauwn, played by Monica and Coco. Coco is really fucking good, but Monica seems to be off her game a little.
As the queens prepare to go on the main stage, Monica is upset, and makes reference to a big secret.
Main Stage
The judge are: RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Santino Rice, Kristen Johnston, Juliette Lewis.
Ru says the queens are “dressed to impress.” We’ll see about that.
Lineaysha Sparx: Her bathing suit look is good, but her makeup doesn’t look as good to me this week.
Honey Mahogany: Hair and makeup improvement, but the tits look weird on this outfit.
Ivy Winters: Full on circus queen. I love it. Butterfly goddess realness. Yes.
Vivienne Pinay: Cute dress, but once again I find her forgettable.
Alyssa Edwards: Black sparkly hay hay. I’m sort of on the fence about the look overall, but she’s well enough put together that she should be safe at the very least.
Serena ChaCha: She looks like she should be in a parade. The panties are like whut?
Jade Jolie: Circus ringleader realness. This look is hot shit. Where was this last week? More of this, Jade. Less of the rainbow vomit from last week.
Roxxxy Andrews: Fringe. So much fringe. It looks like someone put a bunch of gold leaf through a paper shredder, and then she rolled around in it. I don’t like the exposed tits. Just no.
Jinkx Monsoon: Futuristic glam. I like it. She’s well put together.
Monica Beverly Hillz: Dominatrix realness. She looks good.
Alaska: We seem to be getting a slew of dark and lovely looks towards the end here, and this one is maybe less memorable than the others, but not necessarily bad.
Coco Montrese: Full on metal and leather look. She says she’s into the fetish look. Well, you are working it, mama. Very nice.
Detox: Love the black feathery gown. Very nice look.
Finally we get to see the queens’ viral videos. Lineaysha actually did really well in her scene. Ye Olde Language Barrier Problem™ was a red herring! Across the board, the queens all did well with the challenge, with a couple weak links (Serena and Monica). Ivy Winters’ team wins, and Lineaysha takes the win!
It turns out that Monica’s secret is that she is actually a transgendered woman. I’m glad she unburdened herself so that she can now focus on competing because she struggled this week.
Lip Sync for your Life
Serena and Monica are up for elimination. They must lip sync “Only Girl (in the World)” if they hope to stay in the competition.
Serena overdoes it and seems a bit too eager. Monica is really feeling it and serving it up.
Shantay, Monica stays.
Serena sashays away. Thank fucking god. She was truly awful. I was so worried she would stay around strictly for the drama, but she just couldn’t hack it. See ya, betch.
C.U.N.T. and C U Next Tuesday
Charisma this week goes to Lineaysha Sparx who is proving herself to be the Total Package.
Uniqueness goes to Ivy Winters who stood out — in the best possible way — on the main stage. Maybe she didn’t win, but she will stay on the judges’ minds because of her unique approach.
Nerve goes to Monica Beverly Hillz for all the obvious reasons. Stay strong, gworl. There’s a lot of competition before you, and you need your head in the game.
Talent also goes to Ivy Winters. Whether she’s a natural team leader or it was just luck we can’t say for sure yet, but she led her team to victory, and her circus look on the main stage was very impressive.
Serena ChaCha gets to be our designated C U Next Tuesday one last time as she sashays out the door.
Drag Race Index
Click to enlarge! This week, chickens, you’ll see that Miss Coco Montrese has moved to the head of the pack. Her LaShauwn Beyond lip sync was amahhhhzing — on par with Lineaysha’s Tyra if not better — and her main stage look was the best of the group in my opinion. Lineaysha remains a fierce competitor as do Ivy and Detox. Jade redeemed herself after last week’s NBC peacock mishap.
Although Monica did very well lip syncing for her life, she is still an unknown quantity when it comes to performing in a main challenge so she’s going to have to stay at the bottom of the pack for the moment. Hopefully now that the pussycat’s out of the bag, she can give the challenges her full attention. Vivienne remains pretty but forgettable, and I didn’t think she was anything to change my mind about that in the main challenge.
The rest become a sort of middle-of-the-pack jumble to me. I actually think this group of queens is fairly well matched. Yes there are some clear front runners and bottom feeders, but the space separating them is not as pronounced as it has been in past seasons.
Until next week, kittens! Hit the comments to give us your take on this week’s episode and any Untucked moments you want to dish about. Is Jade really a gossipy backstabber? I hope not. I was starting to rilly like her.
