by Chris Feil
Try to imagine these characters in a Disney princess movie!After lots of celeb gazing and underwhelming rhythms in the first two episodes, Season 3 of RuPaul’s Drag Race has finally found its sweet spot! This week’s episode was a return to form, hilarious and heartfelt while letting us get to know the queens. The queens were charged to create their own princess (sewing challenge!) and a quirky sidekick to tell her story. Get your fairytale life!
The results were delightful enough that we’ll forgive the continued lack of a mini-challenge - and did the Pit Crew get kidnapped this season??
Right out of the gate, Trinity Taylor is gunning for the win, throwing excess dust all over Valentina’s win last week in the process. Trinity has quickly emerged as the season’s bitch, though funnier and more lovable than we have seen from past season villains, in my perspective. How long will we be waiting until that potential rivalry with Eureka O’Hara to rise again, I wonder? Regardless, Trinity’s profile is rising in this lineup.
Speaking of Valentina...
if it weren’t for Cynthia Lee Fontaine’s Cucu-ery, she might be the episode’s reigning goofball. Between going full Norma Desmond over her shaved eyebrows to her outright hilarious and unexpected sidekick, it’s a relief to see a break from her mannered perfection. The fanbase is doing cartwheels over her, but more of this looseness is exactly what I needed to see from her to get on that level of love.
English 101
The episode went hard on painting Kimora Blac as a dolt. There’s always one unlucky dumb queen every season, but Kimora might take the cake for “What’s an adjective?” Mad libs are hard!
"What's a Cucu" 101:
But what’s the more dunderheaded move: a lack of grammar skills or a lack of sewing skills? Not being able to sew was a another mark against Kimora, but it was Farrah Moan that fell harder by taking the worst possible route. Not all queens fail with resorting to a glue gun (see: BenDeLaCreme’s winning Golden Girls look in season 6), just the ones that glue fabric to a bra and make a bikini coverup. I’ve found Farrah to be a lovable doofus is the first two episodes (a nice compliment to her fishy look), but this episode she was more whiny younger sibling.
Most crucially, the episode struck the balance between hilarity and heart by discussing the Pulse massacre. Trinity regularly had performed at the club and Cynthia was originally scheduled to perform on the very night of the shooting, ultimately losing a friend who had come to see her. It was an appropriately sober handling of the tragedy for Drag Race, the queens unflinching love and support of one another a reminder of the statement RuPaul made in the fallout: “Don’t fuck with my family”.
There’s a reason drag and RuPaul’s Drag Race are inching toward the mainstream. RuPaul says drag can never truly be mainstream because it’s always inherently subverting the status quo. However, drag is such a powerful art form to discuss our intersectionalities. People want to discuss that on a larger and expanding scale as our lives depend on it. Even if it’s just for a laugh or a moment of awe we’ve been denied. In Aja's words, 'drag is therapy".
On the runway, the princess looks were the focus but the floating head sidekicks mostly stole the show. You could argue that the funny sidekicks made more of an impression considering some more memorable Princess looks than the top three (Peppermint, Valentina, and Trinity) were only safe. But the bottom three was fully deserving: Farrah, Kimora, and Aja, who only hurt herself by not clearly defining her character on a look the judges outright hated.
Best Princess / Best Sidekick
Shea Couleé / Valentina - Shea is proving to be a runway assassin this season, no question. Valentina’s shady butterfly (I think?) sidekick however was a brilliant complement to her already princessy demeanor. Girl’s got jokes!
Best Pun
The judges were not a fanna your banana
-RuPaul to Kimora Blac
Results
Trinity is given the win for her cute sea princess reveal and redneck starfish, and the lipsync is between Kimora and Aja. You could argue that Farrah is a more deserving lipsyncer, but considering Kimora’s rampant botching of the lyrics, it hardly matters. At least we now know how much Aja does in fact want to compete after that high-kicking performance.
"Untucked"
Behind the scenes.
The List
Now that we’ve spent some real quality time with the queens and the show is finally kicking into gear, here are their updated rankings:
- 🔺 Shea Couleé
- Nina Bo'nina Brown
- Sasha Velour
- Eureka O'Hara
- 🔺 Valentina
- 🔺 Trinity Taylor
- Peppermint
- Alexis Michelle
- Charlie Hides
- Cynthia Lee Fontaine
- 🔻 Farrah Moan
- Aja
- Jaymes Mansfield OUT
- 🔻 Kimora Blac OUT
Gif as Episode Grade:
