Drag Race: "The Evil Twin Ball"
Wednesday, June 13, 2018 at 7:30AM by Nathaniel R
Asia and her evil twin North Korea
Oopsie. When Drag Race took a week off we took two weeks off of watching it. It's almost time for the new episode and we forgot to watch it last Thursday (!) so herewith very very quick notes on the 11th episode of the season in which the Queens were tasked with exposing their inner saboteur...
Conceptually the idea of the challenge was interesting but in practice it resulted in a lot of faux navel-gazing and a completely humorless episode. Even Eureka wasn't funny! And even the mini-challenge "resting brunch face" (teehee) in which the queens were tasked with 'dragging up' pancakes was off. Guest taste tester Cheyenne Jackson looked annoyed rather than giddy to be there. What was that about? All in all this was my least favorite episode of the season, and not just because the wrong queen won (shoulda been Asia) and the wrong queen went home (shoulda been Kameron)! But the judges are completely enamored by Aquaria (I'm still not) and were completely over Cracker's "self-producing" and sent her sashaying away.
Though only four queens remain, which was recently the number of queens competing in the finale, there are somehow three episodes left this season!
Rankings
I've been predicting Asia for the win for a long time and am still hoping she pulls it off (she's inconsistent but when she wows, she really wows) since I don't think it'll be Eureka. But the judges can't get enough of Aquaria. Shifts from last week indicated with arrows...
| PREDICTION | PREFERENCE |
 |
 |
| Subject to change as we get to know them | |
| 1. 🔺 Aquaria |
1. Eureka |
| 2. Asia O'Hara | 2. 🔻 Monét X Change OUT |
| 3. Eureka | 3. Monique Heart OUT |
| 4. Kameron Michael | 4. 🔺Asia O'Hara |
| 5.🔻 Miz Cracker OUT | 5. 🔻Miz Cracker OUT |
| 6. Monét X Change OUT | 6. Aquaria |
| 7. The Vixen OUT | 7. 🔻Kameron Michaels |
| 8. Monique Heart OUT | 8. Dusty Ray Bottoms OUT |
| 9. Blair St Clair OUT | 9. The Vixen OUT |
| 10. Mayhem Miller OUT | 10. Yuhua Hamasaki OUT |
| 11. Dusty Ray Bottoms OUT | 11. Blair St Clair OUT |
| 12. Yuhua Hamasaki OUT | 12. Mayhem Miller OUT |
| 13. Kalorie Karbdashian Williams OUT | 13. Vanessa Vanjie Mateo OUT |
| 14. Vanessa Vanjie Mateo OUT | 14. Kalorie Karbdashian Williams OUT |
Who do you think will and should win from the final four?
Reader Comments (17)
3 episodes: recap, season finale and reunion
Doesn't Kalorie Karbdashian Williams feel like an eternity ago?
Expectations are a bitch. Kameron's been rewarded for outperforming them; Cracker's been punished for falling short of them. In the end I think it's a draw. I'll defend all of Kameron's lip sync wins because she's a truly mesmerizing entertainer, visually. She just doesn't have the personality goods to back it up.
I probably would have sent Eureka home during their "double shantay" two weeks ago. And I would've made Aquaria lip sync against Monet or Kameron last week. I suspect Cracker would've gotten lost in the shuffle this week no matter what.
The critique of Aquaria's evil twin look was a bit much. One of the best outfits in the history of the show...ok?
Kameron, Aquaria, Asia > Eureka
I dug Aquaria's two outfits, and I agree with Ru that her evil look was the best that night. But for the challenge as a whole (cohesiveness of the outfits, storyline, humour) Asia was heads and shoulders above the rest.
Kinda sad such a strong season has devolved into something so underwhelming these past few weeks. The consecutive eliminations of Vixen, Monique and Monet robbed the season of its spark, especially when Monet should be in this top 4 over Kameron, who dancing skills aside, has long overstayed her welcome by now.
Still no clue why she wasn't sent home this week. The lip-sync was arguably super close, but in my mind Kameron relied on many of the tricks we've seen while Cracker's performance was more fun, inventive and entertaining. Even if you argue the queens were equal (I still think Cracker won), why keep the one that's been in the bottom 3 times?
I'd love to see Asia win, but I feel it will be Eureka or Aquaria.
The season was good overall, but I must agree that this episode was the worst.
I think this last few episodes were weaker than other seasons at this point. All the queens in the top 5 are great but there is something in the competition not pushing them to the best creative selfs.
I miss more comedy challenges (like the roasts and the perfume ads) and I think fashion is taking too much of emphasis on the critique, which is unfair specially when most of the looks are brought from home, so it becomes more like beauty pageant.
The good/evil challenge was such a fetch. We don't see much of their personal signature or brains, because the format was so contrived. Absolute hate the twins editing, so not real. Unrealness.
But i must say that I don't mind that Miz Cracker went home, for me Kameron lip sync was so much better.
SIDE NOTE: Apparently, in the list of fashion challenges sent to the queens before the shooting started in LA there was a Tribal themed runway that in the end didn't make it to the season.
But I hate that most of them recycled their tribal looks as the evil twin. Like really? SHAME!
Kameron and her hard ass boring splits should have gone home. It's her third lip sync and bitch should have got the common sense to go if all she did after winning a lip sync is whining that the other person should be there. #JusticeForCracker
Asia or Aquaria had better win now.
I've liked/rooted for Kameron in the past, often thinking she was under praised, and believed that Cracker should have been in the bottom more. However, Kameron really annoyed this week. You can’t have a defeatist/defensive attitude which basically says “I’d rather be home than pretending to feel guilty about sending someone else home” or “I should just leave because they hate me” and then fight so hard in the lip syncs. It just makes it all feel like petty mind-games and willful killjoy behavior (I’m not having fun/doing well so I will make sure no one else will). That’s not to say that I think Cracker should have stayed... because she needed distance from the competition to perform well.
Agree that losing Monique and Monét took the spark out of the season. Vixen’s Drag was always **just quite** there but not enough—hopefully she brings more polish when she returns. Cheyenne Jackson was painful to watch. They whole taste testing should have been scrapped because 1) he clearly wasn’t actually eating anything and 2) he never came up with a remotely witty thing to say. Weird.
I agree that Asia should have won this week. Only thing I didn’t like was that her name was North Korea. I sense that Ru did not want to hand her three wins especially after a so-so win (50 years in the future). She did the best this week but her track record does not seem to justify 3 wins, whereas Aquaria’s wins all demonstrated range (ball, snatch, self-awareness). That’s what gets tricky about cumulative shows. Individual challenge wins or losses are never about just a single performance.
I think there must be some weird dynamics going on with the judging panel this year that we aren’t seeing because the queens seem so in their heads about their critiques to the point of self-sabotage. I also agree that the “bring it from home” dynamic of the challenges is getting out of hand. The fact that it was Yuhua Hamasaki who made Cracker’s one praised look (Marie Antoinette good twin) pretty much says it all. The wrong queens have been going home because the messages they need to hear aren’t coming across clearly to them.
One of the final three episodes must be the reunion.
Asia deserves to win. Love her.
Asia stole Auquaria’s Breastworld win, plus this was a closer call than that, so all good.
nathaniel, you need to look deep within yourself and ask why your inner saboteur made you wait so long to watch....and then over-explain it in a tenuous exercise designed to sell the self-help book rupaul surely has in the pipeline
for a season that started so promisingly we ended up with a redux of disappointing season seven - aquaria/violet, eureka/ginger, asia/kennedy, kameron/pearl, katya/cracker, trixie/monet - the true stars went home before the top four
Had you told me after episode one that Aquaria was the only New York queen to make it to the final, I would have questioned your sanity.
That being said, I really have no clear favorite to win now with Cracker gone, and I'm not sure whether this is a good thing ot a bad thing. I have a gut feeling it will be Eureka (time for a big queen to win the crown, whereas a win for Aquarai would feel like Violet over Ginger all over again), but something in me (call it my inner saboteur) would be rather giddy if Kameron Michaels won the show by winning five lip syncs in a.row (and yeah, I know, this is not going to happen, because when she's not performing, she really lacks in the Charisma department of the Charisma/Uniqueness/Nerve/Talent requirement).
NOT Asia for the Crown please! She can wow us, okay, but when she falls, she falls hard! I agree that she could have won this episode, but her other two wins were a joke. Auqaria und Cracker should have won. For me Aquaria should win the crown. She was only one time buttom two worthy. Eureka has a great track record, but she is so annoying it hurts. But she should have went home against Kameron.
Still sad, that Monique and Blair gone for a while. And vixen was good for drama. Cracker should definitly fight for the Crown, she was robbed many times and should have had more wins under her belt. Now she holds the record for being sent home after her first lipsynch by being the farest in the competition. Miss Fame was it before at Nr. 6. It was not okay to send her Home against Kameron, which is buttom two three times in a row! ;-/
Hayden and AlexD summed up my feelings at this point of the season:
It seems clear that it's Aquaria vs Asia, with Eureka rounding up the top 3. Kameron feels like a weird cross between lipsync assassin and dead man walking.
Ru is aggressively fond of Aquaria. She has definitely turned it out when I thought she wouldn't (i.e. Snatch Game and Breastworld), but it's been clear that Ru LOVES her. I thought she was meh during the Cher challenge but recall Ru praising how she couldn't keep her eyes off her...I thought she was meh during this Evil Twins challenge (and that it was totally Asia's win), and yet we get Ru going on a glowing tangent about how Aquaria's animal print look was among the best ever on the show stage.
I'm not as wild about her as some are, but let's face it, the crown is basically hers. They're just prolonging the actual crowning by a few more episodes/weeks than necessary.
This specific challenge overall though - kind of strange.
Ru: "Tell us what you hate about yourself!"
Queens: "I hate X, X, and X about myself"
Ru to Cracker and Kameron: "OK well you didn't really hate yourself enough...like...you didn't hate yourself the way we were expecting you to."
Ru to Aquaria: "That mix of animal print though - stunning. Top five of all time. You're the winner of this week's challenge."
Asia is getting downright rude. Not just because she said Cracker wasn't a star. It's just that she's almost as a big a know-it-all as Aquaria.
That said, I think Asia probably should have won that challenge. Aquaria's dress was amazing, but not exactly "inner saboteur." The jaw bones were also really random. I would have given it the win in a fashion challenge, but Asia's "inner saboteur" killed the concept of the challenge.
Kameron's actual clothing was too simple, but her accessorizing was killer.
Eureka's twins were lazy, lazy, lazy. Can't believe that the judges didn't call her out on it.
Aquaria should win, though. She's a great "look queen" and is surprisingly adept at acting challenges. Nobody else has been nearly as consistent.
Also, one more thing: It's pretty obnoxious hearing Ru psychoanalyze the queens. Just because you've watched the queens over 10 episodes of filming does not mean you know their inner mechanics. Using their stat judgment of the queens' psyches to justify a boot seems particularly unfair.