Drag Race RuCap: “Booked & Blessed”

Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are watching and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen. This week, it’s time for episode fourteen…

Ronan Farrow has that All Stars glow-up.

CLÁUDIO: Just when we were starting to think the season had turned into a two-way race for the crown between Sapphira and Plane, here comes a new episode to shake things up. After years of top fours and a one-time fiver, RuPaul’s Drag Race has returned to a triadic finale, using this fourteenth chapter to boot its fourth-placer, fragilize one of the frontrunners’ bid, and bolster another contender’s narrative. A well-produced piece of television, this game-changer hour felt like a gift to Nymphia Wind fans everywhere, making it look like she might stand a chance after all. Considering her strange edit, I’m skeptical, but this episode gave me some much-needed hope. Were you similarly enthused, or is this season’s sagging energy getting to you?

NICK: The sagging energy is definitely getting to me. As much as I’ve been eager for this particular queen to get the boot, and as rewarding as this challenge was, I wouldn’t have minded a top four for the sake of wrapping it all up a little sooner...

Click to read more ...

Drag Race RuCap: “Drag Race Vegas LIVE! Makeovers”

Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are watching and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen. This week, it’s time for episode thirteen…

Like last week, thank heaven for the hunks.

CLÁUDIO: Like many a makeover challenge over the series’ herstory, the latest season 16 episode is rather lovely up until the judges deliver their critiques. After that, it’s the usual shit-show of inconsistent rulings and baffling decisions, a nonsense cocktail that sours everything that came before and leaves a bad taste in the mouth going forward. As if inverting its predecessor’s trajectory, this season seems intent on decreasing in quality as it reaches its final stretch, each episode a bit more disappointing than the one it follows. At least we have hot men to ogle, eye candy from start to finish, with a spoonful of potential fetish content to make things sweeter. That is the one saving grace of these past few chapters. 

NICK: I’m very sad that my French Vanilla Love Dion fantasy was shot down this episode. Don’t look at me, I’m distraught . . . .

Click to read more ...

Drag Race RuCap: “Bathroom Hunties”

Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are watching and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen. This week, it’s time for episode twelve…

This Pit Crew hunk was the episode's real winner.

CLÁUDIO: After last week’s mirthless drag of an episode, there was nowhere to go but up. And surely, “Bathroom Hunties” is better than “Corporate Queens,” though that improvement has little to do with the producers whose challenge ideas are increasingly preposterous. This was a naked recycling of the Night Club to Hotel concept of All Stars 4 and 5, but why they would want to do a reprise of those messes is anybody’s guess. Thankfully, the queens are here to make this hour entertaining even if it kills them, powering through a poor premise and even poorer judging to deliver a fun bit of television. But do you know who’s also doing a good job of salvaging Drag Race Season 16? The Pit Crew, of course. Those hunks were hunking this week, their bulges bulging like never before. Thank heavens for that. 

NICK: We haven’t been sexualizing men enough this season, and I’m glad to see the show really lean on the Pit Crew as props again. Lord knows we needed some unapologetic hunkiness. And from head to toe, tip to base, top to bottom, we got that. One of the few truly uncomplicated pleasures of the episode . . . .

Click to read more ...

Drag Race RuCap: “Corporate Queens”

Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are following and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen. This week, it’s time for episode eleven…

But are you, Q? Are you really?

CLÁUDIO: It gives me no pleasure to say it, but there’s no denying what’s so self-evident - this was the season’s worst episode so far. “Corporate Queens” is already a dicey proposition based on its maxi-challenge format, which tries to recapture some of that Drag Con magic from season 10 while also declaring itself the season’s stand-up show. Make up your mind! Add to that a bevy of mediocre performances and nonsensical judging left and right. To make things worse, the behind-the-scenes team has explicitly forced the edit around one queen’s story, only to pull the rug from under her at the eleventh hour. While it provides a strong candidate for face crack of the century, it’s also a good way to sour the viewer’s experience. The lipsync was good, I guess. Still, a flop.

NICK: Mama, kudos for saying that. For spilling . . . .

Click to read more ...

Drag Race RuCap: “Werq the World”

Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are following and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen. This week, it’s time for episode ten…

Sapphira is our Lisan al Gaib. All others are false prophets.

CLÁUDIO: It’s been quite the week to grumble about robbed queens, but enough about the Oscars. In RuPaul’s Prison Experiment, there were no such robberies. Indeed, there isn’t even an elimination to discuss since Mother Reverend Charles blessed us with a non-elimination episode. I’m not sure how I feel about that last bit, but I can’t help but cheer as Sapphira cements her claim on the crown. As we’ve discussed off-record, this chapter feels like the moment when a winner comes into their own, the place where, in retrospect, the narrative solidified and their Golden Path came to be. God Empress Cristál has risen, while both the Banana Queen and the bitchy aircraft fumble - false Kwisatz Haderachs, the two of them. Now, will you indulge my Oscar/Dune nonsense, or is it time to get serious? 

NICK: Listen, I’m used to just nodding along while people say things I can barely grasp in context, so go off diva...

Click to read more ...