Drag Race RuCap: “Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve & Talent Monologues”

For a second there, it looked like Detox was back on the Drag Race stage.

NICK TAYLOR: As with last season’s top six challenge, we get a pairs main challenge which relies heavily on the queen’s ingenuity to spin gold from straw. Comparing this episode to "Bathroom Hunties" immediately makes me grateful for how much "Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve & Talent Monologues" allows the queens shake their shit without a safety net rather than making them literally sell something. The interpretive dance/monologue combo is still a very strange prompt, but as the best duet showed, it’s a fun platform for the queen’s creativity, trust, and improvisational skills to shine through. That’s a very generous spin on a challenge the queens and the audience absolutely should not have sat through, but even so, we got a very deserving winner and one of season 17’s stronger lip syncs. But then the lip sync winner was eliminated, and that’s not fun. How about you, did you have a good time this week? 

CLÁUDIO ALVES: Mama, this is garbage…

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Drag Race RuCap: “Ross Matthews vs The Ducks”

Jewels wasn't the only one yawning through this acting challenge.

CLÁUDIO ALVES: After last week’s shitshow of an episode, the follow-up would necessarily feel like something of a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong - it’s a fine hour of reality TV, but not especially exciting in terms of drama, nor spectacular as far as the queen’s performances are concerned. It culminated in some dubious judging and a tragic elimination, fair as it might have been. Oh well, not every episode can be a winner. Overall, I’m still liking this season, in no small part, because of the contestants. It’s been a while since we had such dynamic characters on Drag Race, messy and rough around the edges, not untalented but generally unpolished. Well, most of them. If you call Samantha Star unpolished, she might just kill you.

NICK TAYLOR: It’s a genuinely great cast, and you can tell because they bring real personal stakes to such a mediocre acting challenge. And the elimination order is still surprising enough I don’t feel totally comfortable predicting a top four. We haven’t had a shocker of a frontrunner going home like Plasma last year, but neither has anyone been as generously over-protected despite some patent limitations as Q was. No one feels like they’ve snuck through the competition to make it this far, and give or take some bold judging, the track records for our seven queens (now six) feel fair to me...

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Drag Race RuCap: “Villains Roast”

Villains look good in red, don't you think?

NICK TAYLOR: What a maddening episode of television this was. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun with the Villains Roast. This cast continues to surprise me, for better and worse, and season 17 continues to give us sheer entertainment at a delicious pace. But the cast’s harkening to the shady charisma of OG Drag Race has now manifested some of the most unprompted fits of delusional sabotage we’ve seen in years. Arrietty and Lexi spin out hard over absolutely nothing, falling victim to their inner saboteurs at the earliest possible second, and tearing down Jewels with a petty nastiness that kept bringing me back to Phi Phi O’Hara. They overwhelm the underdog victories of Lana and Lydia, who finally and deservedly get their first stellar critiques of the season. It’s sour enough that I’m really reconsidering Lexi’s long-assumed placement in the final four. How do you feel?

CLÁUDIO ALVES: Oh honey, I have OPINIONS on these bitches…

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RuPaul’s Drag Race: “Heavens to Betsey!”

CLÁUDIO ALVES: Another week, another stellar episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 17. I’m really enjoying the show this year, even though I probably preferred the overall cast performance of seasons 15 and 16. Not sure if it’s a triumph of production or editing or the queens, mediocre though some of their work may be at times. It helps that they have great chemistry and a tendency for mess that’s more akin to the series’ origins than its later years. That said, “Heavens to Betsey!” featured a high level of craft from our contenders, with only two queens flopping. Moreover, the challenge was a delight, made even better by this week’s extra special guest judge, fashion designer Betsey Johnson. She was sweet and inspiring, she got emotional and did the splits as she always does. What’s not to love?

NICK TAYLOR: The sheer quality of the guest judges has been lovely this season. It’s not an essential component, but you can feel the lack of it when it’s missing...

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Almost There: Daniel Craig in "Queer"

by Cláudio Alves

Apart from Call Me By Your Name, awards voters rarely see anything worth celebrating in Luca Guadagnino's cinema. In some ways, this season seemed to be a change of pace on that front, with Challengers and Queer going into Oscar nomination morning with some hopes. Sadly, they both got blanked. And while the tennis melodrama was mostly vying for "below the line" honors, Queer had its sight set on a Best Actor nomination, the first piece of Academy Award recognition for the erstwhile Bond, Daniel Craig. Ultimately, the William S. Burroughs adaptation was probably too weird for AMPAS' tastes, but we're here to recognize a performance that's nothing if not Oscar-worthy…

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