Posted in: TV | Tagged: drag race, rupaul

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 17 Ep. 11 Review: XOXO, Truman Capote

RuPaul's Drag Race featured another acting challenge for the queens, this one based on the Ryan Murphy series with a Truman Capote theme.

MTV's RuPaul's Drag Race Season 17 has finally gotten good (it only took half the season), and this week's scripted acting challenge is nothing short of a delight to watch. Top tier "Drag Race" episode, for sure, at least so far in this season. It carries the same energy as the Rusical, which is impressive for an acting challenge. The queens are tasked with starring in a "high camp tale of betrayal" based on Truman Capote and his Swans, called "Ross Mathews vs The Ducks."

Who the f*** is Truman Capote, anyway? Basically, he was like the 1960s gossip girl. He befriended all these hot, rich socialites and then published all their tea, except he used his own name. His besties, aka the swans, all turned on him, and nobody trusted him again, which tanked his literary career. So much for one of the weird uncles of modern journalism—Hunter S. Thompson, eat your heart out.

But I digress. The queens this week were clearly given a primer on the first Perez Hilton and turned it out. Well, for the most part. The socialite "swan-types," aka The Ducks, are all modeled after reality divas, like Tiffany "New York" Pollard and Lisa Vanderpump.

Cheyanne Jackson from AHS is here directing the challenge this week, and boy, is he dreamy. Will he distract the queens? Will Ross Mathews make out with him? Will RuPaul? Time will tell! It's me, I'm time. Sadly, no making out, but Cheyanne and Ross do run off together in the end in search of the "back door." Spoiler alert!

The runway for the week called for black and white ballgowns, following the Truman Capote theme. Here's the tea on how everyone did:

Lydia B Kollins did not eat that challenge. She basically starved the challenge, or whatever the opposite of eating is. Sadly a flop and her runway just looked confusing, but it was very Butthole. Long things on the arms, mismatch of black and white patterns and fur and fox tails, it was a lot. A very expected bottom two placement for her this week.

Sam Star can do no wrong in my eyes. Okay, that's not true, but I love her and absolutely root for her even when it's not her week, but this was not that week. She did amazing, as usual, and her runway was PERFECT. I mean, black-and-white Venetian Jester ballgown? GAG. And I don't think we've seen that on Drag Race before, at least not like this.

Onya Nerve can do no wrong in the eyes of the judges, and her edit is basically the "Sasha Colby good at everything" edit, which generally spells a win. But she is smashing this Drag Race season for the most part… except for this week's runway. It was alright but was easily overshadowed by other looks this week. Regardless though, she did win the week.

Lana Ja'Rae keeps skating through, though she arguably did not deserve her bottom-two placement this week. She partnered with Onya for her scene, and it really helped her pull some decent acting out of her. Her runway was nice; she did a better job than Lexi, whose runway was mildly atrocious.

Lexi Love should fade into the background, but production is TRYING with the edit to get us to like her. It's not going to happen. Sorry about that. Her looks are basically all the same, and every single week, it's the same storyline. Plus, now her weird one-sided beef with Suzie Toot? Hard pass, along with the judges refusing to say anything constructive or negative about her performance or runways.

Suzie Toot has gotten the "Jinkx Monsoon edit" even though she is a different queen. It's the "I'm well-rounded and know it, and the girls kind of hate me for it, but I'm not a villain" edit, which can be off-putting, but with Suzie, it's come back around to endearing. Her vintage runways I absolutely live for, and this week is no exception. The only fault of the week here is her borrowing a wig from Onya and having the luscious chocolate-colored lace all across her very pale forehead.

Jewels Sparkles is just alright – I mean, she's fumbling the challenges to varying degrees but pulling out the runways. She just feels generic, and it's gotten old about three episodes ago, no matter how adorable she is. Her runway absolutely saved her from the bottom two this week, though I'm not sure it was that good of a runway.

The lip sync this week was "Unholy" by guest judge Sam Smith, and with a song like that, there is zero excuse for not absolutely eating it up. But in the "Drag Race" gag of the century, Miss Lydia had the lip sync almost in the bag but then sabotaged herself about halfway through by pulling out scissors and proceeding to cut off the bottom of her dress, get stuck in it, fall, and finish her lip sync looking like a beached mermaid caught in a fishing net while trying to get her heel dislodged from all the cut up fabric she was stuck in. Girl, that was a mess. Clearly, she didn't stand a chance after that, and Lana won (she did alright, but until the scissoring, it wasn't clear she was winning this).

Next week's challenge looks to be some kind of monologue writing/performance-based challenge, ala The Vagina Monologues, so we'll see how that goes. I'm still salty about the lack of a girl group challenge this season, which we're not likely to get since the makeover challenge is still to come after this; then, we're on to finale activities.

RuPaul's Drag Race season 17 airs on MTV on Friday nights.

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