Posted in: MTV, Review, TV | Tagged: drag race, rupaul

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 17 Ep. 4 Review: Where Was The Singing?

A look at what went down during RuPaul's Drag Race Season 17 Episode 4: "Bitch, I'm a Drag Queen!" - like, where was all of the singing?

RuPaul's Drag Race is finally getting moving after sending the first queen home on last week's ball challenge. The twist, of course, being the "badonka dunk" which consists of 10 levers, two of which save the eliminated queen and keep them alive in the competition. The maxi-challenge is a "singing challenge" though I can't really call it that with what was shown and how it was judged. The official synopsis: "The queens are tasked with singing songs based on iconic rants and legendary moments from Drag Race herstory." What we saw was the queens directing their own musical segments to make a commercial for "Now That's What I Call Drag Race" albums. The songs seemed pre-recorded and we saw zero of the musical process in favor of the directing and filming portions. If you wanted to make it a directing and lip-sync challenge, just say so; that's fine, but pretending it's about singing on the runway while showing zero percent of that feels cheap.

This week's runway was "quilted, for her pleasure," and the looks ranged from "yikes" to "just alright." Nobody did anything groundbreaking or particularly gaggy, and on the heels of a challenge that was just alright, this episode felt pretty filler.

The top queens this week were:

Onya Nerve – Black excellence, party of one? The look is good, especially as an African interpretation of quilt, though again, it doesn't really read as pieced-together fabric owing to the fact it's so scaled down pattern-wise. The quilt, in order for it to really read from the runway, should be a larger, bigger pattern. Her sash looks like a print of different nautical flags on a cruise ship Jamaican night, but I digress. She did win the week between that runway and her lounge singer jazz number, which was good, but personally I think the judges are voting more on personality showing through, but that doesn't mean the win was undeserved this week.

Crystal Envy – Miss Envy's look this week went with a look that used a quilted fabric (i.e. many layers of fabric that are stitched together, like the puffer coats) instead of a pieced-together blanket type situation, and it's sickening, but it reads "comforter couture" more like Utica's sleeping bag look instead of quilt, which is the runway theme interpretation.

Suzie Toot – Performance 10, runway 2. It does not read quilt, and it's just a sort of generic design, though I, like Michelle, do appreciate how she's not tied to the vintage-style makeup and look week after week. Her performance in the challenge was very Willow Pill/Joan Jett coded and I'm here for the versatility, mama.

Bottom queens:

Arrietty – Her look did not say "quilt" at all, the pattern was reminiscent of a quilt pattern, but needed to be bigger to read. As for her performance, I'm not sure why the judges put her in the bottom, likely just because they needed someone to rank low as it was pretty clear who the bottom two this week were. She did a duet with Jewels Sparkles, and the judges ranked her low on account of Jewels "outshining her," despite Jewels only being safe this week and not a top. Their number was cute, but for a "singing challenge" where we didn't see anything musical aside from filming mini-music video montages, it felt like the bar was set somewhere and then promptly ignored.

Kori King – Her performance felt forced and it was confusing and did not read, though she tried and it was moderately funny, for no other reason than the sheer slapstick of her acting like some kind of a weird chicken. Her look at least read quilt, though there are some proportion issues styling wise that we need to see improvement on, or Michelle will be reading her for it again next week.

Joella – For starters, she shouldn't be here – yes, I am still bitter Ru sent home Lucky Starzzz last week and subjected us to another lackluster, unoriginal queen for another week – but personality aside, this absolute piece of trash runway was enough to cement it, and I'm glad she was sent home with no dunk tank production trickery to save her. She came out wearing a giant mattress with a tiny face hole cut out of it, and the reveal was a giant portrait of RuPaul on the back of it. No taking anything off, no showing body or anything – just a giant blanket and a sycophantic plea for RuPaul to like her. Goodbye Miss "being a Katy Perry superfan is my only discernible personality trait" Joella.

Other queens of note this week:

Sam Star's runway seems like something we've seen at first (hello Courtney Act, you want your look back?) but the more we see of it, the more unique to her it feels. Nothing ground breaking, but executed in a way that feels like a remix as opposed to a repeat.

Hormona Lisa, Acacia Forgot, and Lydia "Butthole" Kollins all went with a literal interpretation of the runway and look like they raided an Amish market on the way to the church potluck on Easter, which is a choice. Not one of the judges (or many people) appreciated it, but they did make choices and were all safe.

Next week's challenge is the return of the "SNL-style" RDR Live, which will most likely continue the lackluster challenge streak. Can we please get back to challenges with a point and the drama that ensues from them?

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

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