RuPauls Drag Race
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There have been discussions of social-media queens versus performers.
Sasha has been held up as the platonic ideal of a queen.
Marcia x3 has been all but held down and physically forced to apply more makeup.
Season 15 is aboutdrag.
Then smack in the middle of all that, is Loosey LaDuca.
At the start of the season, I assumed that the Charlie Brown would be Marcia x3.
(For Jan, it was her one-note peppiness; Marcias was … well, you know.)
Instead, Marcia has revealed herself to be pretty chill.
A musical-theater performer, shes used to taking notes.
In a room ofdrag queens?
Because you wonSnatch Game?
Drag delusion, girl.
And heres the thing: Its great TV.
Ill get to Looseys big loss later on, but the truth is that this is a television program.
Loosey is clearly an incredibly competitive queen.
I hope she is in eight-to-12 more seasons.
This weeks challenge seems like a Loosey slam dunk from the start.
In the shows rotation, the interview challenge hasnt come up a lot despite normally yielding great results.
(That was also the episode when Jade Sotomayor almost darkened her skin to appear more like Oprah.
Season one was weird).
The implicit challenge this week, however, lies in the interviewees.
Love Connie, Charo, and Frankie Grande are allDrag Racestaples, yes, but theyre also big personalities.
This challenge benefits a queen who can roll with the punches and meet the guests on their level.
They have to be clean representatives of the show, both quick-witted and adaptable.
The interviews take up the lions share of the episode, but Im not mad at that.
We start the segment with Salina, who is not good.
Its honestly a little eerie.
Having fun is exactly how Luxx succeeds.
Hey, Connie girl!
is how she enters, and she keeps up that energy through their golf-cart interview.
When Connie asks, Do you have any more questions for me before we die?
while flooring the gas, Luxx quickly responds, Whats your favorite food?
Plus, I love hearing Luxx give a very feminine little scream.
For reasons I cannot determine, Mistress falls apart this week.
She stumbles over her words early and never regains the confidence that is usually her signature.
I hope this doesnt portend anything down the line.
Next up are the Charo girls.
Charo is both the most fun interviewee and also the biggest challenge.
Shes not the kind of personality that fits neatly into a classic interview style.
Sasha gets that, Marcia does not.
Its a solid effort for an interview with somebody who seems to be actively avoiding being interviewed.
Theres not much to say about it.
She just never gets a foothold.
Frankie Grande is probably the easiest guest to work with, and Loosey capitalizes on that.
Shes consistently polished and professional, and her line readings are the most natural of the night.
), and thats a fair critique.
I dont have a lot to say about Anetra.
Malaysia completely cedes the floor to Frankie during their pizza-making segment.
Pretty quickly, he is interviewing her, rather than the other way around.
He mentionsBig Brother,and she doesnt ask about that.
He asks her about her dick preferences, and she cant turn it around back to him.
She lacks the presence to ever feel in control of her surroundings.
With Charo, that is forgivable.
With Frankie, it is not.
She should be able to dominate that twink.
My guess is that it was a joke that didnt play well in the room.
The editors leaving that in could be an ominous sign.
Despite her win, this episode shows some flaws in Sashas winners edit.
Will they venture to knock her off her pedestal?
The category on the runway is Night of 1,000 Beyonces.
Either way, Luxx is by far the best at presenting her looks this season.
She is a star as she walks down the runway.
Its funny and fun.
Not to sound like Tyra Sanchez, but Marcias look is disrespectful to Beyonce.
Anetra gives the most opulent look of the night and deserves credit for a pretty accurate re-creation.
She does, however, claim that the breasts are breasting.
Its a good pick for a queen who does not naturally have Beyonce as one of her direct inspirations.
Anetra and Marcia x3 are safe.
Sasha scores raves for her performance, which I get.
Loosey gets one note about the missed follow-up question, which I also get.
But the truth is that Loosey was better.
She really wanted it.
The cut to her following Sashas win is less Jan face crack and more just sad.
To be clear, this is all well within the grounds of typical reality-TV production.
Cannot wait to see if she goes off the rails next week.
Its not a great lip sync.
We bid farewell to the Babydoll this week, which is sad.
As an interviewer, I found this week only occasionally triggering for me.
I will remember Salinas listening face for years to come while doing interviews.
Also, in the spirit of RuPaul:shameless plugof my ownwork.
Predicted top four: Im still going with Sasha, Mistress, Luxx, and Anetra.
