xingcat

That was an entirely predictable finale, which is fine; they were all deserving, and I would have been okay with any of the Final 4 winning, but it was definitely the Bianca Del Rio edit all over again. "This queen is the best, perfect in every way, other queens are threatened, oh, she slipped (not really), now we're back on top, helped another queen, and wins!" I mean...yay? I love Kim Chi, but I honestly don't know how she could headline a tour, because you'd just kind of gasp at her looks, then suffer through her performances. Yes, the "Fat, Fem, and Asian" song was cool and they did what they could with her limitations, but I would have LOVED if she could have really rehearsed her ass off for the time between filming and the finale and just pulled out something that would have made us all fall out of our chairs. I've seen people learn choreography who can't even walk without falling over, so I don't know why, with the amount of time she had, they didn't go in that direction? Naomi is a sweet, sweet kid, but her entire game is genetics, I think. Long legs, gorgeous face, and she's....decent at lip-syncing. I love her family showing up onstage, though! I always am sad about the finale, because it looks like an amazing party if you're there, but it's also about as edgy and fun as a 70s variety show on TV. I'd love to see interviews that aren't set up in 20-second sound bites and backstage stuff and red carpet stuff. I guess that's all for YouTube, though.

I didn't think Jess deserved to go home. Milk's look was exactly what Milk is about, and I thought the puppets and that....thing in the middle of his belly/groin area were a bit off-color and totally strange, just like Milk. She was absolutely gobsmacked to be going home, but she was incredibly gracious about it, which I appreciate. Also, April Carrion is the most gorgeous girl and boy ever. And PhiPhi O'Hara, who I didn't like at all during Drag Race, has since become one of my favorites with her 365 Days of Drag on Instagram, and you could tell she LOVED her look. Good seeing Joslyn Fox. I used to see her before she got on RPDR in clubs in MA and RI. She's a good egg.

I'm not upset that there are 3 winners, though that takes it from $400K to $1.2MIL, which is a pretty big investment! I think that Simkhai just is too awkward to be that engaging as a winner, so Aurora is the spokesperson, but her shoes aren't that interesting (and a shoe designer won last year), so they have the Gypsy Sport dude, as well. Or something. It's all very strange, because I don't know where Gypsy Sport could go, really. If they mature, they lose their edge, and if they don't, they'll be behind-the-times in about a year.

The Instagram challenge is entirely cringeworthy. "Viral" is a meaningless term at this point, and the idea that an overproduced brand video is going to go "viral" is something that marketers who are really behind the times cling to. The fact that all the examples of social media presented before the Instagram challenge were tweets was just hilarious. All the videos were so try-hard, and Instagram isn't about that..it's about connecting with people 1-on-1, so just actually maybe talking to the designers about The Fashion Fund or something would have worked much better than this. Also, the fact that the judges were all aflutter about someone giving the finger to the camera...please stop. Just go back to having a ton of money, and being Ubered around NYC, guys. As someone who's been involved in theater for about 25 years, I'm always amazed at how chaotic it is behind the scenes of fashion shows. I guess they have very little time, but it always seems like it's barely going to come together. The fact that we got to see about 3 seconds of the fashion show in this episode says a lot about this show, I think. Is this fund about the fashion, or is it more a way to push the influence of Vogue and the people behind it? I'm still not sure. I think Aurora had something on-point when she noticed Jonathan Simkhai sitting next to Anna Wintour. (The fact that Kim Kardashian said she'd been supporting him for a while now was telling, too.) Maybe he's not going to win, but it seems like last year's winner, that everybody else were supporting players in his journey. We'll see. It may be Aurora, since they edited in that bit, and she has been really on the forefront. I'm guessing she's runner-up at this point, with Jonathan breezing into the 400K.

Eh. I just don't know. The season has so many incredibly talented queens, but we seem to have a lot of propping up going on here. Derrick's performance was...fine? I mean, the whole "performance" in this challenge was made entirely in the editing room, so I don't quite know what it is he did that was so spectacular, and even Ru couldn't pretend it wasn't Bob's show. Thorgy stumbled, but he's been getting the "bitter" edit for a while now, since Acid was let go. So now we have a final 5 made up of Bob and a bunch of other queens who rely really heavily on looks or on performing as one specific person. I think that's not terribly exciting. Kim Chi is an absolute sweetheart, but she honestly is 1000% about the runway looks and everything else is meh, to me. Naomi is gorgeous, but she's very low energy. Chi Chi has more excuses than Robbie and Thorgy put together, but she has the "girl from a small town" storyline going on, and you know nothing beats a good story. So it's The Bob Show Starring Bob and Derrick Who Is Too Famous To Fail, to me. Snore.

The guys from Baja East are in the Norelco commercials. Their facial hair is different, and they have dyed hair, but I kept checking and it's them. So maybe those are are top 2? I doubt it, but it's interesting to see. I have to love Diane Von Furstenburg for sticking with Chromat. I think Chromat is the only one even attempting to do something different, and I find it really interesting that the only 2 women in competition are the only two whom I find have a real message to their clothes. Both are about empowering women in some way (Brother Vellies through manufacturing in Africa, Chromat through technology and a strong women's presence) and both are pretty unflappable when it comes to what they say. Gypsy Sport and Baja East and Thaddeus O'Neil are all interesting, design-wise, but they're kind of just man-boys to me who are doing the same sort of "wear a fuzzy carpet and call it street/beach fashion" to me. Cadet, Simkhai, those other two white bread guys I can't remember the names of and the dude who made the kids' clothes are all really decent designers, but what's really their point of view? Fashion based on uniforms? Pretty dresses? Denim? Yawn. I also found it interesting that the show stopped itself to watch the two women designers cry. It was jarring in a sea of guys just being slightly nervous. I just get a strange vibe from this show, and not in a good way.

ChiChi is still here because of his storyline. I suspect next week, he'll have a moment like Pearl supposedly did (never bought that), where he gets the fact that he can be fabulous on a budget, and Michelle will smile down upon him and all will be well in the universe. He doesn't seem to be picking up the snap quickly enough, though, and I think he knows he's pretty safe right now, because he really is all about doing just enough to keep himself safe. I get Thorgy's resentment of Bob, because RPDR really does speak more to Bob's strengths. After all, Bob started drag after the first season of the Race, so his whole act is built around what's apt to come up in the show. Thorgy is an amazing queen, but a great deal of her stuff is esoteric and requires a longer time to digest than just "be funny in a fake soap opera," or "sing a silly song". Thorgy needs to adjust and stop being bitter. Bob is a little bit insufferable to me, just because I think he's the chosen one this season. His "arc" is very much like Bianca. Someone who knows how good they are with no problem telling everyone else how good they are. My suspicion is that in the following weeks, he'll soften up, possibly by helping ChiChi with something, so we get all the feels. Kim Chi....your looks are amazing. However, you're being kept here because you're a huggable bunny, because two queens with even better looks in their arsenal (Betty and Robbie) were let go. Please find some way to shine in something other than creating looks. Naomi....you had your moment, so I suspect you can go now. I wasn't all that wowed with her baggy rag skirt, but I guess it was perfect for the storyline. Derrick, you proved you can move inside of the Britney box to show that Britney could lip sync another song just like Britney. Hooray for you! Stop crying. You're too famous to go just yet.

You know, his shy, reserved demeanor makes a ton more sense now. Mom always has the spotlight, so he's relegated to the background. My name is xingcat, and I am an armchair psychologist.

I love what David came up with for his challenge. He really is charming to me, and I adore his clothes. They're way out of my price range, but I've been collecting pieces here and there when I can save up enough for custom clothing, so that may be my next big splurge (that'll happen after my next bonus or tax refund, so not for a long time). I still think Jonathan Simkai is going to win it. I love his mother! She was so thrilled for him! He's exactly what Vogue likes...a youngish white dude who looks good next to supermodels. Cadet did screw the pooch on this one, but could they get tickets to Hamilton? I know at the time it was next to impossible. I guess Vogue could have smoothed things over for them, but that was sad. I mean, everybody knows what Hamilton is about now, it's so in the zeitgeist, but before the November issue? Hmm. I 100% agree with the woman from Chromat about her picture. She has a real statement she makes about women and being powerful, and that was totally not at all what her brand is about in that picture. I think she got sidelined because she's not model-perfect like the folks they like to see in photos, so they pushed her out of the frame, and that sucks. Thaddeus went to Burning Man, because of course he did. He's so....sigh. Just a middle aged guy who grew up rich (I'm assuming) or got money somehow and now he's pretending he's counter-culture. Look to Gypsy Sport for counter-culture, dude. The Rag & Bone guys still bug the hell out of me. How inspirational or mentor-ish can you be when you come to a designer's place and stare dead-eyed at him while he tries to explain his line? "Have an elevator pitch" is not real help. "Here's what I see in your clothes. Let's go through your design process and figure out your story" is helpful. Those two have bodies in their freezer, I suspect.

My suspicion is that there are 1 or 2 front runners who the judges are pretty much sure they're going to award the final prize to, and the rest are there as sort of the "filler" for it all. Since it isn't an elimination type of competition, these filler designers just have to be interesting enough to keep the Fashion Fund word out there and get more applicants for the next year. If you look at the previous winners, they all are kind of the same "type," really. There isn't a huge difference in the demographics of the winners' customers. I don't think Gypsy Sport is really in contention, for instance (though the founder's story would be fun for a runner-up), I think eventually the winner will be someone who makes clothes for upper-class people who shop at Bergorf's.

Me too! I think Bob only had a little bit of his first character and had to lean on the other in order to keep up a whole segment's worth of material. If that's allowed, then every other queen should have 3-4 characters ready to go next season. The thing about showboating that I think Michelle may have been getting at is that it's really obnoxious, as a performer, to have another performer constantly trying to one-up you or shout how much better he is than everybody else. Yes, it's a competition, but one of the most telling things about the competition is how generous these queens can be with one another. Bob seems to want to win more than anything (more than even have fun, and he does love to have fun, it seems), and the never ending parade of, "Look at me! I can do this and that and the other and I'm better!" gets a little bit tiresome. He shouldn't and can't fade into the background (he's just too good for that) but balancing out the "I must win and I'll do anything it takes to get there" with "Hey, these queens are fun people to work with" would do some good, I think.

So....that was a really unimpressive Snatch Game. I know everybody lives for it, but you need some real comedy queens who are good actors/mimics there in order for it to work, and this year's just kind of fizzled. Bob had the one impression and then totally changed clothes and came on as a different character? So that's allowed? Why is not every contestant just trying different characters until they land, if that's the case? I love Bob to bits, but it's really getting to Bianca-level of "let's hand her the crown" at this point. Derrick's Britney was certainly held up with a lot of forced laughing and cutaways. We get it, the story is that he's more than just an impersonator, but.....I don't see any evidence of this at all. He's like vanilla tapioca. Acid really shouldn't have gone home. What does Naomi offer other than body? I mean...she doesn't give it in challenges, that lip sync was merely okay, and her talking heads are as dull as dishwater.

The original designs are developed in Italy and then they're made in Africa. So that makes sense to me. There's definitely a much longer tradition of fashion shoe-making in Italy, so construction, etc. happening in Africa doesn't bother me at all. After this episode, I think Jonathan Simka has this in the bag. Or maybe Cadet, but I think Simka is already established, he's in a bunch of high-end stores, and he's ready to go. Baja East...are those two guys in the Norelco ads they play? They look just like them. Huh. Gypsy Sport's show was cool, but who is buying those clothes? It can't be a huge market. Retail stores won't find it saleable, so he's just going to get a few orders from...somewhere?

I agree that Derrick is going to have a terrible time trying to balance Britney-as-character with Britney-as-meal-ticket. I mean...how do you skewer someone you literally make your living emulating? I think if he were clever, he'd figure out a totally different character and just NAIL it, but I don't think he has it in him. He's trying as hard as he can, but he's just kind of a...decent, hard-working performer who isn't a breakout star, except in what he does best. And that's a little sad to see, because we've been conditioned by Chad's versatility to think that a performer who can impersonate one character can impersonate many. Back when I was a wee lad in the early 80s, we had female impersonators like Charles Pierce who did entire concerts impersonating celebrities without a hitch. Of course, he benefited from being farther away than a TV camera and relying on Old Hollywood, but the fact remains that you have to have more than one thing in your bag of tricks to win this competition.

I agree that the show has a real problem dealing with queens who can't afford the more extravagant looks. It's been an issue, and has been brought up before (see: Jiggly Caliente). Yes, you can borrow things and take fabric from the walls, but that isn't going to compare with a fully-realized look brought in specifically for a challenge, and SO MANY queens out there are excruciatingly poor and make do with what they have, but wouldn't stand a chance in this competition because of the sniffling attitude that Michelle (and, for the most part, Ru) give to discount runway looks. Robbie Turner really changed his entire demeanor for the challenge, which I love, but in a way, I think he was rewarded for the skating last week. Bob, Acid and Thorgy really were the winners, but I think the show doesn't want to make it all look too much like a cake walk for them. Derrick wasn't in danger at all this episode. I wonder if he'll go home soon-ish, because it's getting impossible to cover for the fact that he's just...bland. I suspect he'll do well as Britney in Snatch Game and then maybe he can go. Or he'll fall on his head in Snatch Game, because if you make your living impersonating someone (Chad Michaels), then you'd better do it perfectly. Naysha got to pick up another Ru trophy. Aren't we glad we got to see more of her? She was so....um? However, in "Untucked," when she gave the cat suit (did Bob wear that in the Empire episode?) and the bathing suit, I just loved her for that.