theatremouse

Don't be a drag just be a queen; the celebrity drag queens perform songs from the Lady Gaga songbook.

I'm most surprised Thirsty keeps sticking around.

I'm pretty sure they're saying "Botox Cosmetic" as opposed to "Botox for Migraine". Not that it changes what it is, but I don't think it's just marketing to make it seem like botox is like lipstick. It's to distinguish it from the botox with a medical purpose.

There didn't seem to be much point to the ru-vealing everyone. Then again, there didn't seem much point - at this stage in the game - pretending they weren't all figured out either.

I'd say the same about a bunch of 'em. Alas, the show puts out the copy.

Celebrity queens celebrate RuPaul's charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent in style and song.

A shocking twist is revealed that changes the game forever, as the secret celebrities perform their favorite hits from the '90s.

RuPaul pairs the celebrity drag queens with Drag Race royalty: Katya, Eureka, Gottmik, Silky Nutmeg Ganache, Morgan McMichaels, and Violet Chachki.

Oh so they were saying that match was the GOAT match? Not that Carlos was the GOAT player?

Ons vs Caroline was an extremely underwhelming match.

If they did that it'd be because they're hoping to find another Vangie or Shangela in the bunch. (I don't think that'd be likely to succeed in doing so.)

It was weird watching Poppy this time. To me it wasn't that she seemed lower energy per se. I thought I could see her counting the beats. That's usually an amateur move. Someone with dance experience...it was odd. Not the worst, but such a good song it was sort of a bummer not to see it knocked out of the park. It made me wonder if there were less rehearsal time available, or they changed the choreo last minute, or what. Or maybe it was just an off day, which I realize humans sometimes have. I was more confused than anything though.

I actually prefer this masked singerish version to the last time, but maybe it's not because of the secret aspect. I feel like the previous season were like F list celebs, and it was all framed as some sort of magically transformative experience that was necessary to their lives. But it was maybe 2 days at most? Everything before was overwraught and melodramatic and not in a fun way. And the end result was BAD. This one, the celebs are mostly people I've actually heard of, and they're performers and treating it as such. Yeah there's some journey spiels and some What Drag Means to Me business, but it's way less heavy handed, and clearly from the TH what a PA asked them to respond to. But when you see the backs of their heads in rehearsals and such, these are people trying to put on a good show. (Not everyone is succeeding, but that's a different issue...) It's 10x more entertaining for me. The "secret" aspect of it makes more sense this go round. I just all around prefer the new format.

Wait, does that ad have text at the bottom that says it's real? I assume that's an actor and scripted.

I think Electra Owl is at least 10 years older than Kelly Ripa.

Guessing the celebrities based on what you saw in the episode is fine, and not a spoiler. If you know who they are from access to future episodes or reading spoiler sites, those are spoilers and should be behind spoiler tags.

Not knocking your peeve, but the weapon in my case was a 32oz yogurt.

Why are yogurt lids razorblades? This cut is so bad I can't fingerprint open my phone.

I also think the writers must assume it's an easy gimme for the celebs when some of the fast money questions basically only have 2 logical answers. Like, get them both and voila, giant points, but then if you miss....points down the drain. Not even a chance for some rando thing 6 people answered.

My understanding is they always do this, regular season, all-stars season, all of 'em. Including ties. Monet and Trinity's twinner season had all possible endings filmed too. I've always found her lip syncs really boring and redundant. It's like she has one routine and she slices and dices it differently, but otherwise does it over and over. That said, in her previous seasons I actively disliked Trinity. This season, I enjoyed her. I was surprised. She's funny and seems like a pleasant enough person. Her lip syncs aren't my cup of tea, but otherwise she's delightful. Speaking of, I was surprised when I heard...whoever it was...complimenting Shea's choreo. Maybe the edit was weird, but every bit of hers I saw, sure the choreo was crisp, but it was boring as hell. To my eye I she had zero chance. I guess it goes with the "never airing negative feedback" theme of the season. Everyone must be praised. Some people just praised more.

Good or bad landing it wasn't a great cartwheel, so it's not really shenanigan-ey that they cut away.

My glass half full is it might be better for her health that she didn't get the chance to lip sync too frequently this go round.

Theoretically the 2nd-4th already won some money from winning along the way. So, not nothing. I was super bored by Shea and The Vivienne's performances. They were crisp, but uninteresting. To a lesser extent, ditto Jaida and Trinity. I was also underwhelmed by the lack of variety in the variety show. Jinx was my favourite. I like that kind of number, and appreciated she went for funny. If they wanted to do extra stars this time, I would've preferred there be a mini challenge for one, and then maybe two for the maxi challenge. Something! Mix it up. Don't just hand 'em out in a big ole chunk. Although to that point, they set this up themselves to be waaaaay too many close-to-ties by doing the hand-out stars earlier in the season. So the stars have sort of always been not entirely real. Plus if they wanted to ensure a particular final 4 they didn't need to tack on points value at the end. They could've just picked winners in the last couple episodes - when the tops were pretty close - based on who would make it work out the way they wanted. But clearly, they wanted the whole "it could be anyone!" factor at the end. So they did it this way. Even without twinner aliance, Monet could've used the reasoning Trinity would've had one more star if not for the block and chosen her that way. I am also assuming the bottom-four mini-prize was always planned and just not announced.

Trinity's lip sync looked like the SNL parody of Drag Race lip syncs.

Trinity's runway did her in. It was way too simple. Pull something off. Pull something else off. Everyone else really transformed. Trinity didn't. So even though I think her video was better, cumulatively she wasn't tops this time.