Nerdlove

That was a messy lip sync but I mean, Monet just took a risk. She knew she needed a stunt to win. At least she didn't take off her wig or anything like that. Anyway, I hardly care. Monet was my main love on this show since Monique left and now my heart is broken. I mean, I like and respect Asia, and her putting down her soda to say "wait, I'm not done yet" in that early-episode confessional tonight gave me LIOFE, but I can't back a queen who fails that hard at snatch game. If/when she wins, I'll be ok with it, because she's great, I just... won't... care. I can't help but like Aquaria -- bitch turns looks and she killed at Snatch, who'da thunk? -- but I can't connect with her for whatever reason. It's Violet Chotchkey-itis. If/when she wins, I'll be ok with it, but again, will feel no emotional connection. I thought I'd love Cracker, but somehow, again, I'm not connecting. (I don't think she'll win.) Kameron is obviously fierce, but I more worry for her well being than LOVE her. (I don't think she'll win.) And I just have this deep abiding annoyance for Eureka that may be irrational, but I can't shake. If/when she wins, I'm going to scream. Sorry to any Eureka fans out there. Maybe she's great but I just can't with her. So there is no one left on the show I care about. And when I say "care," I mean, feel the way I felt about Nina Flowers, Ongina, Jujubee, Manila Luzon, Yara Sofia, Sharon Needles (at the time), Latrice, Willam, Jinx, Alaska, Bianca, Adore, Joslyn Fox, KATYA, Jadyn Diore Fierce, Chi Chi, Kim Chi, Naomi, Shea, Trinity, Peppermint, Monique, and Monet. These are queens that I connected with and wanted to know more about as both people and artists. (I'm sure there's more, and many others have made me love them after their seasons, notably Ganja.) I feel like I have a lot of love in my heart! But just... I don't know. I'm so sad. I don't really care who wins. I just did something I've never done before -- turned off Untucked halfway with no intention of watching it later. Someone please tell me if anything interesting happens other than Eureka trying to low-key get into Kam's pants, which is what she's being doing the last few untucks. Sorry if this is too negative, ya'll. I am wondering if anyone else is feeling as sad as me that Monet and Monique are gone.

Poor Vanessa looked so TERRIFIED during her lip sync. And I think she was having an out of body moment as she walked off the stage. Just sort of word-salad (can you say that when someone says just one word over and over? Maybe call it "word iceberg"?). My heart broke for her. It must be your worst nightmare coming true to go home first. If it were me, I'd be thinking, "Ok, I got on the show. Now I just can't go home first. That's worse than not getting on. Can't go home first. Can't go home first. Can't go home f-- oh my gooodddddddddddd...." Also omg: Yara Sofia, what is wrong with your FACE????

Can you imagine if Ben had stayed and eliminated Kennedy and had brought back Aja? And then imagine someone directing who knows what they're doing? And then imagine this casting: Ben -- the Queen (he could have slayed literally any part but is the only one who could have slayed the queen) Aja -- Beige Swan (in a video on youtube he said he would have wanted to do Beige Swan and I think he could have killed it with the proper direction) Trixie -- Erin Frockovitch Shangie -- Actavia Bebe -- Lala (she wouldn't really have been good at any of them -- maybe Beige Swan because she can serve weird faces but also I hate her so I don't care what part she plays) With that casting and proper direction, it might have overcome the terrible writing. I am soooo ready for season 10.

So, what I do to "read" the forums is that I copy paste the whole thing into a TTS reader (https://ttsreader.com/) and listen to it while I wash dishes or fold laundry, etc. Just sharing, because I think it's funny how it pronounces certain names and things. CaioF -- it just spells your name letter by letter. How do you pronounce your name? "Ciao F" like the Italian word ciao? CheetaraThunder, it pronounces your name "Chee-ta-RA-thun-der" kind of all in a row, and I didn't realize your name was a Thundercats ref until I saw the spelling. Ha! :) Some thoughts: - Hunterhunted points out that the winner's win will be "tainted." TOTALLY. Whoever really wins, Ben is the true winner on a lot of levels. I feel Shangela would be happy to take the win under any circumstance, but Trixie would probably feel guilty and weird about it. - I watched this episode on TiVo, and like several other commentators, I fast-forwarded through the endless bickering. I don't consider myself confrontation avoidant, but if nothing else it's boring and cringey and it wastes time. I ended up seeing some of the bickering when I watched reaction videos on Youtube* and yes, I was smart to ffwd. *To anyone who also likes reaction videos online, I will strongly encourage you to stay away from "Jakeyonce"'s channel. He casually spoilered this outcome while discussing episode like, 3? Without warning. It's unfathomable. - Some people are just really put off by Ben and I can't figure out why. I loved him in Season 6 and still do. I even have a little tiny straight-girl crush on him. (Tiny bit!) And that's super rare as my brain normally categorizes obviously gay men as off-the-table and I don't see them as viable candidates for crushes. It's kind of like seeing wax fruit, they don't make you hungry... you know? But Ben is just so lovable. Sure, his vocal fry is a bit much but he's hyper talented but he's adorable as a boy and gorgeous as a woman and I think he's a lot more sincere than people give him credit. I think Ru is one of the people who just can't get into Ben. CiaoF, I love how you pointed out that Ben pretty much eliminated himself in the same week that he was eliminated for no damned reason in his own season. Sure, Ben wasn't likely to beat Bianca, NO ONE was going to beat Bianca, but to have Darienne and Courtney go further in the competition than Ben was just a shame. (And I don't hate either of those two queens.) - About why Ben did what he did: I genuinely believe that Ben just didn't want to do it any more. I don't think it was out of fear of fandom reaction. Ben is extremely smart and he must have known that putting Morgan back in and not Aja would probably not be the most super popular move. I think he just was heartbroken and emotionally exhausted and felt like it was a moral/ethical situation he didn't want to be in. - About BeBe. I watched Season 1 back in the day and have it downloaded on my computer (thank you, Pirate Bay!) so I get the appeal. But in Season 1, there weren't a lot of comedy or acting challenges. It was mostly about runway and lipsyncing and presence, and those are things that Bebe had in spades. I USED to love Bebe so much and was super happy with her win at the time. But I think her appearance on AS3 was bad for her. I think she should have come back as a judge or a coach or something, you know? Maybe Ru likes to the be the only queen in drag on the panel...? But I feel like it'd be appropriate to have Bebe on the judging panel. It would have raised her profile and booking fees, and gotten her some coin. Sigh. Now she's just going to be disliked. :( Her limitations are becoming more clear every day. It's very "the man behind the curtain" in Wizard of Oz. - If you can't watch Season 1, I'd strongly recommend watching the Movie Bitches Season 1 reviews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVvNN_Zwxk Each review is about 25-25 minutes long, so you can watch the whole playlist in about 3 hours, and I'd say you can totally watch them even if you haven't actually seen the season. They even put in the occasional clip from the proto-untucked show from season 1, "under the hood." It's a lot of fun and you'll start to understand Season 1. They love Bebe -- this was filmed before AS3 -- and they were super excited to see her in AS3 at the start of the season. Let's see how they feel about Bebe at the end of AS3. - I have a good friend who loves Thorgy so I've tried to like her, but omg, I just can't with her. Bringing up Bob in the first ep? Being the world's biggest bitter bitch? UGH. I don't like the way she does her makeup. I hate when white people have dreds. I don't like her looks. There's always something desperate and weird about how she presents herself. I try to be patient with people who come off desperate because I don't know how I myself would come off in a sitch like this, but UGH I just can't with Thorgy. I am having trouble thinking of any other RPDR girls I like less. Even Tyra Sanchez, at the least, nearly always looked fucking FLAWLESS on the runway. FLAW. LESS. I don't think I have ever liked a single Thorgy look. So I'd have to give her and Thorgy a tie for last place in my heart. Well, a 3-way tie with Milk for obvious reasons. - My theory on THE NOTE OF DOOM. My theory is that Trixie is the one that Willam said had a mini-breakdown. She has certain mental issues (like most of the queens) and was filming her other show at the same time AS3 was shooting so she must have been mega stressed. So, I could imagine her clutching on to a note like Thorgy's because it gave her love and it referenced getting cocktails when it was all over. I could kind of imagine myself holding on tight to the idea of it all being over -- like a light at the end of the tunnel. "Cocktails with Thorgy when this is over. Yes. We will be at a bar being ourselves and no one judging us and we'll drink cocktails and be friends. Yes." You know? - I watched the viewing party at Roscoe's (it's on Youtube) and one of the guests was Kennedy. She made a point that I thought was super interesting. She said that as an African-American, she herself did not have the option to quit the show the way that Ben did. She made it to final 4 in her season, but is still less popular than certain white queens eliminated far before her. As a result, she doesn't have the financial resources to poo-poo at $100,000 and she doesn't have the fan support to make a big move like that without facing potential backlash. I think she's right, and it's so disgusting the way that racism plays into the RPDR world. It's thought provoking for sure.

Wow, Ru was having a grand old time tonight. Over the course of this season, I went from liking Aja, to not liking Aja, to more genuinely liking Aja. Like, I kind of just want to hang out and have a froyo with Aja. And wow, I wish Farrah had shown some of this mettle during the season! I'm having a weird flashback to those moments in Untucked when Valentina was giving her drinks to Farrah. I thought that was stealth fuckery at the time, and now, even more so.

For Kieyra, check out this version of the image: Trinity is to the very far left. She was edited out of the version you can see at the link you posted.

Yes, thank you! I mean, if all you want from the episode is for someone to go home, you could just check Wikipedia the next day and find that out. I watch for the journey. Don't really mind that no one got eliminated. I mean, I think based on overall performance the whole season, Peppermint was the weakest, but she also, for me anyway, won the challenge for the night. She also had the most emotional convos with Ru and the judges. So it was impossible to eliminate her. But it was also impossible to eliminate the other three, based on overall performance from the season. So this was the only outcome. And all the better for Pep, who has a super sweet personality and who obviously shines in person, live, and will probably have a fantastic live performer career going forward (not that she didn't have one before).

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As someone who has struggled with being perceived of as "too smart" -- which is something our culture tends to really, really, REALLY hate in a woman particularly -- I really want to like Sasha. I want to be on the side of someone who thinks through things and I want to be like, "if we're allowed to brag about being good at certain other things, why not intelligence?" How many dozens of drag queens say things like, "I'm a fierce performer!" or "I'm beautiful!" or "I'm funny!" Why should it be different to say "I'm smart!" ... And yet... It is? God, I wish it weren't. Something about Sasha just irks me. I think I developed a nasty dose of antipathy during the princess challenge when she was princess of SelfDoubtia or whatever. And her rap tonight, all about how she's smart, just made me want to roll my eyes back into my head. Maybe it's because I don't actually think she's as smart as she thinks she is. And she's definitely not as fashion forward as the judges seem to think. As the Movie Bitches pointed out, she wears pencil skirts every week. Last week it was a pencil skirt and a turtleneck. This week's runway look was just a sheer pillowcase with holes cut out in it. And tonight on the runway when she brought up her mom in the "talk to the little version of you" moment, it felt so tacked on, like she was trying to find something that would feel heartfelt, after Peppermint's very obvious Heartfelt Moment. Not to say it isn't a valid feeling, but it FELT tacked on and disingenuous. The song and performance, though, were definitely worth a quick rewind and rewatch. Nicely done all around, and credit to Toderick for helping to coax a good performance out of each of them (light years ahead of Lucian with his "be like Lorde" crap) and making choreography that made them all look good. And credit also to the remixer guy who made them sound good, too. So glad no one did a Roxxxy Andrews thing this time.

Side note: RuPaul was serving up some "grandma's shower curtain caught in a tornado" realness tonight. (Seriously: what WAS that???)

My take on it is this: Sasha really rocked the runway tonight, and so did Shea, in two different ways. I loved Sasha's looks more than Shea's, even if I think I like Shea better in terms of "who would I rather have a beer with" (I like Sasha that way, too!!). I really like them both, but in my opinion, Sasha did better tonight. But Ru picked Shea. My interpretation of this is that Ru just doesn't feel Sasha the way he feels Shea. (Or maybe it was the cowboy look, which I kind of hated....) I feel really lucky to live in New York City. I can go see Sasha and Peppermint live sometime! Pepp in particular -- wow, I bet she's really something live. As much as I don't like Alexis's attitude, I felt kind of sorry for her tonight. She just doesn't get it. She never thought of herself as a villain at all, I bet -- at worst, all she is is really irritating. But I think she's got a good heart and really wants to make friends and doesn't understand why people don't like her. I get it. She's a theater nerd with poor social skills, I think. Describes a lot of us, to some degree. Also, she really did look so pretty in her basic Native American and unicorn outfits. Her eye makeup in particular looked great. I hope that people will be kind to her after the show, and I hope that she kind of wakes up and realizes how cringey some of her behavior was so she can get that wakeup call that a lot of us need from time to time.

I wish Sarge could... I don't know. Just be everywhere, somehow, as like, the perfect antidote to toxic masculinity. I mean, he's named SARGE and had been in the army, and kind of gives off a vibe like he might still be in the army, and yet -- ? Not at all dismissive -- much less scared of or disgusted by -- of gay men or gay culture, or femininity. In other words, I love Sarge. I also loved Aaron, the tattooed, pierced guy who worked with Nina. What a perceptive, kind soul. He really tried to reach Nina and it might have even worked a little tiny bit. Really, all of the guys seemed really sweet and really game. Ross Matthew's dumb gag where he held up a leg with a high heeled shoe? It was SO DUMB but it actually really made me chuckle. The shot of the crew members all in wigs and heels, and then Ru's comments to the crew afterward, made me tear up a tiny bit! Someone on Reddit was saying that Ru's makeup tonight was done by Darienne Lake. Whoever it was, Ru looked lovely. It actually reminded me of the makeup Michelle Visage had for a few episodes last season, when she looked so stunning. I wonder if Ru was like, "Zaldi gave me a damn gorgeous gown, I need a really, really, really good mug tonight. Get someone who knows what they're fucking doing, please." More thoughts: - Couldn't the crew guys have shaved the night before they came in? (I know the answer to that.) - Shea seemed genuinely sad to think that it came across as if she didn't care about her drag sister. She let out a Farrah style whine or two about it! It was endearing as heck. - It was really fun to watch RuPaul's banter with Duncan on stage. Duncan is an assistant producer, and judging by the queens' reaction to him, must be an important and imposing presence during filming. So though he works under Ru, he's probably only a notch or two below Michelle in terms of importance. So this is banter almost between equals. I don't know, I dug it. - It was also fun to watch the judging table get into that huge giggle fit. They seemed more vocal throughout, and really, they were a lot o fun too. Zaldi knew what he was talking about and had life to him. And Kesha was obviously having the time of her life. - I got really irritated by Sasha during the princess challenge, when she made that insufferable "Princess of Self-Doubtia" or whatever it was. But she has really, really, really grown on me. For me, Sasha and Shea are running neck and neck in terms of both whether I think they could win, or should win.

I had to pause it but the final message was, "Debbie Downer is gone. Sue me! Shea Coulee, I hope you have trouble cleaning this. Love you all!" I think the "sue me" thing is just her attempt at a catch phrase. Sigh. I don't know what to say about the show exactly, especially since I'd had it spoiled, but I do have to say that WOW DID RU LOOK GORGEOUS TONIGHT. I usually don't really care one way or another about her looks -- I actually am kind of more into his boy looks -- but tonight? whew! Head! to! Toe! Is it just me?

Is this the right place to talk about our favorite RuPaul "ruview" shows/articles online? Because I have a whole circuit I make. Friday night, after the show, I read the recap here and watch the "Extra lap" recap on Youtube. Saturday, obviously, that's untucked. on Sunday, Afterbuzz tv broadcasts live on Youtube (I don't always catch the live show, but I watch it later). Then on Monday (or sometimes Tuesday), I listen to T-Lo's podcast, although they have gotten REALLY negative this year. Usually by Monday I can also watch Soju's recap show on Youtube. Raven and Raja's show comes out on Wednesdays, usually. Then on Thursday, my favorite ruview comes out -- the Movie Bitches recap on Youtube. I also watch the Canal Street Online recap -- that's a good one, but it comes in at random times. Bland Canyon's written recaps are the delight of my life, but they take forever. (They're worth it). There might be others. I am aware that it is coo-coo bananas that I spend easily 20 times as much time "ruviewing" the episode as I do watching it in the first place. This show does weird things to me.

After this week's untucked, I can't deal with Nina. Not for one more second. Unless it turns out that she's some kind of medically unwell, that behavior is unforgivable. "Calling people out" for things they LITERALLY DIDN'T DO? Nope. Not ok.

holy moly. I know the portuguese close captioning makes it look janky, but quality issues aside, these are amazing extra scenes. It feels like how the show is supposed to be. Imagine if these extra scenes had just been in the show? It'd be like the original version of the show. (by that, I mean, how the show was before this season started and things were all *different* and *off*)

On Youtube, search for "RuPaul's Drag Race Season 9 Episode 4 Runway Looks" (filter last 24 hours if you have to). It's a 4:40 long video of the runway. It says VH1 in the corner so maybe it's a website extra clip? It's edited as if for the show, but they just didn't show it on the show... ??

Oh, yeah, to be clear -- I think Aja looks terrible. I just think that she was, consciously or not, copying Valentina. That might be why it didn't work. And yes, I've been reading T-Lo since back when they were Project Rungay! :) These days, I think my favorite "after show" video review series is the Movie Bitches on Youtube. They're a girl/guy duo, which might be why there isn't quite as much misogyny as you sometimes get on such shows (wish it weren't the case, but this is a culture that uses misogynistic slurs as compliments for men -- let's acknowledge that), and they're fun and cute and laugh a lot, but also have funny little insights. And they usually like who I like and hate who I hate, so, that makes us almost like friends, right? :) but I guess this is all straying wildly off the topic.

I had a flash of insight when I was watching Raven and Raja's photo ruview just now. (They inexplicably picked the Charlie's boring dress as top toot of the week, but w/e.) I wasn't watching it maximized, and one of the thumbnails of related videos on the right side of the screen showed Valentina in her "hometown" look -- that balero thing she wore. Then Aja came up in the photo ruview, and I realized that basic silhouette was very similar between the two. Aja added a long coat, but the high waisted panty thing + chaps jujz she was going for? Almost the same. Then I was thinking about how Aja went after Valentina in Untucked. Maybe at some level, Aja was feeling like, "WAIT THEY LOVED THIS WHEN VALENTINA DID IT, BUT WHEN I DO IT, IT'S BAD? NO FAIR!!!" Hmmmm. But yeah, compare the two. (I got these screencaps from T-Lo, whose podcast is always a fun listen when Tom isn't being too mean to Lorenzo.) Valentina Aja

I felt... nothing. It was like watching ten minutes of a soap opera that you don't follow. Saw who won, shrugged, turned off the TV. I was so into the show in the earlier eps, too.

If I were either Alaska or Detox, and I genuinely loved my friend Roxxxy -- and I think they actually do love each other -- I would eliminate her at this point. Because she knows she isn't going to win the season, and staying long past her expiration date is just going to make the fans hate her more. Roxxxy's main "mission" for the show was ru-demption, after all, and I'd say that so far, she actually pretty much *has* redeemed herself. If she had gone two episodes ago, especially at the hands of Alaska or Detox, and handled her elimination gracefully, she could have earned even more popularity from fans. As it is, she's just going down in popularity every week. So keeping Roxxy, if it was genuinely done out of affection (and again, I think that's a real part of it), was misguided at best and could even be seen as inadvertent sabotage. Luckily, I think fans hate PhiPhi and now Alaska so much that they don't have as much room left in their hate-buckets to fit Roxxxy in there.

I got a different feel from Alaska's meltdown. It wasn't a good look, don't get me wrong, and I think it will lose her the show, but what I saw was a mini-psychological breakdown. What I mean is: I think this competition means TOO MUCH to Alaska. I don't know if it's even about the money to her, or the fame. Maybe it's about catching up to Sharon, or just sort of proving something to herself. But I don't know. It seems to just be the THING SHE HAS TO HAVE. Maybe it's partly because of getting sober? Maybe she promised herself that she'd get sober so she could win All-Stars? That's the kind of thing I've done to motivate myself -- set my eye on an almost impossible goal. Regardless, the degree that it matters to her shows in how carefully she planned and how hard she's worked. She worked on her Mae West really hard and probably planned a lot those bon mots. I bet she even pre-thought out some catch-all ideas for things to do for the expected range of challenges -- a commercial, acting challenges, and so on, to include her catch phrases. Even the way she comes across in her talking head interviews. She has this *LOOK* on her face and I've seen it before. I'm in comedy -- improv, to be specific -- and a lot of my friends/acquaintances have their eye on the top: SNL. There is a certain look that people get when they have their eye set on something and they realize they *might* not get it. They've based a lot of who they think they are around this idea of success. So, tonight, I actually felt sorry for Alaska because that was the most honest thing she's shown since she got here -- in fact, that may have been the ONLY honest thing she's shown since she got here -- and she seemed so empty and sad to me that I felt sympathy. Don't get me wrong, like I said. She was a mess and it could easily be interpreted as entitled and immature and yeah it kind of was. But I know what it does to people, to base who they are on an external goal. It doesn't end well. (That's two weeks in a row that I think I've offered up some armchair psychiatry. Hmmm... what does that say about me?) Anyway, here's something interesting. I went to some hashtag counter online and checked all four of the hashtag "teams". At about 9pm EST there was a large spike for each one, and another smaller spike at about 11pm EST. But it was on a completely different scale. For the 9pm spike, Katya was VASTLY in the lead with 10,000 estimated by the site (based on a 1% sample of tweets). Detox had around 220, Alaska had 600, Roxxxy had less than 100 (and barely breaks 100 if you include the spelling "roxy"). I mean, even if there's a pretty big margin of error here, Katya is still insanely in the lead.

annewithaneee, you really nailed how I feel, too. I also was living for Alaska before this season started, and now I feel like everything she's doing is so prepared and re-hashed and designed to win, and it seems clear she's going to win, and I don't know why but that leaves me hollow, too. Hollow is a good word for it. Not hating, not angry, nothing like that. When she wins (it feels inevitable), I'll be happy for her. She figured out how to play and she played. Good for her, you know? You have to respect that. That said, wow would she have won my respect and love all the way back if she had picked Tati to stay and sent Roxxxy home. It's not that I think Roxxxy is so awful -- in fact, she's really won me over this season. I think she probably is a pretty sweet person in real life, actually. I think she's maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and things like "sash/shah" probably happen pretty often to her. When she said, "This is another sequence moment, isn't it?" my heart broke for her a little. Same thing as when she said, "I'm just here to look pretty." She just felt so *defeated* tonight. I think she even said something to that effect, didn't she? I can't quite remember the words she used. Deflated? Down? Something like that. And what's more, I think Roxxxy was feeling done. Like, her "journey" (they're always all on a journey, aren't they?) is over. She did what she came to do, which was win some new fans. I'm sure she's done that. And she's not going to win the competition. She knows that it's going to be Alaska, right? So I think she was even ready to go home. I bet it would have stung if Alaska, her good friend, had sent her home, but I think their friendship would have survived it. So yeah. While Roxxxy seems done, Tatiana WANTED TO BE THERE soooo badly. I think her commercial was much funnier, and her runway look? Shiiiiiiiit. Girl knocked that OUT OF THE PARK. What the fuck? I mean, RuPaul specifically asked her to dance again. That, to me, would count as a huge point in her favor. I really wish Katya had won the lip sync, for three reasons. 1. I think she genuinely did a better job of interpreting the song. The camera work kept showing Alaska but every time they cut to Katya I wished they would stay on her. Her wardrobe helped with that. And leg air guitar? I LOVE KATYA! 2. Katya isn't going to win the competition, so let's spread some of those doe-lars around. 3. I think -- can't be sure - -but I think that Katya would have picked Tatiana to stay and sent Roxxxy home. I think this because a) Katya seems to be a genuine fan/friend of Tatiana's. b) Katya has a different aesthetic than Alaska and I think she would have judged Tatiana more worthy based on performance. c) conspiracy theory alert:: (not really) The editors showed Tatiana and Katya talking at the mirror, and I think that sort of was there to explain/foreshadow that Katya would reveal sending Roxxxy home over Tatiana. (Which won't be revealed until next week, but still, gotta get it in there.) In fact, if you want to get REALLY conspiracy theory up in here, it seems like RuPaul would *HAVE* to know which queen picked which lipstick tube, right? Come on. It's his damn show. He'd know this. It'd be super easy to find out. So it's possible that he chose Alaska as the winner in order to keep Roxxxy for some fucking reason. I don't know. He also doesn't quite seem to "get" Katya, a lot of the time. And yeah, as a lot of people have pointed out in replies that posted while I was writing this novel here (he he he), what the actual fuck was up with that line "one is great and the other one lent me her shirt"? I genuinely don't understand it. Because the "week after week" line seemed to refer to Roxxxy. It's just a weird, confusing, kind of insulting line and implies a fucked up reason to keep Roxxxy. I'm bewildered.

Oh, and if anyone can make GIFs out there, someone please GIF that moment right after Ru tells Tatiana, "you're a winner," and Tatiana realizes that she gets to stay on the show. She may or may not have been acting, but I don't even care. It's such a beautiful moment. You get to stay, Tatiana. Oh, my heart!

It's a shame about PhiPhi. (warning: a bit of armchair diagnosis to follow) I think he's the kind of person who really wants everyone to like him -- which is kind of normal, actually. As Katya points out in one of her recent videos, the only people who genuinely don't care what anyone thinks of them are sociopaths. So it's understandable to want to please others. I think PhiPhi wants to be loved so much, that it's in his nature to do things like tell Tatiana she was the funny one, and then tell Detox exactly the same thing. I remember acting like that in middle school. It wasn't unkindness or cruelty on my part. I wasn't consciously trying to manipulate anyone. I just wanted to be everyone's friend and didn't know how to go about that. I think we're all capable of acting like that, even as adults. Can anyone on Earth say that they've never ever gossiped, or never ever done a little manipulating? God knows that in times of stress or uncertainty, I still catch myself from time to time being gossipy or a little manipulative, and I'm a grown ass woman who tries not to do that crap anymore. It's hard to stamp out completely, and when you're anxious or upset or nervous or depressed I think a lot of us revert to our worst selves. In my case, afterwards, I feel crappy about it and try to bounce back, having learned a little bit more about why I don't like acting like that. But it was hard to face, at first. Who likes to admit what is wrong with themselves? That's hard work. So, yeah, PhiPhi probably just can't help being a little gossipy and manipulative, while all the time justifying that kind of behavior to himself as normal -- which, let's face it, it kind of is. PhiPhi just does it a bit more often than others, and this doesn't always mean that he's an awful person. Probably, in day to day life, he's nice. He probably wouldn't go out of his way to harm anyone, and probably in fact would go out of his way to please others. He's just probably going through a lot of things emotionally. There was the issue of his arrest, and I think I remember him saying he's cut off from his biological family, over the gay and/or drag thing. And it must have been hard to go through being one of the most hated drag queens in the world, and literally getting death threats. For someone who is kind of unstable anyway, having all that crap happen isn't necessarily going to lead to a personal renaissance. I think that his current freak out on social media is a reaction to the cognitive dissonance he must feel, seeing himself on screen looking so unpleasant, when he knows that in his heart he's a good person. Which, legitimately, he pretty much is. You can be a good person in your heart and still make mistakes out of uncertainty or nervousness. Like I said, he probably doesn't wake up in the morning thinking, "I'm going to treat everyone like crap." He just sort of... accidentally.... does... sometimes. So yeah. He really *did* do those awful things, but he's not strong enough in himself to face that and love himself anyway. And if you can't love yourself... I feel nothing but pity for him. I think he does have talent, and I bet you anything he'd make a good friend, someone fun to hang out with -- if not exactly trust your deepest secrets to. It makes me sad to see that he didn't learn how to muzzle himself in front of the cameras and not take the producers' bait. So I hope that people are going to be a lot kinder to him this time around. No, he didn't "deserve" to win (does anyone "deserve" to win a reality competition? is that anyone's birth right?), but I really do hope he figures things out for himself and manages to find a place for himself in the world where he can relax, retract his defensive claws, and let his best self shine. And that won't be on camera. (end armchair diagnosis)