S05.E05: Snatch Game of Love

[slaterain]

grrrr - my tivo never records the snatch game episode!!! Something about having the same episode title that it assumes it is a rerun and pulls the wrong season's information as the description. I thought maybe it didn't air because of the holiday. Now off to find it online. 

[peachmangosteen]

14 minutes ago, slaterain said:

grrrr - my tivo never records the snatch game episode!!! Something about having the same episode title that it assumes it is a rerun and pulls the wrong season's information as the description. I thought maybe it didn't air because of the holiday. Now off to find it online. 

This happens to me, too. Thankfully, I noticed that this wasn't going to record beforehand and set it.

[slaterain]

1 hour ago, peachmangosteen said:

This happens to me, too. Thankfully, I noticed that this wasn't going to record beforehand and set it.

normally I have too - not this time - drat!

[swanpride]

Quote

One of the special things about this show, as opposed to most other competitive reality shows, has been the way the queens help and support one another.

Yeah, I always hate it when there are cliques in the workroom. I know that it makes for good story-arcs, but I usually prefer stories about a queen coming into herself with the help of others.

Quote

I will never understand anyone coming on to this show and not having a Snatch Game character fully formed, with jokes at the ready.  Especially in an All Stars season. It’s just embarrassing, not to mention lazy.

What I don't understand is that after so many seasons a lot of them have still not figured out what works best. And that there is still a long list of celebrities which would be gold for a challenge like this and yet have never been done. After so many seasons your would think that they have covered the "hits", but the contestants have a tendency to either repeat celebrities (three times Eartha kid, two times Britney spears - granted both were good performance, three time Beyonce, two times Lady Gaga, and those are just the ones on top of my mind), or copy other queens (but I guess since Michelle mentioned that she doesn't really like that this has thankfully stopped), or go really obscure.

[Tammee]

On 7/4/2020 at 9:24 AM, Koalagirl said:

If Mattel put out a RuPaul Barbie based on her look last night I would be first on line to buy it!

Oik!  That dress was SPECTACULAR!   And michelle was so funny 'can you step it up a  bit'

[Blakeston]

On 7/4/2020 at 8:38 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Alexis as Walter Mercado wasn't as funny as Ru's laughter would have you believe, but compared to the dead weight of Cracker and India, she was hilarious.

Ru guffawing like a goddamn hyena at every single word out of Alexis's mouth was outright painful for me to watch.

As far as I'm concerned, Alexis only had only one line that was actually clever- "I see some big things in my future, and one of them is not love." And maybe the "prediction" about the bachelor wearing a belt. The rest of it was Alexis speaking exactly like herself, yelling out crude insults like "stupid bitch" just like she would in the workroom, and overdoing the whole "I saw it coming" shtick. 

All of that said, she was clearly in the top three, because India, Cracker, and Blair were hot garbage. Alexis did fine, and she chose the celebrity well, but her performance wasn't the tour de force that Ru (and Alexis) made it out to be.

As for Cracker, I think it's time to accept the possibility that she just isn't that funny. She likes to talk about how funny she is, and she occasionally has some good lines. But she's failed at comedy far more than she's succeeded.

I know that Snatch Game is extremely difficult, and you never know if you'll get the chance to work in your best lines. But Ru gave her free rein to introduce herself, and all she had up her sleeve was the "99 people in a room, and one of them has $100,000" line? She just doesn't have the comedic spark of Bianca, or Bob, or Katya, or...Jujubee, for that matter.

 

[Not4Me]

If there were 99 Lady Gaga impersonators in the room, they all would have sucked at Snatch Game.  Gaga, personality-wise, doesn’t translate well in an improv format, it’s more looks-oriented for her. Cracker was also giving me Madonna as Evita Peron, and would have been better off impersonating her as there’s more ripe material.

Alexis or Jujubee were my top picks from Snatch Game. India’s was, as expected, terrible but at least hers won’t be considered the worst (Gia Gunn’s offensive Jenny Bui impersonation takes the prize). I really wished Mariah would have stayed on longer because I bet she would’ve brought it this time. 

Within a few seconds of that Open Your Heart lipsync, I knew Shea won. She captured the nuanced showgirl dance moves that Madonna embodied in that video, with that same energy of vulnerability and wanton desire she portrayed in the video but with Shea’s spin on it. It reminded me of Manila’s lipsync win of Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know, in All Stars 4. Both lipsyncs told a story and educated the youngins on gay icon herstory!

Edited July 7, 2020 by Not4Me

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Act 1

Snatch Game of Love

Shea vs. Vanessa Vanjie Mateo lip sync to Open Your Heart

Whatcha Packin': India Ferrah

The Pit Stop: Bob & Jinkx Monsoon recap Snatch Game

 

[swanpride]

Quote

As for Cracker, I think it's time to accept the possibility that she just isn't that funny.

Yeah, Cracker reminds me of Trixie in this regard...both think that they are comedy queens, but their actual talents are elsewhere. Trixie works well in tandem with Katya, but that is because Katya is extremely good in comedy, and Trixie is the perfect "straight men" for her, but she herself isn't really funny. She is a great singer (honestly, she should focus on that, because most Queens are terrible singers or at best decent, but Trixie's voice is truly divine) and a good moderator, plus, she has crafted a very distinct Charakter for herself, but she is simply not funny.

Cracker on the other hand is very creative, and I think she is pretty good in writing the jokes, but she just doesn't manage to deliver the jokes.

[buttercupia]

i thought juju, shea, and alexis should have all been safe, but it was savvy of ru paul to say everyone but the winner was up for elimination. it added drama and tension that should be good for at least a couple more episodes.

blair worries me with how ungodly thin she is. 

india's prom look was a straight-up reprise of her runway look when mimi imfurst picked her up, minus the tophat and spiderwebs. ugh. i have no idea why she was ever there.

[Blakeston]

59 minutes ago, buttercupia said:

india's prom look was a straight-up reprise of her runway look when mimi imfurst picked her up, minus the tophat and spiderwebs. ugh. i have no idea why she was ever there.

My best guess is because a) she has a reputation for being a huge drama queen, and b) they bring in certain queens for All Stars as cannon fodder. If they only brought back the best queens, someone like Asia O'Hara might end up going home in the first or second episode, which would be depressing.

So they bring back queens who can leave early without bumming out the audience. And for those cannon fodder slots they generally select queens who are likely to bring the drama - either because they're known for being drama queens, or because they have a feud with someone else in the cast. India fits all those categories.

[swanpride]

Yeah, it was pretty clear that India was mostly there due to her feud with Derrick, which fizzled out pretty fast. And hadn't there be this undeserved win in the first week, I think she would have been voted out earlier too. She was always tethering something in the bottom after all.

[MsJamieDornan]

On 7/6/2020 at 9:57 PM, Blakeston said:

Ru guffawing like a goddamn hyena at every single word out of Alexis's mouth was outright painful for me to watch.

Yes, it is painful to watch. And, it's not even convincing anymore.

[Tammee]

Hahahahah thats hysterical!l. Love It!  Thanks for the links, the video is the best.  The way she delivers. Everything is just perfection

[Ubiquit0us]

TBH, I only watch this show for the Snatch Game but it's been awhile since I've watched. Is it me, or has the show changed since moving to VH1? I do not recall seeing anything like this week's theatrics before. Yuck. Isn't this sho9w supposed to be positive?

 

I liked the Eartha Kitt and Flav O Flav imitations best. I barely remember the others, actually.

[akr]

1 hour ago, Ubiquit0us said:

I liked the Eartha Kitt and Flav O Flav imitations best. I barely remember the others, actually.

I'd say Cracker, Blair & India were memorably bad. I will forget them, but haven't yet. 

You're right, though, I have already forgotten what Alexis did. I remember that it was fine but I don't remember who she did, just that she had a good quip after Cracker answered a question that had been directed to her. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I found it hilarious that the week after this episode aired, the Netflix documentary about Walter Mercado premiered!

[peachmangosteen]

 

2 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I found it hilarious that the week after this episode aired, the Netflix documentary about Walter Mercado premiered!

I only knew who Walter Mercado was because I had seen the trailer for that doc a couple days before this ep aired!

[ladle]

Granted I'm not an Alexis fan generally, but I did *not* get the love for her performance in this episode.  She picked a great character, but she kind of just said some version of "I saw that coming" or "I did not see that coming" about twelve times.  

I love how much fun Juju seems to be having in her talking heads.  

[Mahfouz]

I think the one thing Shea missed was the frenetic chaos that is Flavor Flav's personality. Maybe I am saying that because I know him from Public Enemy and not from this reality TV stint(s). Without the clock around his neck it would have been hard to, ahem, clock who Shea was trying to play.