S17.E01: Squirrel Games!

[davidcalgary29]

Fourteen queens stumble on to the set as RuPaul attempts to ride the blood-soaked coattails of a certain Korean import phenomenon with a fun cold open! As a concept, it's at least more successful than The Handmaid's Tale conceit from All-Stars, and we get to see multiple fan favourites get taken out by a giant 'Lil Poundcake as they attempt to juke and jive to the safety line in a new take on "Red Light, Green Light". We even get treated to a view of Victoria "Porkchop" Parker being the first to be pied! It's nice to see her again after several years' absence.

The fourteen "survivors" quickly enter into the Werkroom, engage in customary introductions, and dedrag. It's an interesting collection of performers, and a bit of a departure from recent seasons where poise and polish have been featured as favoured attributes. The queens immediately start naming their drag connections, and it's clear that many of them have deep and impressive ties within the larger Drag community. I'm actually hopeful -- for a moment -- that S17 will be a Battle of the Houses, which would be a great way of showing the strengths of each respective competitor and the heritage that they're representing, and could be an interesting way of incorporating former contestants into the show (as mentors, perhaps?). WoW makes it clear, however, that the alums featured in the first few minutes are just there for a photo shoot, and some contestants apparently don't have many connections at all, so that wouldn't be fair to them. On to Season 18, WoW! The sense of fun quickly fades as the parade of names flow past -- really, I did not expect the Ghost of Seasons past to include Plane and Luxx -- but I'll give it a pass for now. Mild Bitchery can be fun, but if we get Mistress 2.0 I'm walking.

WoW has learned at least a little, and the premiere -- a talent show -- is split into two parts, although everyone walks the runway. And the runway is pretty bad, so I'm really not going to dwell on it here beyond repeating that it's bad. And that the theme is confusing, and also pretty dumb. Why are they being asked to mask if branding is so important to Ru? Dumb de dumb dumb dumb.

Fortunately, the talent show overall is fun and engaging. Joella Ho is probably the least engaging of the bunch as she swirls in front of Katy Perry, her mentor? friend?, but all of the clips are pretty brief and largely painless.

Ru trots out the ol' Rate-a-Queen chestnut, but integrates it more seamlessly by announcing that the non-performing queens will rank this episode's contestants, sending one to an elimination battle with next week's loser! More than one queen notes that this will allow friends to rank each other highly, irrespective of actual merit. And this is exactly what happens, which results in Acacia Forgot in the bottom, although she rightly points out that she was one of the few queens to show an actual talent. Two of them, in fact.

Suzie Toot and Jewels Sparkles are the tops of the week! They, and the audience, are then subjected to the much-maligned title track of Perry's latest album, which was greeted with resounding silence upon its release. It's a mediocre lipsynch track, but at least Katy can take solace in the fact that it's not measurably worse than most of RuPaul's musical output. Nice try, Katy! Suzie wins! She declares, like many deluded darlings of the past, that this will be just the first of many victories in this competition! Well, not with those makeup skills you won't, as we are here clearly just a quickstep away from the Magical Superfund Cleanup Site of Amanda Tori Meating's famed paint. Here's hoping she foxtrots out of the twenties and makes it at least as far as Plasma's mid-century safety zone.

Next week: Acacia gets thorny and promises to give everyone last-place rankings in revenge for their heinous voting! Clips are randomly shown out of context to let the audience believe that we will be stunned with more talent! We shall see.

Stray thoughts: I still maintain that the runway was pretty bad, but I'm going to make an exception for Lucky Starzzz. Her piece of pizzaface perfection hit the fashion spot, and her Entrance Look was one of the best I've seen in years. I'm all for a long run for her this season if this is representative of the rest of her drag.

-on the other end of the drag spectrum lies Onya Nurve, who made quite the sartorial impression this episode. If I was charitable, I'd channel Violet Chachki and suggest that her runway look was a "charming hodgepodge". I'm not feeling particularly charitable: that entrance look was Bob the Drag Queen as Divine in a lost outtake of the Pink Flamingos skit in S7. Yes, I know that Bob was not on Season 7.

-Jewels, out of drag, is giving a young Carole Pope, ca. her Rough Trade era.

 

 

Edited January 4 by davidcalgary29

[Madding crowd]

I thought the squirrel games beginning was fun and I liked the variety of queens. The riff on the Masked Singer was a good idea but would have better once we know the queens.  Katy Perry seemed kind of bored to be there or something. 

[Ananayel]

I didn't see any promos on tv, online, or social media, so this was a surprise. I did love the opening, and liked how the runway and challenges will be divided so the first couple of eps aren't quite as overwhelming, while not being the full 7/7 split. 

I haven't got any faves or non-faves yet, but the pun-lover in me is liking a lot of the drag names. I'm not a Katy Perry fan, so I just tuned out all of that. 

 

[Red Bridey]

5 hours ago, Ananayel said:

I haven't got any faves or non-faves yet, but the pun-lover in me is liking a lot of the drag names. 

 

I'm kind of disappointed that there isn't more punning in drag names, frankly. Maybe the craft has gone beyond that trope, but I love a good name joke.

There's quite a mixed bag of competitors in this season with a lot of bitchiness on display already. Show, we don't need another Plane Jane or that other one...I am sorry, I forget all the names of past bitches. And contestants too for that matter. I kept looking at the pie-d girls and the queens in the product ads thinking, she looks familiar. Who is that? Am I supposed to recognize her? Oy, "can't remember shit" disease is real, y'all.

[Kaboom 2.0]

Not just the return of Lil Poundcake but a towering Lil Poundcake made my day! The reactions of the pie in the face queens were hilarious and of course Pork Chop got the chop first. 

I'm not a Katy Perry fan so her inclusion in the premiere eps is meh for me. That awful new song of hers just made me reminisce about the awesome Katya vs Kennedy Davenport LSFYL to Roar.

I knew Susie Toot had won the lip sync when Onya Nerve, whom I now love, pointed out that Susie had caught Ru's eye as Susie pointed to her foot and started tapping it. Ru does love her some zany antics.

Edited January 4 by Kaboom 2.0

[SemiCharmedLife]

That was a fun episode and I'm sooo glad the queens had a lot of variety in the talent show.  Too bad Acacia's talent didn't hit with the other queens.  I was looking forward to what she could bring to the season, based on her MTQ interview.  We'll have to see.  

I loved the entrances and runways of Lucky Stars, though I didn't enjoy her promo look.  I'm looking forward to more creative looks from her.  

Sorry, Onya Nurve, your runway was scary bad.  It seems like she has personality for days, though, so all is not lost.  

Other looks I loved:  Sam Star's rainbow beaded gown, Crystal, Lana and Lydia's masked runways.  

It was great seeing previous competitors in the Squirrel Games.

I thought it was silly for the week 2 queens to ask the week 1 queens who they thought was weaker in the talent show.  They need to make that decision for themselves.  It's not like an interview on who should stay a la All Stars- their decsions should be based on who was entertaining...or some other reason they come up with themselves.

 

[Starchild]

On 1/3/2025 at 10:49 PM, davidcalgary29 said:

Joella Ho is probably the least engaging of the bunch as she swirls in front of Katy Perry, her mentor? friend?

The whole time Katy Perry was interacting with Joella she was looking offscreen like she was reading a teleprompter or something. It was weird and off-putting.

[joanne3482]

I don't understand, or like really, the trend with the heavily striped nose. It's too jarring. So many of them are doing it now.

Kori King had a lot of talking heads this episode. I wonder if that's a sign of anything. 

This is a very young group of queens. The oldest is 34, Lexi Love, and the youngest are 22, Lana Ja' Rae and Jewels Sparkles. 

 

[violet and green]

I'm still a bit stunned by Katy Perry telling Ru to knock off the puns during her intro. Interesting group of queens. I really hope Acacia does not go home first.

Edited January 10 by violet and green
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