S10.E04: The Last Ball on Earth

[violet and green]

Oh, I'm sad Dusty Ray's gone. (I want that sparkly hat.)

That was a lovely exit interview...

The Vixen is so shouty! I don't care if Eureka is a bit of a pain now and then. Enough vein-popping rage!

Surprised Miz Cracker was top two - that was a corny final look.

I say it every week, but damn the makeup is good this season.

[rozen]

1 hour ago, Destiny74 said:

I enjoyed the episode.  

My one big takeaway? What was Tisha Campbell-Martin wearing?  I think it is a nice enough dress (but I don't like dresses that show that much cleavage, in general) but for a younger, much more pert lady.  It actually looked painful the way her breasts were pulled apart and taped into that dress.

I think she just has wide-set boobs. I thought it was fun to see more boob diversity, there was a quick shot where they panned from Michelle's hushpuppies fully locked and loaded to Tisha's melons roaming wild and free and I chuckled. 

I had to give it to Aquaria this round. Her looks were stunna and perfectly thought it, loved them all. I have to agree with Mz Cracker's initial assessment that she was a little too on the nose. I'm glad to see this season the girls can sew, and if they're lacking they know how to use a damn glue gun. I am so over talking heads of instagram queens whining 'but sewing is not what I doooooooooo!' RPDR has been on long enough that you know what's coming and should prepare accordingly.

In another season, Monet might have squeaked through for having two garments that weren't disintegrating on the runway. But here she absolutely deserved to be on the bottom. And I'm glad, because she slayed that lip sync. I see why the crowd goes wild for her, even if she's bald and untucked, as Cracker said. She has charisma for days. Can we have a friendly lip sync round between her and Peppermint? I might die of happiness, but it would be worth it.

I was with Mayhem making the 'omg, wtf is happening' face while Eurkea and Vixen were squabbling. Their personalities are kind of cut for the same cloth. It reminds me of when I have friends who are similar, but have never met before, and I always warn them they will either become bffs or hate each other.

Edited April 14, 2018 by rozen

[film noire]

7 hours ago, annewithaneee said:

 I love that "Vanjie...Vanjie....Miss Vanjie..." has become a thing. I'm not sure if they're doing it intentionally or not - they probably are? - but making that the "purse first" of this season is actually really lovely. I hope it keeps Vanessa from joining the Ms. Irrelevant club of other first eliminated queens. 

My husband was in Greenwich Village a few nights ago, and heard people calling out "Vanjie...Vanjie..Miss Vanjie" so I think her legend is only beginning ; )

[queenbee9b]

7 hours ago, violet and green said:

Oh, I'm sad Dusty Ray's gone. (I want that sparkly hat.)

That was a lovely exit interview...

The Vixen is so shouty! I don't care if Eureka is a bit of a pain now and then. Enough vein-popping rage!

Surprised Miz Cracker was top two - that was a corny final look.

I say it every week, but damn the makeup is good this season.

I am sad about Dusty too.  She really didn’t stand out for me at first but her story last week broke my heart a little and I wanted her to last a little longer. 

Edited April 14, 2018 by queenbee9b

[laprin]

Dusty rightly was sent packing, but I’m going to miss her. It’s so refreshing that I am rooting for almost all of the queens. The only queen I have zero interest in is Mayhem, which suprises me. She’s just soooo boring.  I know now why she kept being passed over for the show. 

[ClareWalks]

16 minutes ago, laprin said:

The only queen I have zero interest in is Mayhem, which suprises me. She’s just soooo boring.  I know now why she kept being passed over for the show. 

I have to agree...so far I have not seen the "wow factor" that I was expecting based on everyone's reactions to her in the intro (the other queens were totally gagged that Mayhem was finally here). Not seeing any dancing or acting ability, her looks are basic....is she an incredible singer or something?

[MaryWebGirl]

9 hours ago, Mayberry said:

I like Blair more and more. He seems stable and I really hope that he doesn't change. At the beginning of the episode I was thinking: what is he, like, 12? Then Ru mentioned it to him. He is my current favourite.

I've been super impressed with Blair. For being so young in what must be a tiny drag community she's really polished. I thought her Martian dress was probably the most well-crafted of any of the looks even if the concept wasn't crazy. 

I love having the mini challenges back every episode! With so many funny queens this season they've been great to watch.

[noveltylibrary]

On 4/13/2018 at 7:14 PM, annewithaneee said:

Back on topic, I rewatched and another thing stuck out to me -- I love that "Vanjie...Vanjie....Miss Vanjie..." has become a thing. I'm not sure if they're doing it intentionally or not - they probably are? - but making that the "purse first" of this season is actually really lovely. I hope it keeps Vanessa from joining the Ms. Irrelevant club of other first eliminated queens. 

She was my first pick to win before the season started.  So I hope so too!

[theatremouse]

I don't know if I have no taste or what but I thought for sure Aquaria was going to be bottom two and was super surprised when she got praise and then won. I was not picking up what she was putting down this ep.

[BarneySays]

On 4/13/2018 at 1:14 AM, HunterHunted said:

Monet was not entirely wrong when talking about British and American accents. There are some key features of what we think of as a typical British accent that did not develop in British speech until after the revolutionary war.

Someone else made the point.  How does one delete an entire comment? 

Edited April 17, 2018 by BarneySays

[ladle]

Someone will have to educate me about what was so special about Aquaria's outfits.  One just looked like cardboard cutouts of lightning bolts, to me. 

I kind of just love Blair.  She seems like such a genuinely nice person and so naturally talented - like a diamond in the rough plucked from the pages of obscurity to slay (yup, I'm mixing alllll my metaphors!).  That said, her walk in this challenge was *not* the business.  She looked like she was in pain (which apparently, maybe she was?). 

[agentpanda]

3 hours ago, Mayberry said:

I watched Untucked again and Eureka really didn't mean anything by the "crafty" comment towards Vixen. She was saying Vixen understood more what Monique was going for with her runway look. Vixen seemed to take this the wrong way. Guess she didn't like being called "crafty"? Or didn't like that Eureka was kind of criticising Monique's look.

The Vixen probably interpreted being "crafty" as somewhat of a backhanded compliment, intended or not. Craftiness is linked to arts and crafts and that doesn't necessarily translate to being sophisticated/polished which could be seen as a higher form of drag or what they could be going for. I think of it as a compliment like "well-spoken black person / POC." There's a racial prejudice there that is not that obvious. Anyway, Monique also didn't seem to like to hear being called crafty but you could see her and The Vixen holding back from going off right away on Eureka to give her the benefit of the doubt on intending to offend them.

 

Quote

Someone will have to educate me about what was so special about Aquaria's outfits.  One just looked like cardboard cutouts of lightning bolts, to me. 

As for Aquaria, that look really was practically composed of cardboard cutouts and very simple in concept but it was very high impact like all her other looks in the ball. The finishing on the outfit looked superb and she worked well for her chosen material (as opposed to say, Monet, with the same item but in red). I don't recall her mentioning David Bowie but it felt very referential to him (and he incidentally had well-known song called "Life on Mars"). It was the only way I see it fitting to the Martian theme, really, and not the superhero/villain thing they were on about.

Edited April 17, 2018 by agentpanda

[Corgi-ears]

20 minutes ago, Mayberry said:

It is a bit of an insult to call something "craft" rather than "art".

There have been countless times on the show when the judges have indeed used "crafty" (or its variants) as an insult, albeit a mild one. On All-Stars S03E04, to take one fairly recent example, Carson said of Kennedy's sunflower outfit, "Maybe that's a little arts and craftsy for me; maybe up the sophistication level..."

[Destiny74]

I get that crafty can be an insult.

 

I always found it to be a complement.  However, it implies that someone can make something stunning out of relatively cheap things.  Kinda like the first challenge this year...making an outfit out of dollar store goods.

I imagine some Queens don't have a sugar daddy or haven't been in the biz long enough to make the bank it takes to buy the really nice, quality fixings.  Crafty is actually a really good skill to hone in that situation.  

[TheLukeP]

Do not be confused.  Eureka was 100% full on shady southern belle with that crafty comment.   The only thing that would have made it any clearer is if she would have said "bless your heart" afterwards.  The Vixen was fully justified in taking umbrage.  Eureka totally admitted it when she went out for the smoke.  She said that she wanted to poke and see what happened.... well she saw what happened.   I'm not going to tone police The Vixen either for immediately jumping to 11 because sometimes that's all that can get the job done.

[SistaLadybug]

On 4/13/2018 at 6:59 AM, Kathira said:

That was so funny. I'm a linguistics nerd so I knew she was basically right, she just got the part about them going back to England wrong. We tend to think of Shakespeare spoken in those rich, plummy, Laurence Olivier tones, but American-style English, with our hard r's and flat a's, is actually probably closer to the way they spoke in the 16th century than modern upper-class Brit English is. Throw in a little Welsh and Scottish and bang - Shakespeare. French is like that, too. Despite modern French people looking down on Quebecois as being low and corrupted, the way they speak in Quebec is closer to 16th century French than modern French is.

This was a fun episode, but I was very sad to see Dusty go. I thought he really had a lot of potential.

THANK YOU! My daughter and I were screaming at the TV: "She's not wrong! She's not explaining it well, but she's not wrong!"

[TresGatos]

On 4/14/2018 at 8:15 AM, queenbee9b said:

I am sad about Dusty too.  She really didn’t stand out for me at first but her story last week broke my heart a little and I wanted her to last a little longer. 

But at least he gets to go home to his drop dead gorgeous fiance. That has to be some consolation.

[Gothish520]

On 4/12/2018 at 11:06 PM, beartrash said:

After tonight's episode, I have to start watching the runway portion of the show with the sound turned off, my eyes rolled so hard.

Those were some painfully unfunny comments.

You aren't the only one! I made it about a third of the way through the runway show and then had to hit mute...yikes.

[Dandesun]

On 4/17/2018 at 11:29 AM, TheLukeP said:

Do not be confused.  Eureka was 100% full on shady southern belle with that crafty comment.   The only thing that would have made it any clearer is if she would have said "bless your heart" afterwards.  The Vixen was fully justified in taking umbrage.  Eureka totally admitted it when she went out for the smoke.  She said that she wanted to poke and see what happened.... well she saw what happened.   I'm not going to tone police The Vixen either for immediately jumping to 11 because sometimes that's all that can get the job done.

Well, I consider Eureka to be a 'crafty queen' so that's probably why I didn't think her initial comment warranted the blitzkrieg that followed. All that being said, Eureka is a much better fighter than Aquaria and I had to laugh when she and Vixen were just tit to tit bellowing at each other. Had I been there in person, I would have been Mayhem, though.

[ClareWalks]

53 minutes ago, Dandesun said:

Well, I consider Eureka to be a 'crafty queen' so that's probably why I didn't think her initial comment warranted the blitzkrieg that followed.

I remember in season 9 when the queens were talking in the Werkroom and Eureka referred to her "craft room" and says she has to go in there and make things or she won't be able to make money. So yep, I think you're right that Eureka doesn't think of "crafty" as a bad thing. 

[Mahfouz]

On 4/13/2018 at 7:14 PM, annewithaneee said:

Back on topic, I rewatched and another thing stuck out to me -- I love that "Vanjie...Vanjie....Miss Vanjie..." has become a thing. I'm not sure if they're doing it intentionally or not - they probably are? - but making that the "purse first" of this season is actually really lovely. I hope it keeps Vanessa from joining the Ms. Irrelevant club of other first eliminated queens. 

Mrs. Mahfouz and I are rewatching this season right now and it is SO interesting to see how the whole "Miss Vangie" thing really took off completely organically. Knowing it was coming at the end the first episode the whole thing seemed really underwhelming/disappointing. We expected something more. But it's been hilarious how everybody has just picked up on the whole "vaaaaannnnnggiiie" thing. It really makes me LOVE Vangie. She must be super charismatic in person.