S11.E03: Diva Worship

[OnceSane]

Quote

The queens put their pop icon knowledge to the test when the have to perform in LIVE diva worship talk shows. Singer/actor Troye Sivan (Boy Erased) and actor Guillermo Diaz (Scandal) guest judge.

Airs March 14, 2019.

[Temperance]

If there was ever challenge where they deserved to be judged as teams, this was it.

Mariah Carey's movie was Glitter, not Sparkle. I'm not a Mariah fan (very neutral towards her), but I knew that.

Having seen the look, I don't know why Yvie had to paint everything.

Michelle Visage is as quite restrained as a judge tonight. 

That lipsync was epic.... and crowded!

[DanielleC.]

Well, comming from a solid/promissing premiere, a great second episode, this third one was rough. I glad tho, Ru/Producers are calling the queens out already, instead of doing like on season 7 (that still holds the tittle of worst acting challenge ever).

Anyway, Britney groups was very good at least.. The ones that needed to step up did it (Mercedes is still lacking in moments).. Totally agree with Nina winning it (glad again that Ru is not biased as Ross/Michelle towards Vangie.. Yep, she stands out, but her ´´acting`` is just her playing her own character and it goes over the board in a few spots.. Its fun, but shouldnt beat someone that actually created a character from the scratch and hold it together all the way). Runway also helped  on choose the winner... most went too basic, Nina stood out more.

From the losing team, yep, some brought with their runway (since they got warned).. Plastique and Scarlett still rested on pretty tho.. Anyway, it didnt matter, that was so many things they could have made fun of Mariah that was no excuse about it.. And Plastique, guuuiiirl, you better stop with this thing about not knowing pop culture otherwise Ru wont take it anymore.

From what I thought it would be a mess of a lip sync, actually most of them did good.. Honey totally stood out as the most lost/desperated, going under the stage, so she made it easier for Ru to send her home.

[zenithwit]

Wouldn't it be funny if Ru had fed false information about Mariah Carey to the team?  I'm not a big Mariah Carey fan and even I knew more about her than the drag queens.

In other news, looks like Silky and Yvie are fighting for the Vixen spot on Untucked.

[Ruby Gillis]

53 minutes ago, DanielleC. said:

From what I thought it would be a mess of a lip sync, actually most of them did good.. Honey totally stood out as the most lost/desperated, going under the stage, so she made it easier for Ru to send her home.

I found myself looking at Plastique the least but with the editing, who knows what happened? I couldn't tell what happened with Honey.  Did she do that on purpose or just fall off the stage?

[DanielleC.]

22 minutes ago, Ruby Gillis said:

I found myself looking at Plastique the least but with the editing, who knows what happened? I couldn't tell what happened with Honey.  Did she do that on purpose or just fall off the stage?

I  think she might have thought that going out front, she would stand out instead of share the stage with the other queens with is something that Ru usually dont like. Also, this is a fierce song, so while the other queens were standing at the stage trying to look fierce, poor Honey looked miserable laying on the floor/trying to return at the stage, almost crying (almot a break down moment as Yara on season 3..). She is a nice queen, she wanted too much to stay on the show, she lost controll of herself.

[phoenix780]

This was interesting. Ru in the workroom reminded me of Tyra on later antm seasons, which was concerning. Then the first group was awesome, which was fun. Putting all of them up for elimination was exciting. But, after what feels like a lot of recent non-eliminations, I wanted them to thin the herd by two, at least. I'm hoping one more goes at the beginning of next week's episode. 

On a different note, how can you go into drag not studying pop culture? How can you go into entertainment not studying it? Is this the point in a reality show's life where contestants are so young they grew up wanting to be on the show more than wanting to be the actual thing the show is about? 

Vanjie is gold, I love her. Nina West's outfit on the runway, awesome. I feel like they're all I need at this point. With a side of Evie. 

[JakeyJokes]

I am a Mariah Carey superfan and even saw her in concert the night before (and yes she was amazing), so this episode gave me a very I AM FEELING VERY ATTACKED sensation.

That said, the Britney team did *so* well that it should be a good argument to let the teams improv/write their own challenges as opposed to relying on clunky scripts.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I was so embarrassed for Team Mariah. How can you choose her as your diva but not know anything about her? One of them started singing a Whitney Houston song when they were talking about Mariah, FFS. When Ru pointed out that they didn't know what Mariah calls her fans, that should have told them that they didn't know enough to use her as their diva. How can you build an entire skit around a celebrity that you don't know jack shit about?

Scarlett did well in the last acting challenge but she was a mess this time. She was right when she said the singing was a mess but that they could have saved it with that "technical difficulty" excuse. Hahaha, I laughed my ass off when Ross's parting advice to Team Mariah was to bring it on the runway.

Team Britney did a great job, mostly due to Miss Vanjie. She did her best to save the scene when Mercedes flopped during the conversion. They did a good job dropping a bunch of Britney's song titles into their skit.

I totally cracked up when A'Keria said that there might be something beautiful blossoming between Brooke and Vanjie because she was noticing them cuddling. The look on her face while she was watching them in the workroom was hilarious.

OMG, do Muslims go to mausoleums? A'keria, GURL.

I felt bad for Mercedes because she clearly didn't feel comfortable talking about being Muslim. I did enjoy the others talking about their church experiences though.

I found it amusing how scandalized everyone was by Yvie being butt naked in the workroom. After seeing her on the runway, I thought it was unnecessary for her to get totally naked and paint every inch of her body in pink. A pink leotard or unitard would have done the job and then she would have only needed to paint her face, neck, chest, and arms.

When Ru announced that this week's runway category was fringe, I thought that Sean Kelly of Project Runway would have been all over that.

Michelle's description of Honey Davenport's grey runway look was accurate. Her shiny dark grey fringe really did look like a VHS tape that got stuck in the VCR.

Scarlett looked pretty in her white Marilyn Monroe-esque outfit but it was just a corset/leotard with fringe and long gloves.

Shuga Cain's Apache outfit was a nice change from the more basic looks but between the long bangs and the dark eye makeup, I felt like the top part of her face was hidden. If she had cut the bangs on that wig even half an inch shorter, I would have been able to see her eyes and I would have liked it better from the neck up.

Plastique Tiara was giving me Christina Aguilera vibes, but the skirt was just a little bit too long. At first I didn't understand how she didn't know about Mariah until a few years ago and then I remembered that Mariah's pinnacle of pop success was quite honestly, about 20 years ago. I'm not making excuses for Plastique though because Mariah is still an icon and as a drag queen/entertainer, you need to know pop culture references. I'm just saying that if she only learned about pop culture a few years ago, Mariah was not at her peak then. Mariah as a singer circa 93-96 and Mariah as pop culture fodder during her Glitter failure/TRL implosion is not comparable to Mariah in recent years. She was inescapable in the 90s and early 00s and that is not the case anymore.

I liked A'Keria's goddess outfit. The headdress gave it a more elegant vibe. I wish the gold fringe on the dress had been a little thinner though. They were cut so wide that they were chunky instead of giving more motion.

Ra'Jah's red outfit was just a beaded leotard with fringe.

Nina looked like one of those super shaggy dogs (but in a good way). I liked the wig/head dress too.

Brooke's hippie daisy look didn't quite fulfill the challenge for me.

Vanjie's red fringe outfit was hot!

Yvie's pink jellyfish look was simple in concept but it worked so well. Lots of runway impact.

I was disappointed in the neon yellow fringe outfit that Mercedes wore. It looked like it was just a black leotard with fringe. She's lucky that she was on the winning team because her runway look and her performance in the skit were both subpar.

Ariel Versace's holographic paillette look wasn't fringey enough for me.

Silky's blue disco look was so sparkly, which I liked, but the outfit itself was a bit shapeless.

I loved that Ross reminded the queens that whatever is going on with you, when you hit the stage, the audience should never see anything but a great performance. That is what makes you a performer!

My only regret about the six person LSFYL was that we didn't get a split screen showing all six queens simultaneously. Ra'Jah won the lip sync in my book. Plastique did a little too much ponytail whipping, but I thought she did pretty well too. Honey was the clear loser of the lip sync. She made a series of bad choices. The biggest one was jumping off the stage because when you are wearing a head to toe black costume, choosing to go where there's no lighting is just a bad idea which was compounded by crawling around on the floor which meant that she was below all the judges' eyelines. Her actual lip sync/dancing was not great either.

[Stardancer Supreme]

I cackled all the way through this episode.  I'm glad Ru made the whole Mariah team LSFYL. They were awful in that skit!

Vanjie is bae. Yvie is second bae.

How old is Honey Davenport? She seems so ... young to be someone's drag mother. I knew she was a goner when she went off the stage.

Plastique needed an exorcist. "She scared me! But she's pretty, though." *snort* 

[slaterain]

I was so happy to see Nina West step up and win a challenge - and that runway!!! Loved her shaggy dog/mop look! She is a hometown girl and people love her here. I actually pass by large letter balloons "NINA" with a bunch of regular balloons with YASSSSS QUEEN on them - every day. My office is right next to an independent non-profit movie theater that has been airing the episodes. 

The Oddly girl (still trying to remember the names)  with the pink body paint everywhere seemed so unnecessary but I do like that she calls people out for not owning their own shi*t. I wasn't sure about her in the previous episodes but I'm beginning to like her more and more each week. Their smoke break convo was perfect!

I could barely watch the Mariah skit - I was right there with Ross wanting to cover my face that I ended up ff-ing through some of it!!!

Poor Honey - she just wasn't quite ready for this. I wish she had added a wig and taken just the head covering off for the lip synch as I think that was also a huge part of how she didn't connect. And she was so desperate that I wasn't surprised that she went home. 

[Blakeston]

I was annoyed that none of the judges or contestants pointed out during the runway that Ra'Jah was ostensibly the team leader. She's really, really lucky that she wasn't held any more accountable than anyone else.

It was clearly a bad decision to choose someone they didn't know much about, but that wasn't even close to being their biggest problem. They just didn't know what they were doing, and they seemed to be winging it.

If there had been a bottom two, I would have chosen Ra'Jah and Plastique. Why on earth was Plastique speaking in that guttural voice? Was she under the impression that exorcists speak that way - as opposed to people who need exorcists?

Plastique and Ra'Jah were both bland as hell on the runway, too. And Plastique would have been wise to point out that being from Vietnam, she has different pop culture icons than the other queens - as opposed to saying that she's completely ignorant about pop culture in general.

Edited March 16, 2019 by Blakeston

[ElectricBoogaloo]

37 minutes ago, Blakeston said:

Plastique would have been wise to point out that being from Vietnam, she has different pop culture icons than the other queens - as opposed to saying that she's completely ignorant about pop culture in general.

I thought she told the judges that she moved here when she was 11. Maybe she had really strict parents which would explain if she didn’t get exposed to pop culture (tv, radio, etc) until she moved out and had more control over what she could watch and listen to. 

[phoenix780]

5 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

My only regret about the six person LSFYL was that we didn't get a split screen showing all six queens simultaneously. Ra'Jah won the lip sync in my book. Plastique did a little too much ponytail whipping, but I thought she did pretty well too. Honey was the clear loser of the lip sync. She made a series of bad choices. The biggest one was jumping off the stage because when you are wearing a head to toe black costume, choosing to go where there's no lighting is just a bad idea which was compounded by crawling around on the floor which meant that she was below all the judges' eyelines. Her actual lip sync/dancing was not great either.

This! I thought leaving the stage to perform was a rules violation, after Mimi Imfurst back in the day, but even if it isn't- why would you choose to perform in the dark, wearing dark clothing?

With the pop culture knowledge thing- my issue wasn't just Plastique, although I am confused about the timeline (didn't she say she came to the US at 11 years old?). None of the people on that team seemed to have either really deep knowledge about one female icon to help carry the team, or enough breadth to come up with more than a few limited options. I do wonder, though, whether they had to pick from a list. They didn't use any of the music, but production gave them photos to decorate the stage, so there was some limited prepwork. 

I feel like their pop culture knowledge may be overly-rooted in the show itself (example- someone said they were having a Milk moment). That does not bode well for the Snatch Game, or whatever impersonation challenge they do.

I do think someone on Team Mariah could have saved themselves somewhat by saying it was meta- at this point Mariah's as known for bad performances as she is for her songs. Try to spin it for a second, y'know? 

[JakeyJokes]

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I thought she told the judges that she moved here when she was 11. Maybe she had really strict parents which would explain if she didn’t get exposed to pop culture (tv, radio, etc) until she moved out and had more control over what she could watch and listen to. 

I was thinking that, too. A good friend of mine is first-generation from Vietnamese parents; she would rebel by speaking to them in English.

[Blakeston]

25 minutes ago, phoenix780 said:

This! I thought leaving the stage to perform was a rules violation, after Mimi Imfurst back in the day, but even if it isn't- why would you choose to perform in the dark, wearing dark clothing?

Mimi's problem wasn't that she left the stage, it was that she lifted another performer against her will.

I don't think there's ever been a rule about not leaving the stage. Kennedy jumped off the stage when she beat Katya in S7.

Even if Plastique had super-strict parents, she must have had some sort of childhood idol she could point to. That would have gone over a lot better than just "I don't know pop culture."

[Ananayel]

I hope this is a lesson to all future queens that, if you answer the question "Who do you think is responsible for that crap I just watched?" (paraphrased) with "myself" or "all of us," you are highly likely to wind up doing a LSFYL. No. Don't do it. If you can't think of a person, just name the team leader. 

Do any old folks like me remember on the Carol Burnett Show, when Harvey Korman would look at Tim Conway and just start to crack up even before anything was said - because he just knew it was going to be a riot? I'm Harvey, and Vanjie is Tim. I just know whatever is going to come out of her mouth, no matter the context, is going to make me laugh, so I get a head start. Love her.

[Destiny74]

I wasn't impressed with Vangie last season, or the beginning of this season but her talking heads are totally winning me over.  And she did a fantastic job in the skit.  Thanking herself, catching it, and playing it off was awesome and hilarious.  That's what I call good improv.

I call BS on Plastique not knowing pop culture.  She surely has a network of American friends and divas are a favorite topic of conversation and quips.  Even if she is only an Instagram or YouTube queen, does she not follow anyone?  Not to mention there is no shortage of female performers considered divas now days.  Hell, she referenced Beyonce...why not mention or fight for the team to deify her?  

I am just confused on why they chose Mariah when no one seemed to know anything about her.  Madonna, Beyonce, Aretha, Gladys,  Celine, Christina, Diana, Gaga, Katie.  I could go on and on.  One person on that team has to be a super fan of at least one diva.  Why not choose a diva at least one person faints over?  That person could take the lead and school the others.  It was messy and a seriously dumb choice.

I think Yvie did the whole body painting in part to wig out the other queens.  There was really no need for it and he was painting right there, in the open.  No attempt at modesty what so ever. I think it was strategy more than look.  No shade.  Do what you feel you need to do, Yvie, I just hope you threw all those sponges and brushes away.

Yvie and Silky's fight in the lounge was ridiculous.  And Silky's reveal?  Snore.  Yvie was right though, Silky's reveal and claim that she was ready to LSFYS was pointless and just there to give her an air of drama.

Speaking of Silky, I wish Ru would stop calling her Dr.  She hasn't completed her PhD yet...

Edited March 15, 2019 by Destiny74

[luckyroll3]

Team Mariah was absolutely awful.  I mean, the greatest thing about Mariah, besides all the absolute shade she throws at everybody ("I don't know her" - which is what they should have said anytime anyone mentioned Arianna Grande or some other singer, duh), is that she prefers only her right side to be filmed/photographed and she loves lounging on chaises.  There is so much the could have done with that just that! Ugh!

I'm glad they were all in the bottom, because it was collectively and spectacularly an entire group fail.  And that lipsync was more exciting than most of the lipsync's on the last all-stars.  

[CraftyHazel]

1 hour ago, Destiny74 said:

I am just confused on why they chose Mariah when no one seemed to know anything about her.  Madonna, Beyonce, Aretha, Gladys,  Celine, Christina, Diana, Gaga, Katie.  I could go on and on.  One person on that team has to be a super fan of at least one diva.  Why not choose a diva at least one person faints over?  That person could take the lead and school the others.  It was messy and a seriously dumb choice.

Sorry for the hardcore snipping, but this is the paragraph I needed to address...

In the beginning of their discussion of which diva to worship, they asked each queen in their group to throw out names.  Scarlett said, “Well, I’m from the South, so Dolly...”

Come on!  Dolly is in on her own joke!!  Her goddaughter Miley Cyrus was just there a couple of episodes ago.  She’s a friggin’ legend, and is basically a 70-year-old, female drag queen.  She’d have been so easy to worship!!  Big hair, big boobs, hooker looks for days!  Scarlett should have pushed harder...I mean, everyone knows Dolly!!

[ClareWalks]

19 minutes ago, Marmiarmo said:

Come on!  Dolly is in on her own joke!!  Her goddaughter Miley Cyrus was just there a couple of episodes ago.  She’s a friggin’ legend, and is basically a 70-year-old, female drag queen.  She’d have been so easy to worship!!  Big hair, big boobs, hooker looks for days!  Scarlett should have pushed harder...I mean, everyone knows Dolly!!

That would have been much better! Also Dolly just LOOKS LIKE those ladies on the evangelical shows. It would be easy to look like a Dolly Clone Cult of some sort 😛  

[Temperance]

8 hours ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

How old is Honey Davenport? She seems so ... young to be someone's drag mother. I knew she was a goner when she went off the stage.

Honey is 32 and not only a drag mother, but a drag grandma. She has at least two drag daughters Bob the Drag Queen and Monet X Change. Bob the Drag Queen is Miz Cracker's drag mother so Honey Davenport is her drag grandmother. 

[Glade]

Evie Oddly's Jellyfish fringe was legendary.  Some of the other queens...were not.  I still have a bad hangover from AS4 where Monet (and sometimes Trinity--who I nearly mistook Scarlet Envy for on this runway) kept trotting out those basic showgirl leotards with a little sequin/fringe week after week, and seeing some of the girls bring out those looks on this episode made me wretch. Michelle was right, it's NOT ENOUGH.  I have no problem with HD going home, and yes it is against the rules to leave the stage.

Are they really not allowed to just google Mariah Carey?  Maybe on a WOW computer that blocks twitter and facebook?  It seems ridiculous, but they definitely should have chosen someone else--not that it would have made the two hosts acting and incredibly slow vocalizations any better.  I'm glad the first team at least did well, and Vanjie was hilarious.

Edited March 15, 2019 by Glade

[Stinger97]

Team IBBN did an amazing job and I was pretty impressed with Nina's ability to keep the show moving. I also really enjoyed Vanjie's performance, although it's starting to become a little one note for me. Gimme some more range, Vanjie!

I was surprised that Honey went home as early as the third episode, but can't say I was super disappointed. 

[Rosenrot]

Oof. Team Mariah was pretty bad. I feel like even I know more about Mariah, and that's not good, 'cause gurl, I don't know a whole lot. (I did crack up at Plastique's random, out-of-place demon voice though, AND SHE'S SO BEAUTIFUL I DIE.) They could've easily singled out Ra'Jah since she was the team leader, but I'm glad they didn't. I hate it everytime Ru goes "whose fault do you think this is" or "who do you think should go home" or some such question that is only asked to create drama, but it is a reality TV program, so I guess I just have to suck it up.

Vanjie still confuses me. Like she has all the attributes that should make me like her, but something in her just rubs me the wrong way a little bit. Dunno what it is. Maybe I just need a couple of more episodes with her. With that said, I hope she and Brooke Lynn hook up. 😄 (Or… hooked up, since I don't know when this was filmed.) Have two queens ever fallen in love / hooked up in RPDR? I only know of Manila & Sahara and Sharon & Alaska, but they met prior the show.

LOL, Yvie has no shame. And I love it. 

15 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Hahaha, I laughed my ass off when Ross's parting advice to Team Mariah was to bring it on the runway.

Hello shady!Ross!

OH, and also I forgot: "Who the hell's Allah?" I DIED. I know I shouldn't laugh at the face of ignorance, but gurrrllllll I can't. 

Edited March 16, 2019 by Rosenrot

[Isle Of Why]

I enjoy Vanjie's personality very much (and maybe the first RPDR showmance?) but honestly her runway look was JALL -- just another lazy leotard. And red again. She looked pretty in it, but Yvie and Nina's creativity was much more interesting to me. Give me a mop and pink jellyfish anytime.

I'm wondering if Vanjie is unintentionally funny or if it's planned. I tend to think the former. Love her either way, but I'm not sure she's clever or calculating enough in that specific way to set up deliberate jokes.

[belligerent]

Scarlet reminds me of my ex-boyfriend for some reason. I had that thought immediately on seeing him out of drag and that hasn't gone away yet.

I'm very glad that the Britney team did so well. That gives me hope for Snatch Game.

[Ohiopirate02]

4 hours ago, Mayberry said:

OK I am starting to figure out who some of the contestants are.

But I had to go back and re-watch the episode to see who Honey was again, out of drag. 

I am remembering A'Keria more now. Though maybe it's because she wasn't doing well. Same with Ra'Jah (plus her beef with Yvie last week.)

Shuga and Ariel are fading in the background for me.

Yvie and Nina are standing out, in terms of talent.

Plastique and Scarlett are in danger of just being pretty (which isn't so bad- but they need to step it up.)

The Britney sketch was well done. Bummed neither group went for Whitney (who I diva worship) especially after that Mariah travesty.

The Mariah team did consider Whitney but decided against for a very valid reason.  Most of the outrageous antics that Whitney was known for came from a place of pain.  And there's also strong rumors that Whitney was in the closet for decades.  I applaud the queens for not mining that for laughs.

[Earmuffs Mom]

Silky’s Untucked meltdown was not cute.

Leotards upon leotards upon leotards...Any other time Michelle would have come for them. 

[JakeyJokes]

2 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

The Mariah team did consider Whitney but decided against for a very valid reason.  Most of the outrageous antics that Whitney was known for came from a place of pain.  And there's also strong rumors that Whitney was in the closet for decades.  I applaud the queens for not mining that for laughs.

Yeah, Whitney has either been very overdone in the Being Bobby Brown vein (Debra Wilson on MAD TV, Maya Rudolph on SNL, Sahara Davenport and Monet XChange on this show) that I don't fault them for not doing her. I agree that there's a risk in going for the easy drug jokes with her and it would have been messy. Not like Mariah still wasn't.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

13 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

Team Mariah was absolutely awful.  I mean, the greatest thing about Mariah, besides all the absolute shade she throws at everybody ("I don't know her" - which is what they should have said anytime anyone mentioned Arianna Grande or some other singer, duh), is that she prefers only her right side to be filmed/photographed and she loves lounging on chaises.  There is so much the could have done with that just that! Ugh!

I'm glad they were all in the bottom, because it was collectively and spectacularly an entire group fail.  And that lipsync was more exciting than most of the lipsync's on the last all-stars.  

I KNOW! Mariah has given us a plethora of recognizable things they they could have used and all they really used was putting butterflies on Plastique's hair.

They could have made the right side of the face thing part of the church (like every time they said Mariah's name, they would turn their heads to show the right side of their faces) AND the conversion ceremony ("Turn your head to the right and repeat after me").

They totally should have done the "I don't know her" any time Ariana Grande or other singers were mentioned ("Do you renounce Ariana Grande?" "I don't know her!").

They could have made part of the conversion ceremony a fancy bubble bath (instead of a baptism).

They could have ended each prayer with an ear piercing whistle note (instead of "amen").

At the end of the conversion ceremony, they could have said that she was officially a lamb and had her baaaaaaa.

They could have dropped A LOT more song titles and lyrics into the script too.

What that entire group collectively knew about Mariah wouldn't fit in a thimble. On top of that, what they did was neither cohesive nor funny. It was a painful yet boring trainwreck.

[ClareWalks]

The Mariah skit was sloppier than Shakesqueer. There, I said it. Lord, these folks said TIMMY Mottola when it's supposed to be TOMMY. They also got the twins' names wrong. Since they only had a couple of specifics they needed to be right. And the singing part at the end where they sang totally different lyrics and Rajah was like "she's bending the pitch," girl that is the least of your worries.

[stormy weather]

Although I obviously agree that Team Mariah's performance was painful to watch, I still kind of don't like the fact that in team challenges the team is judged as a whole and not by individual performances. This way queens who did not perform so well (hello, Silky and especially "why-are-you-still-here" Mercedes) get to be safe with the winners even though they don't deserve it, whereas people who weren't that great but still did a decent job (like Shuga or yes, even Ra'jah with that handkerchief) have to LSFTL. End result is that now we're stuck with Mercedes and we risked losing more valuable players. (And actually IMHO we did, because even Honey was better than her.)

And I've always loved Ru but, I don't know why, this season she seems more of a pot stirrer and also a bit more "mean", so to say, than in the past seasons. The way she was looking at Honey when she jumped offstage was so judgmental and deprecating I actually felt bad for Honey, even though yeah, she didn't exactly excel at her lip sync performance. 

Also, I know we're not gonna get rid of Silky anytime soon because for some reason Ru adores her, but her fight backstage during untucked was absolutely ridiculous. Also, is she gonna give piggyback rides to every single guest judge who goes backstage?

Miss Vanjie and Ariel Versace are really growing on me, and I also like Shuga and Ra'Jah, but man, Yvie with that jellyfish costume was EVERYTHING. I hope she gets to stay for a long time, she's by far the most interesting of the bunch.

Edited March 16, 2019 by stormy weather

[Juneau Gal]

I like Vanjie, don’t get me wrong, her exit last season will forever make me giggle. But, she is very one note, the loud harsh voice with utterly no variation is wearing thin, and I get the impression because she was brought back she is thinking she is special, so much so that she is interjecting herself into things when she would best stay quiet. You can often hear her barking out bon mots as events are happening. I hope she starts to moderate herself a bit or she risks wearing out her welcome. 

[theatremouse]

On 3/15/2019 at 11:06 AM, Destiny74 said:

I call BS on Plastique not knowing pop culture.  She surely has a network of American friends and divas are a favorite topic of conversation and quips.  Even if she is only an Instagram or YouTube queen, does she not follow anyone?  Not to mention there is no shortage of female performers considered divas now days.  Hell, she referenced Beyonce...why not mention or fight for the team to deify her?  

I am just confused on why they chose Mariah when no one seemed to know anything about her.  Madonna, Beyonce, Aretha, Gladys,  Celine, Christina, Diana, Gaga, Katie.  I could go on and on.  One person on that team has to be a super fan of at least one diva.  Why not choose a diva at least one person faints over?  That person could take the lead and school the others.  It was messy and a seriously dumb choice.

I think Plastique maybe didn't mean "pop culture" in general overall but meant it in the context of the challenge. So like she may know who many divas are...maybe a song or two...but no details. Basically she was admitting to not knowing...any of the pop culture stuff that participating in this show generally assumes you must know. Like, lord help her with Snatch Game. She'll have nuthin'.

I also think where they faltered in the choosing was in trying to have a consensus in the first place. They didn't even consider the notion of pick someone ONE person knew really well and could then feed them bits to do that'd be on theme. That's the problem. A few of them threw out possibles and then the group as a whole rejected those suggestions as the others didn't know enough about them. So it turned into "who do we all know (even if barely)" rather than "who does ANYone know realllllllly well". It was collectively stupid. Like they decided if they had 4-5 people with level 1 knowledge of the diva they chose, that's somehow a better choice than picking a diva one person had level 9 knowledge. Bad choice.

[Destiny74]

59 minutes ago, theatremouse said:

Like, lord help her with Snatch Game. She'll have nuthin'.

I was thinking of this just this morning.  I hope she makes it to Snatch Game just so I can see what she will do.

[Blakeston]

On 3/16/2019 at 2:53 PM, stormy weather said:

Also, I know we're not gonna get rid of Silky anytime soon because for some reason Ru adores her,

Ru will keep anyone around if they bring that much drama.

6 hours ago, Mayberry said:

She has been talking a lot on Twitter about it the pop culture "controversy":

Her comments really irritate me. She chose to be on a show where knowledge of American pop culture is an essential part of being a good competitor. Ru has made it abundantly clear that she expects that from the contestants.

She could have easily waited a year to apply, to give herself time to learn the basics. No one forced her to be on the show just three years after being exposed to pop culture for the first time.

[Rai]

I'm not watching Untucked, so can someone please give me the quick DL on what happened with Silky? I'm already exhausted, but I am curious.

I would not have given the backstage pass win to Ra'jah, but, ya know, okay. Nina was pretty great in it, and she was a polished pro leading the Britney church, so I'm very cool with her for the win. That said, I laughed nonstop through Miss Vanjie's moment. She's just comedy gold. 

There are just so many other divas who are rich with material (Madonna! Gaga! Beyonce! Cher! CHER! Aretha! Patty LaBelle!), but honestly, even if they'd gotten someone who they were better acquainted with, I don't think they had the improv chops to carry it off. I do think Sugah was actually doing fine, but she had dead wood to play off. I would've been fine with her being safe right from the get go, and I was surprised she was nearly the last one standing. But once Honey Davenport fell off the stage, Ru seemed pretty clear who she was going to choose to send home.

I personally have no problem with Ru taking a more active hand in both stirring the pot, but also challenging the queens to step it up. Her response to the queens dunking on Silky was to basically say "come up to her level and grab the spotlight back" and I am here for that. Telling Church Mariah some tidbits about their chosen diva and then telling them to think about doing someone else wasn't subtle, but I'm way okay with her being straight up that they're in danger, girls. They still didn't take the hint! But they can't say they weren't warned.

[phoenix780]

6 hours ago, Blakeston said:

Ru will keep anyone around if they bring that much drama.

Her comments really irritate me. She chose to be on a show where knowledge of American pop culture is an essential part of being a good competitor. Ru has made it abundantly clear that she expects that from the contestants.

She could have easily waited a year to apply, to give herself time to learn the basics. No one forced her to be on the show just three years after being exposed to pop culture for the first time.

Yeah...Twitter just doesn't do any good for anyone, does it. I thought her demon voice was funny (now that I read a comment reminding me it happened), but all those excuses/reasons...whatever.

Silky on Untucked- from what I remember, there were two things. First, she said that she was having trouble in the challenge because of her religion- she didn't want to pretend to worship Britney as a god. Yvie then said this was the first Silky mentioned it, which made it seem like an excuse for a mediocre performance. Then Silky went unhinged (for airtime, I'm sure), about how she was ready to LSFYL, and she ripped off part of her outfit to I guess show the reveal she had planned. Later, when the guest judges went backstage, she did the same crap she did with Miley Cyrus- bending over in front of one of them, then throwing a leg up as if that weren't enough for us to get the simulation she was going for.

She did a lot to get attention, it seems. Hopefully they start editing it out, because she'll probably be around for awhile and there have to be other things they can show (or maybe not, maybe this was a more subdued cast or something).

[Not4Me]

On 3/15/2019 at 1:22 PM, Ananayel said:

I hope this is a lesson to all future queens that, if you answer the question "Who do you think is responsible for that crap I just watched?" (paraphrased) with "myself" or "all of us," you are highly likely to wind up doing a LSFYL. No. Don't do it. If you can't think of a person, just name the team leader. 

Heh, well they aren’t here to make friends, so....

Actually the positive thing about girls was their willingness to not throw each other under the bus, like Ru normally expects them to (shady bitch that she is). There seemed to be a real camaraderie among them in spite of their spectacular fail.

On 3/16/2019 at 2:53 PM, stormy weather said:

And I've always loved Ru but, I don't know why, this season she seems more of a pot stirrer and also a bit more "mean", so to say, than in the past seasons. The way she was looking at Honey when she jumped offstage was so judgmental and deprecating I actually felt bad for Honey, even though yeah, she didn't exactly excel at her lip sync performance. 

Ru was probably thinking...”if this bitch breaks her leg off my damn stage I may see a lawsuit!” And that was not an elegant jump at all (think Kenya Michaels) so she deserved to be sashayed away.

I watched “Untucked” and Silky’s ridiculous camera mugging was a big yawn, however I  felt bad for Honey, she took the loss so painfully (though again, it was deserved). Someone mentioned upthread that maybe she isn’t cut-throat for this type of competition and I couldn’t agree more.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Not4Me

[rlc]

I went into this season thinking I’d hate Vanjie, but she is a goddamned star. While she’s likely unintentionally funny, I cannot take my eyes off of her whenever she’s on screen. She is pure joy.

[Kaboom 2.0]

I did not realize how much I liked Nina West until her performance, talking heads & runway this ep, what a sweetie. Loved her reaction to her win! Team IBBN was so tight & the queens on that team were so in sync, Team Mariah didn't have a chance. Love Yvie & of course Vangie.

I will always heart Guillermo Diaz not for Scandal, but for his guest spots on the Dave Chappelle Show, and he deserved better than being assaulted by Silky during Untucked. 

Btw for the past eleven seasons, everytime we see Ru dressed as a fabulous car racing pit crew member in her fabulous pink jumpsuit during the show's opening credits & after commercial breaks... I immediately think of Mariah in her Loverboy music video from back in the day. LOL

Edited March 20, 2019 by Kaboom 2.0

[ElectricBoogaloo]

6 hours ago, Kaboom 2.0 said:

Btw for the past eleven seasons, everytime we see Ru dressed as a fabulous car racing pit crew member in her fabulous pink jumpsuit during the show's opening credits & after commercial breaks... I immediately think of Mariah in her Loverboy music video from back in the day. LOL

Same here!

[OnceSane]

Team Mariah was tragic.  Not one good performance, imo.  

[Gothish520]

On 3/15/2019 at 6:04 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I was so embarrassed for Team Mariah. How can you choose her as your diva but not know anything about her? One of them started singing a Whitney Houston song when they were talking about Mariah, FFS. When Ru pointed out that they didn't know what Mariah calls her fans, that should have told them that they didn't know enough to use her as their diva. How can you build an entire skit around a celebrity that you don't know jack shit about?

Scarlett did well in the last acting challenge but she was a mess this time. She was right when she said the singing was a mess but that they could have saved it with that "technical difficulty" excuse. Hahaha, I laughed my ass off when Ross's parting advice to Team Mariah was to bring it on the runway.

Team Britney did a great job, mostly due to Miss Vanjie. She did her best to save the scene when Mercedes flopped during the conversion. They did a good job dropping a bunch of Britney's song titles into their skit.

I totally cracked up when A'Keria said that there might be something beautiful blossoming between Brooke and Vanjie because she was noticing them cuddling. The look on her face while she was watching them in the workroom was hilarious.

OMG, do Muslims go to mausoleums? A'keria, GURL.

I felt bad for Mercedes because she clearly didn't feel comfortable talking about being Muslim. I did enjoy the others talking about their church experiences though.

I found it amusing how scandalized everyone was by Yvie being butt naked in the workroom. After seeing her on the runway, I thought it was unnecessary for her to get totally naked and paint every inch of her body in pink. A pink leotard or unitard would have done the job and then she would have only needed to paint her face, neck, chest, and arms.

When Ru announced that this week's runway category was fringe, I thought that Sean Kelly of Project Runway would have been all over that.

Michelle's description of Honey Davenport's grey runway look was accurate. Her shiny dark grey fringe really did look like a VHS tape that got stuck in the VCR.

Scarlett looked pretty in her white Marilyn Monroe-esque outfit but it was just a corset/leotard with fringe and long gloves.

Shuga Cain's Apache outfit was a nice change from the more basic looks but between the long bangs and the dark eye makeup, I felt like the top part of her face was hidden. If she had cut the bangs on that wig even half an inch shorter, I would have been able to see her eyes and I would have liked it better from the neck up.

Plastique Tiara was giving me Christina Aguilera vibes, but the skirt was just a little bit too long. At first I didn't understand how she didn't know about Mariah until a few years ago and then I remembered that Mariah's pinnacle of pop success was quite honestly, about 20 years ago. I'm not making excuses for Plastique though because Mariah is still an icon and as a drag queen/entertainer, you need to know pop culture references. I'm just saying that if she only learned about pop culture a few years ago, Mariah was not at her peak then. Mariah as a singer circa 93-96 and Mariah as pop culture fodder during her Glitter failure/TRL implosion is not comparable to Mariah in recent years. She was inescapable in the 90s and early 00s and that is not the case anymore.

I liked A'Keria's goddess outfit. The headdress gave it a more elegant vibe. I wish the gold fringe on the dress had been a little thinner though. They were cut so wide that they were chunky instead of giving more motion.

Ra'Jah's red outfit was just a beaded leotard with fringe.

Nina looked like one of those super shaggy dogs (but in a good way). I liked the wig/head dress too.

Brooke's hippie daisy look didn't quite fulfill the challenge for me.

Vanjie's red fringe outfit was hot!

Yvie's pink jellyfish look was simple in concept but it worked so well. Lots of runway impact.

I was disappointed in the neon yellow fringe outfit that Mercedes wore. It looked like it was just a black leotard with fringe. She's lucky that she was on the winning team because her runway look and her performance in the skit were both subpar.

Ariel Versace's holographic paillette look wasn't fringey enough for me.

Silky's blue disco look was so sparkly, which I liked, but the outfit itself was a bit shapeless.

I loved that Ross reminded the queens that whatever is going on with you, when you hit the stage, the audience should never see anything but a great performance. That is what makes you a performer!

My only regret about the six person LSFYL was that we didn't get a split screen showing all six queens simultaneously. Ra'Jah won the lip sync in my book. Plastique did a little too much ponytail whipping, but I thought she did pretty well too. Honey was the clear loser of the lip sync. She made a series of bad choices. The biggest one was jumping off the stage because when you are wearing a head to toe black costume, choosing to go where there's no lighting is just a bad idea which was compounded by crawling around on the floor which meant that she was below all the judges' eyelines. Her actual lip sync/dancing was not great either.

I love reading your take on the show - your analysis is usually spot-on.

Brooke and Vanjie - I approve! They are two of my favorites this season.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Gothish520
Spelling