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I haven't been super down on the reduced episode lengths (not that it's going to matter much in the near future) but I think this was the episode where it suffered the most. Unlike the other lipsync smackdowns, there weren't any stakes to this one, and maybe we could've gotten some with some extra workroom time? (maybe?) Either way, the smackdown suffered as a result. But what was by far the most distracting aspect of the reduced runtime was how abbreviated the lipsyncs themselves were. And there's not much more to talk about it other than that so I'm going to try to do my best to recap most of these from memory:
-Malaysia vs. Marcia: why the fuck did she pick Marcia over Spice lmao? I sort of believe her when she says she wasn't thinking about the decision too hard (because...uh, she probably wasn't if that was the choice she made lol) but later when Marcia grilled Malaysia for picking her she could've said "I just hadn't seen you lipsync yet" instead of a non-answer. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised by Marcia's lipsync skills and unpleasantly surprised by Malaysia's performance during this whole thing. -Loosey vs Spice - No drag queen has ever listened to a rock song in their life. -Luxx vs. Salina - Okay this is where it got good! I've been kind of down on Salina this season but this is where she's really shone so far. I like Luxx a lot, but I think Salina easily outperformed her on this song; she gets that a song like this is a perfect song to do campy, or, at the very, least, go for some belting (luckily she did both). Again, the downside of reduced times: they wouldn't have done it either way but we were robbed of a full 7 minute lipsync here. -Mistress vs. Jax - I think Jax won this one; Mistress's titty popping was fun and she did have a lot of presence but I think a high energy 80s song like this favors Jax's more stunt filled style. Close one here though. But... -Sasha vs. Anetra - Obviously this was going to be the main event one way or another. And they both delivered. Sasha won it at the end for me with the ass clap countdown, but this was an instant classic lipsync and made the episode worth it. -Malaysia vs. Spice - Ok this episode was probably worth it for this too but for completely different reasons. -Anetra vs. Jax vs. Luxx - I would've given it to Anetra here but oh well. I don't like 3 way lipsyncs; too many distractions. -Anetra vs. Jax - Anetra saving Spice was hilarious, so kudos to her for doing that. And goodbye to Jax. It was clear for whatever reason in recent weeks the judges didn't like her performance much so she probably wasn't long anyway and she was probably doomed in this competition having already lipsynced twice and having shown most of her style already, but she had a good run and I wish her well.
I haven't been super down on the reduced episode lengths (not that it's going to matter much in the near future) but I think this was the episode where it suffered the most. Unlike the other lipsync smackdowns, there weren't any stakes to this one, and maybe we could've gotten some with some extra workroom time? (maybe?) Either way, the smackdown suffered as a result. But what was by far the most distracting aspect of the reduced runtime was how abbreviated the lipsyncs themselves were. And there's not much more to talk about it other than that so I'm going to try to do my best to recap most of these from memory:
-Malaysia vs. Marcia: why the fuck did she pick Marcia over Spice lmao? I sort of believe her when she says she wasn't thinking about the decision too hard (because...uh, she probably wasn't if that was the choice she made lol) but later when Marcia grilled Malaysia for picking her she could've said "I just hadn't seen you lipsync yet" instead of a non-answer. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised by Marcia's lipsync skills and unpleasantly surprised by Malaysia's performance during this whole thing. -Loosey vs Spice - No drag queen has ever listened to a rock song in their life. -Luxx vs. Salina - Okay this is where it got good! I've been kind of down on Salina this season but this is where she's really shone so far. I like Luxx a lot, but I think Salina easily outperformed her on this song; she gets that a song like this is a perfect song to do campy, or, at the very, least, go for some belting (luckily she did both). Again, the downside of reduced times: they wouldn't have done it either way but we were robbed of a full 7 minute lipsync here. -Mistress vs. Jax - I think Jax won this one; Mistress's titty popping was fun and she did have a lot of presence but I think a high energy 80s song like this favors Jax's more stunt filled style. Close one here though. But... -Sasha vs. Anetra - Obviously this was going to be the main event one way or another. And they both delivered. Sasha won it at the end for me with the ass clap countdown, but this was an instant classic lipsync and made the episode worth it. -Malaysia vs. Spice - Ok this episode was probably worth it for this too but for completely different reasons. -Anetra vs. Jax vs. Luxx - I would've given it to Anetra here but oh well. I don't like 3 way lipsyncs; too many distractions. -Anetra vs. Jax - Anetra saving Spice was hilarious, so kudos to her for doing that. And goodbye to Jax. It was clear for whatever reason in recent weeks the judges didn't like her performance much so she probably wasn't long anyway and she was probably doomed in this competition having already lipsynced twice and having shown most of her style already, but she had a good run and I wish her well.
Was totally blown away by the Anetra Sasha smackdown. I loved that they all recognized Anetra being able to hold her own against Sasha as incredibly impressive, too! Such a heartfelt moment. If they're not both in the final 3/4 I'd be shocked. And I would travel to see either of them perform live.
Loosey is getting on my last nerve. You're serving Dolly every week and not much more at this point mama. And that LS should've been a double sashay. I'm all for confidence and a bit of delusion but it's reached the tipping point for me with her.
Post by crazykittensmile on Feb 22, 2023 14:46:21 GMT -5
Unrelated to this season, but excited to see Jinkx Monsoon is coming to San Diego in August! I feel like queens usually stop at LA and call it a day Will for sure be going!
In Jason P. Frank's review of this week's episode for Vulture, he says that Spice was one of the few queens that arrived this season with a fully formed persona, which becomes increasingly horrifying the more you realize how true it is. When the cast for this season was first announced, I at least partway believed Sugar/Spice's storyline would play out like Amanda/Michelle from ANTM 7: one twin lasting longer than the other after both end up in the bottom 2 of the competition, with the stronger competitor nobly sacrificing herself in favor of the more passionate twin getting a chance to continue, only to get outshone a short while later by the other competitors. And, well, that basically did happen, except Amanda and Michelle were legitimately good models while Sugar and Spice were bad.
That being said, I don't want to be hard on Spice: she may have been incompetent and naive, but her naivete was endearing and she did seem like the only universally liked queen left amongst all the current ones remaining, which is no small feat!
Anyway: 200 episodes! Wow! It's not really a surprise they'd go completely self-referential as that's what this show has been doing for, uh, the past decade now lmao, but the concept was a bit disappointing considering this isn't even the first time they've done a design challenge based on previous design challenges. Prior to and during the runway, you could really tell this is the episode the producers are planning on submitting to the Emmys since we got, by my count, three separate emotional moments. I don't want to be entirely glib since hearing Anetra's story again did hurt, but uggghhhhhh here comes the fucking Inner Saboteur again. The queens sharing their favorite moments from the show was kind of funny insofar as it showed that Luxx is horrible at impressions.
All things considered, I thought the ball was pretty good with a few exceptions (Salina just fucking loves a baggy garment, what else is there to say?) My personal highlights were Mistress's beach ball jumpsuit, Sasha's dime bag look (a phrase which is making me laugh just typing it out), and Anetra's crystalized spine gown (we've had two grotesque spine looks this season and they've both been very good. trend alert??) In the end though, Salina/Spice felt like the right choice, and while she's grown on me a lot I can't imagine Salina is lasting long in this competition. But she pulled out another great lipsync performance tonight though by....uh....doing a lot of belting to a Lil Nas X song. Anyway, who's ready for Frankie Grande's annoying ass to appear next week?
There was a bit of whiplash to the fuller episodes though. A RuPaul video message! Mini challenges! The judges talking amongst themselves! but I am serious too that wow the commercial breaks were noticeable when they jumped from 2 to 4 minutes. That's the TV business though!
I was looking forward to this challenge; Tatianna and Detox's paired comedy routine is maybe one of my single challenge performances in the show's history. But nothing really lived up to that. Honestly, Salina and Mistress were my favorites. I saw the judges getting a bit disappointed when Mistress didn't have as many punchlines when it got to her monologue, but I at least appreciated the originality there. I don't get why the judges really loved Luxx and Loosey's white jokes when they were the most obvious, over-repeated ones imaginable and could've gone so much further! Like "My teeth are so white they started putting mayonnaise on everything" feels like a starting point to something that could've been so much more vivid. "My teeth are so white they started putting mayonnaise on their breakfast cereal" or something like that. Be evocative!
Regardless of who I felt did the best though, I did actually laugh the most at Sasha and Anetra's performance. Usually I don't find awkward bombing funny like some people do, but man when they started going for the Mae West bits I was so shocked with how out of nowhere that was I couldn't help but laugh. (and they were kind of funny too!) Also, Marcia said some jokes.
TS Madison is a sparkling beacon of charisma who continues to do kind of a shit job as a competition judge. I say this only because Ali Wong rivaled Janicza Bravo and pretty much no one else for her ability to give specific, genuinely helpful performance feedback, in addition to having an insanely deep knowledge of everything that's happened on the show. She was great!
As for the lipsync, I was genuinely impressed with how well Marcia was keeping up, even if she came up short as the immovable object to Anetra's unstoppable force. This song was perfect for a stunt queen, and Anetra delivered. I could watch her do shit like that forever.
Side note: I thought I had written a post about last week's episode but I guess it never went through. Speaking of lipsyncs, I thought "Single Ladies" was kind of a bad choice for a Beyoncé song because there's only one thing you can do to it. Salina did it, Malaysia didn't, and she was doomed from the start. I said it years ago but I want to see some dramatics to "Irreplaceable" god damnit!
There's some weird tension here because this episode was filmed last year in a wave of anti-trans politicking and now, here we are, 9 months later, with some states literally trying to make drag illegal, but the real dramatic crux over this episode was whether or not someone got a part in a musical or not.
I cannot believe I am saying this but I felt for Loosey at the beginning of this episode. Luxx by no means definitively had the part, and then Mistress questioning her intentions out of nowhere was pretty silly. That was only made worse when she was clearly trying to be diplomatic during the "Who should go home and why" segment by saying Salina instead of Luxx, pissing off a friend in the process and getting nothing in return. And while I do think Loosey was right on basically all counts, Luxx going down the line and saying what she liked about every queen and then pulling an "except for Loosey" at the end was a grade-A act of shithousery, which I appreciated. (though, let's be real, while she's great we all know exactly what to expect from Anetra at this point.)
But...here's where it unravels a bit: I thought the amount of drama they showed in the episode was good, but I made it through about 4 minute of Untucked before I had to stop watching it. Idk what it is now, but there's only so much "I had this part" "No you didn't" shit I can take in one episode. I guess everybody became accepting of everyone else's aesthetics and so now instead we have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for shit stirring. So it goes.
The rusical itself though was pretty good! I think it helped a lot that they did this challenge really late this season and that they did it based on an actual musical, which gave it a clearer focus. Nobody really did badly which made the judging interesting. I personally would've put Mistress in the bottom; I think her facial expressions were too...peppy? in the beginning to really scan as villainous and since she wasn't moving a lot she should've done more with that imo, but Loosey was kind of stiff and if we're nitpicking Salina did probably have the worst runway, so I get it.
But then...holy fuck. I honestly disagreed that last week should've been a double save because time is running out this season and there's no way they'd have time for a double elimination......but holy fuck. What an absolute fucking abomination of a lipsync. Kate Bush is emotive but that fucking song calls for some dramatics, and neither of them stepped up to the plate. ugh.
ok that's it I guess. Orville Peck if you're reading this...hello.
There's some weird tension here because this episode was filmed last year in a wave of anti-trans politicking and now, here we are, 9 months later, with some states literally trying to make drag illegal, but the real dramatic crux over this episode was whether or not someone got a part in a musical or not.
I cannot believe I am saying this but I felt for Loosey at the beginning of this episode. Luxx by no means definitively had the part, and then Mistress questioning her intentions out of nowhere was pretty silly. That was only made worse when she was clearly trying to be diplomatic during the "Who should go home and why" segment by saying Salina instead of Luxx, pissing off a friend in the process and getting nothing in return. And while I do think Loosey was right on basically all counts, Luxx going down the line and saying what she liked about every queen and then pulling an "except for Loosey" at the end was a grade-A act of shithousery, which I appreciated. (though, let's be real, while she's great we all know exactly what to expect from Anetra at this point.)
But...here's where it unravels a bit: I thought the amount of drama they showed in the episode was good, but I made it through about 4 minute of Untucked before I had to stop watching it. Idk what it is now, but there's only so much "I had this part" "No you didn't" shit I can take in one episode. I guess everybody became accepting of everyone else's aesthetics and so now instead we have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for shit stirring. So it goes.
The rusical itself though was pretty good! I think it helped a lot that they did this challenge really late this season and that they did it based on an actual musical, which gave it a clearer focus. Nobody really did badly which made the judging interesting. I personally would've put Mistress in the bottom; I think her facial expressions were too...peppy? in the beginning to really scan as villainous and since she wasn't moving a lot she should've done more with that imo, but Loosey was kind of stiff and if we're nitpicking Salina did probably have the worst runway, so I get it.
But then...holy fuck. I honestly disagreed that last week should've been a double save because time is running out this season and there's no way they'd have time for a double elimination......but holy fuck. What an absolute fucking abomination of a lipsync. Kate Bush is emotive but that fucking song calls for some dramatics, and neither of them stepped up to the plate. ugh.
ok that's it I guess. Orville Peck if you're reading this...hello.
I thought it was weird Lucy was in the bottom cuz I thought she and her partner did rly well... Better than most. But honestly, it was her time to go, so whatever. Maybe the editors could have done a better job at highlighting some of the weaknesses instead of just giving us the lack of stones on the shoe.
I love this top 4, but I guess there can only be 3 this season, which I'm all for. So who is going home? I'm gonna guess Anetra. I love her and am such a fan but these two back to back wins seem unwarranted to me... Like they are gving us the rise before the fall. Idk.
I thought it was weird Lucy was in the bottom cuz I thought she and her partner did rly well... Better than most. But honestly, it was her time to go, so whatever. Maybe the editors could have done a better job at highlighting some of the weaknesses instead of just giving us the lack of stones on the shoe.
I love this top 4, but I guess there can only be 3 this season, which I'm all for. So who is going home? I'm gonna guess Anetra. I love her and am such a fan but these two back to back wins seem unwarranted to me... Like they are gving us the rise before the fall. Idk.
There's no damn way Anetra is going home. It's between Luxx and MIB imo, and that 3rd place is not even close to the other 2.
I finally put my finger on exactly why I couldn't vibe with Loosey, she just brought no JOY into the artform at all. I'm relieved I don't have to suffer with/for her anymore this season, the cringe was just too much. And the whole "I should've won/shouldn't have been in the bottom EVERY competition she didn't win was way too much, and of course the other girls are going to take issue with that because the undercurrent of that is saying SOMEONE ELSE should/shouldn't have. It's zero percent surprising she got ribbing from the other queens with that line of thinking. And she wasn't being fierce, confidently delusional, or cute about it, she was always coming from a place of way too much seriousness. I wish her luck but I'm SO glad she's gone and honestly wish she went home ages ago.
I have some time to kill waiting for a concert to start, si I might as well use this time. Last Saturday was a really long but fun experience. I was in line to get in at around 3 pm, and it was already a long line. They started taking GA people in at 4 pm, and I grabbed a good seat in the balcony as soon as I got in (no assigned seats). It promptly started at 5 pm, with the introductory runway of the top 4, followed by the rest of the queens. During MIB’s runway walk, a crew member approached our row and we could go to orchestra section as some seats opened up. I rushed down very quickly, and found a good spot in the back left section, with one of the pit crew members sitting in front of me. Anywho, after the initial runways, a musical number backed up by eliminated queens was shot, followed by a number from Chicago musical, fronted by you-guess-who. This was followed by top 4’s individual numbers, first one being Anetra. Unfortunately during the number, one of the dancers got injured and they had to close the curtains for a while to reconfigure all the choreo. Eventually, all 4 numbers were shot (with Michelle/Ross/Carson/TS Madison entertaining people in between).
After all this, Ru has finally showed up, and they filmed a lot of scenes involving her. They revealed the top 2 advancing, and while they were changing, they shot some other scenes with Ru, and the revealing of Miss Congeniality presented by Willow & Kornbread.
This finally followed up by the lip synch for the crown, which I think was a really close call. The last thing they filmed was both crownings before they let us go, which was around 11 PM lol.
I was exhausted but it was very fun. Can’t wait for trying to find myself on TV in two weeks lol
I have some time to kill waiting for a concert to start, si I might as well use this time. Last Saturday was a really long but fun experience. I was in line to get in at around 3 pm, and it was already a long line. They started taking GA people in at 4 pm, and I grabbed a good seat in the balcony as soon as I got in (no assigned seats). It promptly started at 5 pm, with the introductory runway of the top 4, followed by the rest of the queens. During MIB’s runway walk, a crew member approached our row and we could go to orchestra section as some seats opened up. I rushed down very quickly, and found a good spot in the back left section, with one of the pit crew members sitting in front of me. Anywho, after the initial runways, a musical number backed up by eliminated queens was shot, followed by a number from Chicago musical, fronted by you-guess-who. This was followed by top 4’s individual numbers, first one being Anetra. Unfortunately during the number, one of the dancers got injured and they had to close the curtains for a while to reconfigure all the choreo. Eventually, all 4 numbers were shot (with Michelle/Ross/Carson/TS Madison entertaining people in between).
After all this, Ru has finally showed up, and they filmed a lot of scenes involving her. They revealed the top 2 advancing, and while they were changing, they shot some other scenes with Ru, and the revealing of Miss Congeniality presented by Willow & Kornbread.
This finally followed up by the lip synch for the crown, which I think was a really close call. The last thing they filmed was both crownings before they let us go, which was around 11 PM lol.
I was exhausted but it was very fun. Can’t wait for trying to find myself on TV in two weeks lol
Will for sure be going!
