This is a recap of RuPaul’s Drag Race episode 1507. Spoilers below.
Lights! Camera! Action! This week on Drag Race the queens had their big acting challenge. And I’m filming a short tomorrow that I wrote and directed and am starring in so if my energy is chaotic in this recap that’s why!
We begin in the aftermath of Robin’s elimination. Weirdly enough no one is gushing at my love Jax for having an incredible lip sync and instead are continuing the week’s drama.
Mistress is being Mistress (I mean this as a good thing) and saying her whole team should have been in the top. She then starts bringing up Malaysia getting upset in Untucked. Marcia looks like talking more about this is the last thing she wants. But Mistress doesn’t care! She’s here to be a drag queen and make great reality TV.
There’s some increased tension when Mistress feels like Sasha is trying to turn everything into a teachable moment and Malaysia isn’t wanting to talk things out. The feud will continue into another week…
And that new week brings the return of The Daytona Wind. Ru talks about this like it’s Snatch Game, and not a mildly funny bit done for the first time last season. If you’ll recall, I didn’t even recap that episode because Untucked was so good I had to write all about that.
Everyone wants to play the character Fancy but since Aura won last week, Aura gets to give it to herself. After that the parts get assigned quickly and with no drama. Well, except, it turns out Mistress and Malaysia are going to be scene partners.
Until the lip sync, this episode belongs to Mistress Isabella Brooks. She pauses from her Malaysia feud to play on Aura’s insecurities — or, let’s be fair, lack of certain talents — and suggest they switch parts when Aura starts struggling. It works. Aura takes the smaller part and Mistress gets to shine.
This season The Daytona Wind is a sitcom and RuPaul himself is in the director chair. Spice is struggling to take a single direction because Spice is struggling to do anything except the exact same thing she always does. Aura is also struggling, proving that Mistress had a point. Meanwhile, Mistress and Malaysia are both thriving — and thriving together.
The next day as they do their makeup, Mistress and Malaysia talk things out. I have Fast and the Furious on my mind because of the new trailer, but I love this Fast and Furious approach to conflict. If I may explain: throughout its nine movies (plus two shorts and spinoffs), the antagonists of one Fast movie are often part of the family in the next. Sometimes this feels absurd — but when the stakes are drag shadiness and not, you know, trying to kill people with cars, I love it! Fight hard, make up quickly. Who has time for grudges when we’re all a bunch of queers?
Harvey Guillen is the guest judge and the category is Puffer Please. Loosey does a basic look with a Stay Puft twist and Spice looks like a contestant on The Bachelor going on a one on one during a winter season. But the best looks of the night did something fresh with the prompt! Sasha looks incredible in a black and yellow look that felt like something Rihanna would wear to perform with Beyoncé. Aura and Anetra are also really hot. But it’s Mistress who wins without a doubt. She’s deconstructed a puffer jacket to highlight her body and looks so hot and so fashion and I just loved this look lots and lots.
The less said about The Daytona Wind the better. I get that chaotic editing and a laugh track help make up for some of the weaker actors in the cast, but the editing tricks need to actually be funny and fun to watch. Most of these fell flat. I mean, Anetra is playing a power lesbian and Sasha and Lux are playing a lesbian couple, and I still didn’t enjoy it! And not just because they identified Anetra as a lesbian by making a joke about lesbians not liking nuts. Come on!! It’s not even that jokes like this are transphobic — it’s that they’re hack!
The best part of the whole thing was the very random Danny Trejo cameo at the end. Sure, bring on Ariana Grande, whatever. But Danny Trejo? Now that’s something I didn’t see coming. Or the best part was when Ru said the surrealist touches were an homage to Tim and Eric, which feels like something she had to say for legal.
Loosey, Sasha, Lux, and EsTitties are safe. Mistress, Malaysia, Anetra, and Marcia are the top. And Spice, Aura, and Jax are in the bottom. I would’ve made Marcia safe instead of having four tops, but otherwise I do agree with this judging. Yes, even Jax. She just couldn’t figure out her character this week!
Mistress wins — as she should — and Jax and Aura are lip syncing. I think Aura’s outfit should’ve saved her but oh well. The song is “Sweetest Pie” by Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa. And oh my God, Jax does it again. I really thought she was going home but there was just no way to send her home!! I thought she did a great job last week, but this was a whole new level!
She shantays. And my guess is the producers started scrambling because next week is a lip sync lalaparuza and that doesn’t feel like a coincidence.
Teleport Us to Mars!! Here Are Some Random Thoughts:
+ I couldn’t watch Untucked this week! Let me know what I missed.
+I hope Danny Trejo goes backstage during Untucked. Tell me Danny Trejo goes backstage during Untucked.
+ If you want more of my musings on the Fast and Furious franchise, I wrote a whole essay.
+ I’ve loved a lot of Marcia’s runways, but I’d like to see the judges drop the specific makeup note and more generally push her to do more glamor. That’s the bigger issue as far as I’m concerned, and makeup is just one part of it. Like with Spice, it’s about wanting variety.
+ I’ve never watched What We Do in the Shadows so I’m not familiar with Harvey Guillen, but I thought he was a really good judge!
+ Queen I’m rooting for: Jax to lip sync a bunch more and then Anetra, Mistress, or Sasha win.
+ Queen I’m horniest for: more and more… it’s Anetra
+ Queen I want to go home: Spice
God the acting challenges are so hard to watch, not because of the queens but because of the writing of them! My god. And I agree with you that the editing was particularly crazy in this one – especially with the laugh tracks. It felt so transparent to me, like on sitcoms they give ALL the stupid non funny jokes laughs. You can’t just give some of the dumb jokes canned laughs and then not do it for Aura – it’s clear what y’all are doing!!
(Sorry for the rant I could write a thesis on what’s wrong with the acting challenges and how they could be improved lol )
Also all the stuff with Mistress v Malayasia was fascinating to me on a human behavior level. I agree Mistress is funny and drag is about being a bitch, but I also feel sometimes she crosses into just steamrolling people – as in not listening to others or reflecting on how her behavior is hurtful even if she didn’t intend that. I was happy Malaysia was able to eventually articulate what she was feeling last ep, and that Mistress did seem to eventually hear it.
As always, these recaps are my fave on the internet! I love reading about this show from your incredibly smart and nuanced perspective!
Ru has it out for Jax and wants my bitch gone. I love seeing her lipsync but I feel like the judges are just saying things to put her in the bottom. Last week it was her dancing which I thought was fine and this week they said her makeup needed tweaking which again was fine.
I’ve loved Spice and her ditziness since the beginning but I truly feel she has nothing more to offer and it’s time for her to leave. At least her and Sugar got more tiktok followers which was probably what they were aiming for anyways.
I did not understand this acting challenge at all. Where the long pauses and unfunny jokes supposed to be funny? Was it a nod to another geriatric reference Ru expects us to know?
Anyways love the recaps
I don’t know how spice is still on this show! The travesty continues.
What you missed in untucked wasn’t much, really:
– EsTitties shows off some of the school supplies zipped into the pockets of her transparent outfit, and shows that she had flaming hot cheetos zipped into the crotch. She snacks on the cheetos, which is amazing to watch.
– Loosey is convinced she should have been in the top. She will not shut up about this. Literally the entire untucked long we hear all about what jokes she planned to say when being critiqued, why she thinks she had the best acting in the challenge, why she thinks she had the best runway, how big of an injustice it is that she was safe etc. This comes up over and over and everyone is tired of hearing it. When she brings it up when the top and bottom folks came in, she started going at it with Mistress about her performance that week and why she belonged in the top. Sasha Colby compares it to the drama the previous week and says that she thinks both of them like to cast themself as a victim.
– Spice does not understand the one-note critique she was given? As in she took it as reason to start singing (badly) saying she can give them one note if that is what they want. She does assure everyone that she will no longer do the same walk that she always does, and jokes (at least I hope that was a joke?) that Sugar will be sad that she is going to change the walk.
– Danny Trejo does not join them during untucked, but we do see more footage of him during the episode, various takes of his entrance and him telling them all that Drag Race is his daughter’s favorite TV show.
– Harvey Guillen joins them during untucked and tells them the entire cast of What We Do in the Shadows are Drag Race fans. Loosey is a huge What We Do in the Shadows fan. Guillen talks to them about the difficulties of navigating Hollywood as a plus size queer Latino man, and how to work with writers when you are given a script you aren’t entirely feeling exactly how it was written/want to do some improv with.
– Loosey asks Mistress and Malaysia if they have made up and moved on from last week. They say yes, and while they are talking about how that drama is done with Loosey finds a way to insert into it that she thinks she should have been in the top with them this week. Loosey is REALLY not letting this go.
Love this show!!! Thanks Ru