RuPaul's Drag Race recap: season 12, episode eight – is this just Jan-tasy?
Welcome to the main stage of our weekly Drag Race recap! Last week, we saw some memorable Madonna musical mayhem, and New York queen Brita was sent home. Now here’s another hour of madness and another controversial elimination. And when we say “controversial”, we mean it made a few people post that picture of Britney spears crying on Twitter.
Let’s go!
Workroom
Jan’s frustrated at being overlooked by the judges last week and we don’t blame her. It’s good that she’s venting, though. Sadness and frustration are valid emotions that we should not be afraid to show. Interestingly, the editing is painting it as her being fake. HMMMM.
After a few weeks of forgetting about them, RuPaul’s suddenly remembered the concept of mini-challenges again! Interestingly and, surely by chance, that’s coincided with sponsorship by a company called Fab Fit Fun. How fortuitous. Ru pairs the ladies up to create gift boxes for each other, and present them in the shadiest way possible.
We’re obsessed with Jackie Cox and Gigi Goode’s looks and facial expressions. They rightly win. But mostly this challenge is just product placement, thinly veiled behind inane entertainment. Not that we blame the show, that’s how capitalist society works. Welcome to television!
Droop
For this week’s main challenge, the queens are tasked with creating and selling a unique product to sell for fictional drag lifestyle brand Droop (somewhere in Beverly Hills, Gwyneth Paltrow just threw a piece of organic seagrass at her television). It’s supposed to be high-class and upper echelon. “I don’t even know how to spell echelon!” says Heidi.
Ru does a walkaround with health and fitness guru and “branding expert” Bob Harper. We’ve never seen him before but we wouldn’t trust him to look after our house plants for a day, never mind help us sell a product. Actually maybe that’s not fair. We like his shirt.
Jan’s product is called “Sure, Jan.” 10/10. She expresses again that she was sad to see Brita go and Bob says “it’s not RuPaul’s best friend’s race!” Shut up, Bob!
There’s a great detailed story behind Jackie Cox’s magic carpet concept and we’re looking forward to it – the first Farsi he saw spoken on TV was in I Dream of Jeannie, so this is something of a tribute. We can’t remember the last time we saw a contestant go from meh to exciting so quickly.
They only get 20 minutes each to shoot the commercial - in television terms, that is a ridiculously short amount of time. Usually commercial shoots take hours at least, often days. Gigi’s concept is great but she’s not giving very much. Whereas Jan is giving us a headache. And Jaida’s giving us anxiety with that glass of red wine on that nice white sofa. Heidi’s putting the lotion in the basket. It’d go lovely with Jaida’s nice chianti …
Take it to the runway
This week’s theme is BLACK WEDDING. According to our sources, the ladies aren’t supposed to wear all-white outfits on the stage – something to do with lighting or green screening or something. Hence why there’s been a lack of bridal/wedding challenges. A great idea to do it in black though.
Our celebrity guest judge this week is the legendary Chaka Khan. No surprises there. She’s opened more prides than you’ve opened new browser tabs! She’s stunning in a bohemian shiny look. RuPaul stalks down in a gorgeous ornate Ming-dynasty-esque creation. Michelle smouldering in all black. Ross Matthews is there too.
Jackie Cox’s look isn’t great. Jan’s is gorgeous. Gigi blows the judges (and us) away in a smoky homage to Christian Dior, casually paired with some Louboutins. This is the most fashionforward we’ve seen Heidi. Ru’s “herses” joke is actually very good. Crystal’s dead bride look is beautiful too.
Ross Matthews says Gigi’s commercial was clunky and we completely disagree. It was hilarious. “Hi … I’m better than you!” as an opening line is hard to beat. Amazing. Perhaps this is the difference between British humour and American humour. We like subtle and cutting, they like bold and brash. They might also be pretending it’s bad because Gigi’s done WAY too well this season, and it’s never fun if there’s a glaringly obvious winner from only halfway through.
We’re a bit worried about Chaka Khan. Are you ok, Chaka? Widow’s commercial is awkward. Crystal’s is great, as she rocks her real life mullet for most if it. If only they could’ve got the rights to Dua Lipa’s Physical in the background.
Lipsync for your LIFE
Jan and Widow are lipsyncing to This Is My Night by Chaka Khan, who looks like she’s trying to work out where she is. Widow gives an involved, quite beautiful performance and Jan, as usual, is giving 50,000%. It’s too much. Jan goes home.
Notes and observations