Last night on RuPaul’s Drag Race, things that we were only partially certain of became crystal clear. Phi Phi O’Hara, previously only semi-evil, went full Maleficent. The source of Willam’s high opinion of himself was revealed to be a guest stint on Sex and the City (which, by the way, ended eight years ago). Max Mutchnick, co-creator of Will & Grace, was every bit as demanding as you’d expect a TV executive to be (and he hates Sharon Needles, which is unacceptable). But most importantly, we learned that it is time for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to give Latrice Royale all of the Emmys.
For this week’s mini challenge, the queens teamed up in pairs to pose for “memorable mug shots.” None of them are Nick Nolte, so this is already impossible, but Willam and Madame LaQueer sort of pull it off by splashing each other with blue paint to simulate the dye that explodes when you open a bag of money stolen from a bank. Jiggly points out that really, this paint just made them look like they had “swallowed the Smurfs,” but Ru was into it, so Willam and Madame became team leaders for the main challenge. Continuing with the prison theme, the queens had to star in a scripted sitcom called Hot in Tuckahoe, about four best friends who keep getting arrested. Team Willam’s plot involves breaking into a nut factory, while Team Madame’s plot features a beaver costume and a Justin Bieber reference. Gross double entendres aside, I think the main point of this challenge was just to remind everyone that Designing Women was awesome. Chad’s character was even named Julia!
This is all just a sideshow to the main event, though, which is an epic fight between Sharon Needles and Phi Phi. Sharon won last week, but Phi Phi believes that she deserves the credit since she supposedly chose Sharon’s character for the infomercial challenge. Okay, but did she choose that glittery greaser wig from the runway show? Nope, didn’t think so. Obviously, Sharon is in the right here, but at least we finally get to hear the line, “Go back to Party City where you belong!” in context.
At the runway show, Ru asks the girls to come dressed for the red-carpet premiere of their sitcoms. Team Willam wins the sitcom challenge, and Latrice, the team’s prison guard extraordinaire, wins a cruise. Latrice is so good at vamping for the camera that Max Mutchnick tells her she could just make faces for 30 minutes and the audience would still laugh. Truth! Madame LaQueer and Milan are both up for elimination, because they are terrible at acting (even though both of them claim to have studied it). Milan strips, applies lipstick mid-lipsync, and does the splits while sliding across the stage. Madame, of the sassy finger-pointing school, does not stand a chance, and so must sashay away. Now please excuse me while I start a letter-writing campaign to get Designing Women on instant Netflix.
Catch RuPaul’s Drag Race Mondays at 9/8 central on LogoTV.
