After an amazing fourth season premiere last week, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK stumbled this episode with a girl-group challenge that felt a little too rushed, paired with an uninspired runway.
Still, that doesn’t mean there weren’t any genuinely great moments in episode two. Sometimes it’s the little things that makes Drag Race worth watching.
Drag Race drops the ball with this Glastonbury Festival group challenge
This episode suggests that this season will explore the ‘fashion queens’ VS ‘camp queens’ narrative, which has been a staple of Drag Race. It’s a really interesting storyline that the franchise likes to delve into occasionally, which lets us see the queens either try to push themselves out of their comfort zone or remain firmly entrenched in their drag aesthetic, like we see with Sminty and Starlet this episode.
For this week’s maxi challenge, the queens split into two pop groups and headline the ‘Yass-tonbury Festival’ with their new single Come Alive. Just like the previous girl-group challenges on DRUK, the queens have to write their own verses, come up with group choreography, and style a distinct performance look.
While it’s too early in the season for this kind of challenge, the cast - for the most part - are excited about getting to perform a pop number, hoping to join the ranks of past Drag Race bops like the United KingDolls' UK Hun or the Frock Destroyers’ Break Up Bye Bye.
Unfortunately, Come Alive just isn’t as catchy as these past tracks. The song doesn’t necessarily have to match the same energy of what we’ve heard previously – the Pick ‘N’ Mix girl group from season three proved that – but the chorus was especially bland in comparison to the queens’ lyrics, and the sound mixing was poor, with certain queens’ vocals drowned out by the beat.
Regardless, the clear winners were Queens of the Bone-Age, with Dakota, Le Fil, Danny, Cheddar, Copper Topp and Pixie. They delivered a hard rock performance that fitted the song more, with every queen on their A-game and truly enjoying themselves.
Dakota completely redeemed herself from the premiere this week, earning a win along with the rest of her team and opening up about her relationship with her identical twin, Harry. It’s a heart-warming beat in an episode packed with more theatrical entertainment, as Dakota discussed how close she and Harry are, with both of them coming out at as queer at the same time.
It’s great seeing Drag Race discuss LGBTQ+ families, with Harry identifying as non-binary and Dakota coming out a second time when she was 19 as a trans woman, which she stated as “the most difficult” coming out journey for her parents. Fortunately, they have since accepted Dakota’s identity, and she hopes that her appearance on the show will highlight her true strength. It’s an emotional confessional but one that offers hope for the trans viewers struggling with similar issues.
On the other hand, we have Triple Threat – consisting of Baby, Starlet, Jonbers, Black Peppa, and Sminty. They started out incredibly strong, with Baby as the break-out star, coming in first with great lyrics and choreography, and Black Peppa continuing to dominate the competition with an equally great final verse.
Unfortunately, they were held back by Sminty, Jonbers, and Starlet, the latter of which was by far the worst this week. While Sminty and Jonbers occasionally messed up their lip syncs or choreography, Starlet – despite insisting she had the most fun on stage – looked uncomfortable, was unable to follow the dance routine, and had the most boring lyrics. It was difficult to watch.
A weak runway theme and even weaker lip sync battle
Neon Nights, the runway theme for this week, was only slightly more entertaining, but overall is still one of the more mediocre main stage presentations for the series, with half of the cast dressed in bright pink and yellow. Each look individually was solid and reflected the queens’ unique point of view, but the overall collection lacked variety in colour scheme.
Le Fil and Cheddar Gorgeous were particular standouts though, the former humorously referencing Naomi Campbell’s community service stint in 2007 with a hi-vis orange trench coat and even a trash grabber, and the latter opting to dress as an ethereal, multi-coloured mushroom, telling a complete story on the runway.
Queens of the Bone-Age won the maxi challenge, meaning six queens are one step closer to snatching the crown. Meanwhile, Baby, Black Peppa and Sminty are saved from the bottom two, with RuPaul deciding that Starlet and Jonbers were the worst of the week.
While I understand Starlet’s placement, I would argue that Sminty did worse than Jonbers. Sminty’s runway wasn’t as creative or visually unique as Jonbers’ and – as Michelle mentioned in the critiques – was repetitive of her runway last week. I also thought Jonbers was simply more in tune with the rest of her group.
Starlet and Jonbers ended up lip syncing to About You Now performed by the Sugarbabes, a great song choice but another lacklustre battle with Jonbers completely annihilating her competitor. The producers also made a poor choice not to use an FKA Twigs track for the lip sync, considering the Glastonbury Festival performer was actually a guest judge this episode.
After the song ended, RuPaul unsurprisingly chose to eliminate Starlet. What was gag-worthy, however, was her reaction.
Closing her eyes, sighing deeply, Starlet replied: “Thank you for making my dream come true. and now I need to go find a new one” and proceeded to walk off stage without another word, giving Dahlia Sin energy from US season 12. It was unexpected, slightly passive aggressive, and I loved it.
The episode still ends on a light-hearted note as the remaining competitors join on stage for a celebratory dance, and the promise of a design challenge next week.
As seen on the RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Twitter account, this episode is also dedicated to DRUK alum Cherry Valentine, who passed away last week.
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