Review: RuPaul’s Drag Race (Season 12, Episode 3)

It is now week three of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 12 and we are now finally seeing some more action, from elimination to arguments, and we are all living for it. The thirteen queens came together finally and had their staged ‘stand-off’ which made for great television through all the eye-rolling, shady comments and for each group thinking they were better than the other. The show started with Widow Von’Du and Jaida Essence Hall, who were the winners of their premieres, having to rank the queens from the opposite group from top to bottom in terms of threat for them. Widow chose Sherry Pie as top and Aidan Zhane whilst Jaida chose Gigi Goode as top and Heidi N Closet as the bottom. However, this did not upset Heidi who was flirting with pit crew member Jason, who has been on the show since season three. In a plot twist the maxi challenge saw the winners from their premieres and the bottom two the winners chose as captains for this week’s challenge – World’s Worst. This challenge is inspired by Britain’s Got Talent and American Idol and sees the queens divided into groups to perform an improv task based upon select characters, for example: elderly triplets, fruits, three girls with one brain and girl scouts. Hearing this already sounds unfunny and relatively boring? And indeed, it was all of the above, I found myself zoning out throughout the episode whilst forcibly distracting myself to end the torture of this boring episode. This was disappointing considering the high standard of the both premiere episodes, however this is usual for the episode after the premiere in Drag Race as it seems producers are running out of ideas for funny new challenges.

There were some tensions in the individual groups, shown in Jaida’s group as Rock M Sakura wanted to be the bad apple instead of the orange, the tensions didn’t last long as Rock succeeded the challenge and portrayed an amazing orange. Whilst for Aidan’s group the two queens she chose, Sherry and Brita suddenly took over due to their loud personalities, I truly felt sorry for Aidan for having to deal with two elder queens who have a superiority complex. The maxi challenge itself saw Gigi in the elderly group play dead for a majority of the skit which meant she was unable to really show her acting abilities – though when she ‘came back to life’ this was comedic gold. Heidi showed everyone who ever doubted her that she was a queen to look out for in this challenge, she played an amazing elderly woman and her teeth falling out was probably the only time I truly laughed throughout the episode. The girl scout’s group was probably one of the most disappointing performances, though Widow played a fantastic drunk scout, both Crystal Methyd and Nicky Doll failed at standing out from the crowd making for a completely unmemorable performance.

The theme for the catwalk for this week was Bows and Buttons with guest judge Olivia Munn. This challenge saw some inventive outfits, especially from Gigi Goode and Jan who both had different visions for this challenge. Gigi made an amazing power blazer with thigh length boots created from 25,000 buttons whilst Jan gave us scary realness, the different directions the queens take with their looks is making this an incredibly creative season. Other queens were not so good, Aidan’s look was simple and boring, and she is sadly not living up to ‘weird’ queen standard she so evidently wants to be. Whilst Crystal’s make-up is becoming repetitive even though she is a stunning queen.

The top and bottoms of the week were Dahlia Sin, Heidi, Jackie, Crystal, Sherry and Nicky. Sherry won this week’s episode, and it is becoming more increasingly uncomfortable to watch her succeed throughout the show considering the allegations against her. Dahlia, Crystal and Nicky were the bottom three with Crystal just missing out on lip-syncing. The lip-sync was to Ariana Grande’s song Problems, this is a perfect song for any queen to show their performing abilities as its upbeat and fun, however the lip-sync was incredibly boring and should have resulted in a double elimination. Dahlia was fuming she was in the bottom two and never seemed to get started on the lip-sync which is disappointing considering she has a reputation for being an amazing performer. Nicky tried and definitely had more energy than Dahlia, however she is getting the same note each episode to come out of her shell and it was disappointing for her not to use the lip-sync to show us what she has to offer. Nicky won the challenge which saw a fuming Dahlia storm off the stage and not even say goodbye to her fellow queens, she felt robbed as she believed she never deserved to be in the bottom.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Series 12 is available now on Netflix, with new episodes weekly.