Review: RuPaul’s Drag Race (Season 12, Episode 8)

The episode started with Jan’s crying fest over Brita leaving (Jan not winning the challenge). Throughout the whole episode we see Jan crying and her desperation to win a challenge, however, her desire for a win inevitably led to her shock elimination in this week’s episode. This is shocking as Jan is a talented queen, but as said by Jan herself, she was trying too hard that her real talents just never shined through. The mini-challenge for this week’s episode was odd but fantastic all at once, they paired up to share the gift of shade and this gave us the gift of amazing shady lines. A personal favourite of mine “body lotion for a dry personality” by the one and only Jaida Essence Hall. Gigi Goode and Jackie Coxx teamed up for the mini-challenge and were absolutely hilarious, they slayed this challenge and won which Jackie sure did as celebrate as this is her only win so far.

This week’s maxi challenge was a commercial for a fictional wacky product that the queens come up with, it allows the audience to separate the queens between the comedy and the bland queens. However, sadly compared to previous seasons there was only a small handful of commercials that were actually funny. I guess with 12 seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race and 4 seasons of All Stars; it is becoming tough for queens to be original with these challenges that appear in multiple seasons. In the werkroom Heidi N Closet was given a tip by RuPaul to change the name of her product from ‘soft and subtle’ to ‘Heidi Hydration’ which potentially led her to the win.

The challenge is about selling your personality and sadly Jan was not able to do this instead she sold drunk cheerleader at a high school party. Her product was ‘Sure Jan’ a spray that will make you ‘simply Jan’ so amazing? Her advert featured some major movie cliché’s such as being a nerdy girl with glasses, then spraying the product and becoming a beautiful queen (no glasses and better posture). It was a huge let-down for a queen who if she wasn’t in her head would have excelled at this challenge, as Chaka Khan described it “Woop Woop Woop” (whatever that means). Gigi, the queen with three wins, sadly showed a small sign of weakness this week, her commercial was rather bland and seemed to be missing that oomph to make us laugh. Widow Von’Du also did a spray, the commercial seemed outdated and she seemed confused. It was heartbreaking to see, she is such a funny queen, so it hurt to see her fall so badly during this challenge. Jaida was absolutely hilarious; she is showing she is more than a beautiful queen but is never getting the praise she deserves from the judges, which is disappointing to see. She is able to make fun of herself which for someone as stunning as her is shocking. Heidi shocked us in her commercial she was quite funny and was randomly whistling words which I am still so confused over. The best part of her commercial was when she said her product was made from “tears of a drag queen” then just suddenly started weeping and shoving her tears into her lotion. Not to mention when she said the product could cause hairless then at the end, she is bald… It was just crazy stuff. Crystal Methyd’s advert was the best thing I have ever seen; SHE WAS HAMMERING HAIR FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. She used her best asset, her mullet, to create an amazing and rare product that no other drag queen has done before. She called the mullet “dishwasher safe” whilst cleaning the table with her hair and it was the most confusing yet entertaining scene I have ever encountered. I just love Crystal and want her to win all the awards.

The category for this week for Black Wedding everyone looked beautiful and showed a wide variety of the category from zombie bride to gothic realness, there were tens across the board. The top look this week was Crystal’s who showed us she is a versatile queen, her zombie bride make-up showed how amazing make-up skills which we now get to fully see. She not only looked beautiful, but everything about her outfit was on point with amazing detail, she served it hunty! Heidi N Closet wore an amazing gown, however as always, her wig line and make-up let her down, she is putting loads of powder on her face and no one is telling her to fix her mug. She is a beautiful queen; I just wish she could fix her mug. Unlike Heidi, Widow’s make-up was on point, she looked beautiful and elegant as if she was going to be that bitch at your funeral. The worst of the week, though the word worst doesn’t seem to fit well with her look was Jan. Her make-up was beautiful and on point, however, there was one issue with her gown and that was the giant feathers at the front, it took away from how amazing her outfit and look was, sometimes less is more.

The tops of the week were Heidi and Crystal, Heidi won the challenge though truthfully Crystal definitely deserved the win and I am so disappointed her talents have been overlooked again. RuPaul was a shady queen and asked the queens who they thought should go home, everyone voted for Widow and it was so sad to see as she was definitely not herself in the commercial. However, this will be Widow’s turning point, she will rather show us everything she has or go home. The bottom two were Widow and Jan, which was expected considering their videos. They lip-synced to This is My Night by Chaka Khan, Widow destroyed Jan on the dancefloor, Jan was trying so hard to perform whilst Widow just felt the song. As Jackie said, “Chaka Khan’s soul went into Widow”. Sadly, Jan, Simply Jan, sashayed away this episode.

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