Drag Race Belgique

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 8 – Grande Finale

March 22, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans mon classement final! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 8 was the Season 2 Grande Finale! That means a winner was crowned, and there are no more performances to rank!

Producing a season of Drag Race is a delicate process. Any reality competition show relies on the strength of its casting. The alchemy of the cast is what makes a show compelling. Eliminations serve a dual purpose of narrowing the field to both the best competitors and the strongest personalities who will produce good television. A reality competition based on art is even more fragile – now, the show relies not just on the personalities of its cast, but their talent and inspiration.

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 7 – Paquets Cadeaux makeover challenge Power Rankings

March 15, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans plus de classements! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 7 was Paquets Cadeaux, a makeover challenge of the loved ones of our Top 4. It is also the final power ranking of the season prior to next week’s grande finale!

Late season makeover challenges like Paquets Cadeaux seem to exist solely to give the Drag Race judges the freedom to assign top and bottom placements as they please. The idea of “resemblance” is often subjective, which helps them eliminate unwanted queens and make the standings more even for the impending finale.

That was abetted by this final four, three of whom seemed to passionately resist the directive that they have a mother/daughter relationship with their makeover partners. All three brought high-concept costumes (moon & stars, pirates, and rats) and seemed to actively resist Rita’s advice in the workroom to do more to make their relationship clear.

It was a letdown to see three of these artists refuse to accept the prompt, but it was a delight to see Rita Baga attempt to convince them. Rita was perhaps at her most charming from both seasons of the show during her workroom walkaround. It gave me the sense that while she is a willing and able judge, she would likely be more at home hosting a talk show or a variety series. I actually rewound several times just to appreciate her silliness and banter with the queens and their loved ones.

In this end, this makeover challenge came with an unexpected twist: the judges DID NOT use it to cut an obvious fourth-place contestant from the finale! Instead, they boldly risked their front-runner in a lip sync clearly earmarked as a “double shantay.”

I think it was the right move. It gave a seemingly flawless finalist a small sense of vulnerability (even though that was entirely manufactured). And, it brought along a wildcard to the finale who can actually dance – which will be useful, since the episode will feature Beyoncé’s choreographer!

Despite all of that turbulence, our Power Rankings haven’t changed at all since last week’s “Le Crime du Drag Express” acting challenge! A late-game surge from one competitor wasn’t enough to unseat our obvious potential-winner, and another bottom performance wasn’t enough for a third-place queen to sink beneath our wild card. I’ll be back with one final post next week to congratulate our winner.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 6 – Le Crime du Drag Express Power Rankings

March 8, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans plus de classements! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 6 was Le Crime du Drag Express, a murder mystery acting challenge in the style of Agatha Christa paired with a “Tenues Saxy” saxophone runway.

I think this was one of the strongest episodes of the season. That’s not only because we are now down to a smaller group of queens. I think this is a cast that benefits from attacking structured material rather than writing, constructing, and choreographing it all themselves. This was a well-written acting challenge by Drag Race standards and it had incredibly high production value compared to the green screen affairs of the American franchise.

Also, the subject matter was especially appealing to me because I got my start as a performer acting in Agatha Christie plays! My high school produced an Agatha Christie play every other year, and I went from being a bitchy butler with one scene as a Sophomore to the lead investigator with 115 pages of dialog as a senior! That made it fun to see how these queens dealt with roles of different sizes and differing levels of plot intrigue.

Of note, one of Christie’s main recurring characters was mustachioed investigator Hercule Poirot – a former Belgian police officer.

(Sometimes it seems like I’ve got a personal backstory for every kind of Drag Race challenge! I swear, this is just my actual life! I think I just grew up in the perfect period to catch many of the campy references that Ru and the producers still bring to the show, and I’ve now spent decades in both the performing arts and in marketing. That’s why I love this show so damn much – it really does draw directly from my life experiences all the time.)

With just one more week before the finale, our Power Rankings have gotten incredibly tight compared to last week’s Snatch Game power ranking. I think we have an obvious winner, but there is still tight competition for the 2nd and 3rd spots – and one queen could wind up playing a major spoiler next week

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 5 – Belgium Season 2 Snatch Game Power Rankings

March 1, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans plus de classements! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 5 was the Belgium Season 2 Snatch Game. Our queens came well-prepared for this iconic challenge! They were more unsteady for an “En rollers, baby!” rollerskating runway – both when it came to their balance and their fashions.

This episode was a great reminder of a critical Drag Race maxim: never reveal to something more underwhelming than what you started with. Both of our front-running queens and both of our bottom two queens made puzzling, underwhelming reveals this episode in both Snatch Game and on the runway.

In Snatch Game, one top queen made an ill-advised choice to switch characters in the middle of a well-played game. Meanwhile, a bottom queen hinged her entire performance on one gag reveal that landed with a splat.

On the runway, one top queen revealed to a pair of even-blander bottoms, while one bottom queen revealed to an even-blander top.

That left a clear path for a surprising queen to notch what I can only call a “pity win” after a disastrous Snatch Game performance (though it included no flubbed reveals). That gives two queens a swap in my power rankings compared to last week’s “Masquerade” Drag Government challenge power ranking – plus, an eliminated queen gone a week earlier than I expected.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 4 – “Masquerade” & Mille et Une Belgiques à l’Eurovision runway Power Rankings

February 23, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans plus de classements! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 4 was titled “Masquerade,” which gave the queens a chance to propose a law as a part of Belgium’s first Drag Government. It was followed by Mille et Une Belgiques à l’Eurovision as the runway theme (“1,001 Belgiums at Eurovision”) – a chance to pay tribute to iconic Eurovision looks.

This is the first episode that allowed the cast to fully show off their intelligence and personality in a challenge. That created a night-and-day difference compared to the Girl Groups challenge last week. These queens are clearly more cerebral than they are choreographers – even the weakest speeches of this challenges were better than the safe verses from last week!

This episode also had a brief moment of controversy, with Star and Gabanna walking onto set before the judges arrived to peak at their notes behind the desk. Despite the campy “security footage” confirming their snooping, it did not seem like a very serious offense to me. Unusual and certainly inappropriate, yes – but, I question how a pair of queens in the middle of getting into drag even walked behind the judge’s table without a producer or director stopping them!

I know international seasons often have their workrooms and runways on the same set, sometimes even facing each other, but… this was in the middle of the full camera coverage of the queens getting ready. Heaven only knows how it happened, but I do think it’s funny that this supposed crime was perpetrated by both the oldest and the most youthful contestant (if not the youngest).

Aussi… mes amis, je dois être honnête avec vous: writing about Belgique this year has not resulted in much ongoing readership after the first episode. Of course, if you are reading this, you’re part of the solution, not the problem! And, it could simply be that this season isn’t very popular – it is one of the least-seen franchises. However, unless things change, this might be the only non-English franchise I cover this year. As much as I love to write about Drag Race, I could use this same time to write about comic books!

If you’re enjoying my writing (either during the run of the season or after the fact), please share this post on social media or in your favorite Drag Race communities or group chats! I’d love to have a reason to continue to cover every franchise of Drag Race.

An intellectual episode evened out our powers rankings a bit compared to last week’s disastrous Girl Groups challenge and its big power rankings shakeup. I think we now have a clear-eyed look at how this season might progress from here.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!