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Joan Rivers

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 5 – House of Fashion, Review & Power Ranking

January 28, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the fifth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – House of Fashion. It’s an unconventional material design challenge with a twist: the queens are split into three groups and have to present cohesive runway collections for the House of (Michelle) Visage, the House of (Carson) Kressley, and the House of (Ross) Matthews.

This episode lacked a certain spark, and it’s hard to decide if that was down to the 40-minute runtime or the peculiar version of this familiar challenge. Seasons 3, 4, & 5 each opened with and iconic unconventional materials episode with a full cast of queens.

Season 4’s “RuPocalypse Now!” is probably the best of the bunch – packed with Sharon’s zombie look, Jiggly’s baked potato couture, and LaShawn Beyond’s classic “Post-Apopaloctic” line. It’s a 63-minute edit, but 20 of those minutes are entrances and a length photo shoot challenge! That means the meat of the design challenge (including the whole “wrestling with zombies for clothes” bit) still fit into 40 minutes, and it included both a walkaround with Ru and the private judges deliberations.

Of everything that feels squeezed by these 40-minute edits, I think the element that is most-sorely missing are those private judges deliberations. Without them, we don’t have any sense of RuPaul as a character on her own show. It also complete defangs Michelle Visage if we can’t hear her cutting opinions in private. Finally, it renders the guest judges completely pointless, since we don’t get to hear their unbiased opinions as they go to bat for the queens.

It was especially cruel to miss out on those deliberations in this episode, where Michelle and Ross had queens representing their brands and the guest judge was Janelle Monae, who knows something about fashion!

House of Visage

House of Kressley

House of Matthews

Looking beyond the edit, there was also the unusual nature of this iteration of the unconventional material challenge. First, since the queens were in teams it meant there was no apparent fighting over materials – sharing was in their best interest. Aside from losing the prurient fun of the catty fighting over who gets what leopard-print pillow, what was really lacking was a feeling of scarcity.

Part of what makes unconventional material challenges truly challenging is the queens trying to figure out what they can construct out of things other than fabric. Yet, in this challenge there was enough for nearly every queen to make a cape!

If I had to award a team win, it’d go to the House of Matthews. Even if their collection trended a little bit casual, it was cohesive and there wasn’t a bad look in the bunch. The judges seemed to agree, giving half the group a high placement and calling the other two safe.

What did this unconventional version of the unconventional materials design challenge mean for my power rankings? While the very top remains the same as last week’s Snatch Game ranking, there are some major shake-ups in the middle of the pack as the queens without wins jostle for positive critiques and screen time.

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 5 – House of Fashion, Review & Power Ranking

Filed Under: teevee Tagged With: Design Challenge, drag, Drag Race, Joan Rivers, Power Rankings, RuPaul's Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race Season 15, Snatch Game, Unconventional Materials Challenge

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 4 – Snatch Game, Review & Power Ranking

January 21, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the fourth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – a supersized version of Snatch Game, the Drag Race game show challenge of impersonation, comedy, and quick wit.

I think we had more than one potential Hall of Fame performance in this Snatch Game, which is always exciting to see! The first round of the game was more all-around entertaining, but the second round had had a trio of standouts.

Maybe this solidifies the argument for front-loading the season with Snatch Game as well as a Ball challenge within the first few episodes. We really ought to see a queen make it through these Drag Race fundamentals before she sashays away.

Surprisingly, this episode may have also made an argument in favor of the tight 40-minute edit of this season’s episodes. We never saw Ru’s walkaround where he attempts to undermine the queens’ characters choices, insisting that everyone would be funnier if they did Cher. It doesn’t add anything to the show. I much prefer to watch Snatch Game unfurl without a preview of how Ru might be biased for or against any of their choices.

Of course, Snatch Game is the one Drag Race challenge that has such a straightforward format where you can easily cut minutes out of the process of explaining it and it still turns out the same. Next week we’re due for a design challenge, and I fear that we’ll see very little of each queen as they design and construct their garments.

Did the crowd of strong Season 15 Snatch Game performances shake up my power rankings from last week? We had a major fall and a major lift, but not too much jostling between them.

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 4 – Snatch Game, Review & Power Ranking

Filed Under: teevee Tagged With: drag, Drag Race, Joan Rivers, Power Rankings, RuPaul's Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race Season 15, Snatch Game

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