The all star queens try their hand at a good ol’ fashioned stand up roast for this week’s challenge. Legendary actress Ruta Lee is a guest judge…
Last week the queens became real estate moguls as they wrote and filmed commercials trying to sell less-than-ideal homes across America. Plastique and Roxxxy took home the benefactress badges and Roxxxy won the lip sync, meaning she was the queen that got to choose to block another. After accidentally choosing Angeria at random, Roxxxy went back on it and tearfully decided to give the ruby snippers to Gottmik, simply based on the number of badges she has. This week tensions may rise in the werk room before the queens roast each other in a stand up comedy challenge. Let’s get into it.
This week’s episode begins after Roxxxy’s emotional scissoring on the main stage. Roxxxy is at the top of the pack but she’s still feeling emotional about snipping Mik. She tearfully tells the queens why she made her decision before Gottmik walks in. She apologizes once again and tries to justify her choice and everyone tells her how gagged they were when she randomly stopped on Angeria. Angie says if Roxxxy would have stuck with her original pick, it would have felt personal. Gottmik tells her no T no shade, but Roxxxy for sure knew where she was on the stage when she was picking at random. Roxxxy promises she really had no idea where she was standing on the stage, but not everybody believes her.
It’s a new day in the werk room and the queens are renewed and ready for another challenge. Shannel really wants to get her badge this week but is feeling nervous about what the challenge may be. Ru enters and tells the queens that during an election year, the most important thing anybody can do is vote. They all urge the audience to register to vote. For this week’s mini challenge the queens are taking on straw polls. They’ll have to answer questions choosing the other queens or themselves. When their answer matches the majority vote, they’ll get a point. The winner will get $2500 for their charity AND a benefactress badge. After answering a bunch of politically themed questions Ru reveals that the winner of the mini challenge is Jorgeous! She’ll get that extra money for her charity and another badge, too. Ru tells the queens they have to come together for freedom, and to read a bitch down. This week they’ll be roasting each other at The National Drag Convention. They’ll be workshopping their material with the Secretary of Shade Michelle Visage and this week’s extra special guest Ruta Lee. Since Jorgeous won the straw poll, she’ll get to choose the roast order.
Over on the work table there’s notebooks and pens waiting for the queens. Jorgeous takes a temperature check and tells the queens she wants to go second. She picks Shannel to go first because she often hosts events and she thinks Shannel will be strong in that position. She chooses Nina to go last to Nina’s surprise. Nina is a strong comedic performer but she’s not a seasoned stand-up queen. The rest of the queens filter in the order somewhere in between Shannel and Nina and they’re off to come up with material. Jorgeous tells Plastique that she’s taking Ru’s advice and coming out on stage as a butch character. Angie tells Vanjie she’s feeling good and excited about this challenge since she was confident during this challenge in her own season. Nina tells Roxxxy she’s feeling the pressure because she’s not an insult comic. Each of the queens head out to the main stage to workshop their jokes with Michelle and Ruta Lee. Shannel gets laughs from both of them and is feeling ready to maybe snatch her first badge this week. Roxxxy has bombed two roasts, so she’s understandably nervous. Michelle tells her she’s got good stuff and just has to work on her delivery. The other queens get some valuable tips from Michelle and Ruta, especially Angeria who feels like she’s getting caught up in the snipping. She knows she needs to work past it to get her funny back. Plastique is having some trouble delivering mean jokes but realizes she can probably do it in character, so she switches her strategy. Nina goes last and already has some good material, Michelle isn’t worried at all.
It’s roast/runway week. Gottmik is feeling bummed about being cut this week because she won the roast challenge in her season. Even though she can’t win a badge she still wants to show the other queens she can still kill it. Some of the queens reveal they’re bringing characters to the roast and Roxxxy is feeling nervous about being cut if she loses this challenge. She urges the other queens to think about what the next challenge might be when they’re thinking about who to cut. Jorgeous tells Angeria why everyone voted her as the most delusional in the mini challenge which has some of the other queens gagged but it doesn’t grow into a bigger argument.
Out on the main stage Ru introduces this week’s panel of all star judges Michelle, Carson, and this week’s extra special guest Ruta Lee. The roast kicks off with Bob the Drag Queen opening the show as Drag’s Poet Laureate.
There’s a live audience to turn the pressure up a little bit and Shannel is up first. Shannel’s delivery is strong and gets a lot of laughs, overall a strong opening. Jorgeous is next and has chosen to come out butch and boyish which immediately has Ru cackling. Jorgeous’s jokes are landing and getting a lot of laughs from both the judges, the audience, and the other queens. Plastique follows and she starts really strong and keeps it up. All of the judges are laughing, Ru even dabs tears away a few times.
Roxxxy takes the stage and immediately gets laughs. She’s doing much better than she has in past seasons. Vanjie rushes out of the gates with her larger than life personality and her jokes are getting lots of laughs. She’s going farther with mean jokes than the rest of the queens but the other queens are responding well to them. It’s Angeria up next and she really took Michelle’s tips from the workshop and ran with them because she kills the roast. Gottmik takes the stage second to last and Angeria will be a tough act to follow. Mik’s jokes are certainly more mean-spirited like you would hear at a traditional roast, but it’s still getting a lot of giggles from the audience. Nina closes the roast. She’s dressed as the devil emerging from the flames of hell and uses her reputation as the kind queen to support her jokes. She gets a good response and finishes out the strong roast on a high note.
After the roast the category on the runway is “Atomic Blonde” and the queens strut in their Barbarella-meets-Chromatica inspired looks. Critiques begin with Shannel. Michelle says nobody stunk the room up which was a first in Drag Race herstory. She also tells Shannel her hosting experience really helped her out and she landed lots of jokes. Carson loves her runway look and says it’s really well thought out. Carson loves Jorgeous’s roast and Ru tells her she has a whole new side of her career to work with off that character. Michelle tells her how proud she is of her for giving us something different in the roast and Carson loves her runway. Carson tells Plastique he’s obsessed with her bunny meets Batmobile look. Michelle says she usually hates white makeup but loves Plastique’s take on it. Ruta tells her she really went for it in the roast and it paid off. Carson tells Roxxxy her look is very glam and loves it. Ruta tells her she commanded the stage and did a great job, which Ru validates. Michelle tells Vanjie her runway look is different for her and so beautiful. Carson tells her she did a good job with her jokes. Carson also tells Angeria her look has a lot of personality and Michelle tells her she took what she was told in the workshop and turned it around for a fabulous performance in the challenge. Michelle loves how meta Gottmik’s runway look is and Carson tells her she’s pure artistry. Ruta says her jokes were great fun but Michelle tells she was being a bit reserved and wishes she would have gone a little bit further with them. Finally, the judges tell Nina they love what she brings to the competition. Ruta tells her she had the toughest act to fill but she could have read the phone book and did a good job. Carson tells her she was a little “too prepared” and urges her to go off script more.
Following deliberations, Ru announces that the top two all stars of the week are Plastique and Angeria. The top two both get a benefactress badge and lip sync for their charities to Be My Lover by La Bouche. Both queens give larger than life performances but it’s Angeria who takes the tip money for her charity and the power to snip another queen. Angeria takes the ruby snippers and unsurprisingly hands them to Roxxxy, who will not be able to win a fourth badge next week.