This is a recap of RuPaul’s Drag Race episode 1510. Spoilers below.
Finally, a challenge I would nail. Watching Drag Race, I’ve often felt like I’d be great at sharing my trauma and bonding with a bunch of queers, if only I knew how to sew… and dance and lip sync and do makeup beyond the basics. Anyway, this is why my dreams are limited to being a guest judge. But this week the queens are doing something I can do — celebrity interviews!
But first! We begin with Mistress calling Spice — a person who is one (1) year younger — her daughter, while admitting it was her time to go. Gay motherhood is a flexible concept! Almost as flexible as Loosey’s scorekeeping. She insists she’s won three challenges because of two mini challenge wins, as if that is ever how the show has worked. Thankfully Spice’s mom is there to psychologically torture Loosey in return.
It’s a new day in the work room and there’s no mini challenge for Loosey to win. There’s just an interview maxi challenge and the queens are split into three groups. Sasha and Marcia are interviewing Charo. Anetra, Malaysia, and Loosey are interviewing Frankie Grande. And Lux, Mistress, and Salina are interviewing Love Connie. The best part is the queens get to watch each other’s segments from backstage.
First up is Team Love Connie. Salina opens by struggling to get Connie to have short answers. Luxx embraces the chaos and does a good job with a golf cart drive around. And, for the first time this season, Mistress bombs her baking segment. She just can’t get Connie to engage with her and fails to get on Connie’s level.
Next up is Team Charo. Sasha is fangirling as they make a salad, but struggling to harness Charo’s chaos. But, like a pro, she stops trying! The segment ends up being so much fun and by far the best performance of the episode. Marcia is not quite as lucky, as she doesn’t seem capable of understanding anything Charo says.
Finally, Team Frankie Grande. Loosey opens with a sitdown interview and lets Frankie Grande get away with claiming a Medicine Man placed a poisonous spider on him?? Frankie is the least interesting guest, so he’s easy enough for Loosey to interview, but my God are we not going to question that claim at all? Like, okay, this segment is fine. Loosey does fine. She’s better than Malaysia who bombs the cooking segment. But my favorite here was Anetra doing the walk and talk.
The runway is Night of a Thousand Beyoncés! Or, as Anetra jokes, Night of Eight Beyoncés. While they’re getting ready, Sasha posits that she is maybe the inspiration for Sasha Fierce. I’d believe it! Mistress, however, does not.
The guest this week is Ts Madison who is always a welcome addition to the judges panel. Luxx comes out looking stunning in an exact recreation of the Bob Mackey dress worn to the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors. Anetra is once again showing off her hot butterfly chest tattoo in her recreation of the On the Run Tour. But the real winners of the runway are Sasha recreating a look from the BET awards and Mistress doing Destiny’s Child at the 2001 Grammys with puppet heads as Michelle and Kelly.
With Spice gone, I know Loosey is an easy target. But how can she do the 2011 VMA baby bump reveal without a baby bump???
Marcia and Anetra are safe — personally I would have thrown Anetra in the top and Marcia in the bottom and had no one be safe. Luxx, Sasha, and Loosey are in the top — although Ru also makes my same point about Loosey not following up on the spider story. And Mistress, Salina, and Malaysia are in the bottom — with only Malaysia receiving all negative critiques.
Sasha wins!! Loosey looks pissed off. Mistress earns her safe spot with the runway. That means it’s Malaysia and Salina lip syncing to “Single Ladies.”
Part of Salina’s wig comes off and she still wins. She just wanted it more! Malaysia has been slowing down throughout the season. This happens every year to a handful of queens. This show is hard and that challenge invigorates some and exhausts others. It was her time to go and I think she felt it. I can’t blame her! Again, I literally could not do anything these queens do except, in this one case, interview a celebrity.
Teleport Us to Mars!! Here Are Some Random Thoughts:
+ Ru asks Sasha if she’s ever hosted a TV show and um… Sasha should take over for Ru after she retires!! It’s so obvious!! She’d be amazing!!
+ I had no idea Love Connie was the gay man in the “bend and snap” Legally Blonde scene! Genuinely fun fact from interviewer Luxx.
+ In Untucked, Anetra calls Marcia a thesbian… a lipstick thesbian.
+ I appreciated how much Mistress owned fucking up the challenge.
+ Luxx’s family dropped by with a sweet message!
+ Speaking of sweet messages, Ts Madison comes backstage for a pep talk and at the end has a really lovely moment with Sasha.
+ Queen I’m rooting for: Sasha Colby
+ Queen I’m horniest for: Anetra and her butterfly tattoo
+ Queen I want to sashay: Loosey “Three Challenge Wins” Laduca
Sasha is such a pro! She’s incredible. I thought Luxx was also amazing!
I kinda feel like the interviewees were really varying levels of difficulty. Like they got two glorious agents of chaos and then like a pretty average celebrity? But the best two queens this week shone in the most chaotic of segments!
Luxx and Anetra were robbed!!
Remember when they did this challenge with Tori Spelling? I wish they would have brought her back instead of Frankie Grande.
I think Connie was the most difficult interviewee; both Salina and Mistress would have done better with one of the others. Luxx could have won this just for surviving that golf cart ride.
Mistress calling Spice her daughter isn’t weird, what…? Pretty sure she means drag daughter which has nothing to do with age-related ability to give birth. Early on, mistress told Sugar and Spice that she’d be their drag mother since they’re social media queens and have no drag family. Maybe I’m missing something but I’m puzzled by that read…
Anyway, Speaking to rumors I’ve heard that the show is setting up Sasha Colby to take over hosting for Ru to retire…. I hadn’t given much credence to this, though it’s not entirely outlandish. However, did anyone else catch that runway exchange where Ru asked Sasha if she’d ever hosted television before, and Sasha said “It’s my dream.” 🤔 Almost seems like heavy foreshadowing………