Previously on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Lady Gaga worked hard to finally win me over whilst shadowing Ru throughout the premiere. I assume in some contractually negotiated move, Gaga’s episode also featured no elimination, meaning Jaymes, Kimora and (don’t hate me) Aja got very lucky.
The non-elimination thankfully didn’t take away from Nina slaying the first episode and snatching the Miss Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent pageant crown … before Ru dropped the bomb that a 14th queen would be joining the competition.
This episode picked up exactly where we left off last week as we welcomed last season’s Miss Congeniality, cucu queen Cynthia Lee Fontaine back to the competition … hopefully sans the ‘80s running shorts that got her eliminated the first time.
While some queens were thrilled to see Cynthia and her cucu ru-turn, Shea was confused as to whether it was all some big joke – like Shangela’s third-ninetieth returns – Peppermint was not happy to have another person to compete against and Kimora was wanting to have a cucu-off … because if Cynthia’s wasn’t the best, she didn’t want to hear about.
To be honest, after the queens returned to the werk room the next day and Cynthia uttered her seventieth cucu of the episode, I also didn’t want to hear about it.
Not letting me dwell on my regretfully bubbling rage against Miss Cucu, Lisa Kudrow dropped by channelling her best Valerie Cherish to welcome the girls to the second week of the competition and explain the reason for Ru’s entry line.
Then she left. Just left.
It was confusing and makes me desperate for her to ru-turn to the judges table eventually.
After Lisa was swiftly axed, Ru announced this week’s cheertastic maxi-challenge where the girls would split into rival cheer squads reppin’ the hometown Glamazon’s or the visiting B-52 Bombers.
The Glamazon’s were lead by last week’s champ Nina featuring Shea, Alexis, Aja, Sasha, Jaymes and Charlie, while Cynthia captained the remaining girls as part of the Bomber’s.
Ru followed Lisa – albeit on an extended delay – out the door as Glamazons got to work splitting out the roles with Jaymes fighting hard to play the role of floozy over Alexis instead of snoozy. Fast forward two minutes into rehearsal where she was struggling with the timing and asked Alexis to swap roles with her.
We joined the Bombers for cheer training where Trinity was scared – rightfully so – to be the flyer, while Valentina warmed hearts where she smiled through her nerves … and the disappointment of being picked last. Echoing Trinity’s terror, Charlie had her turn being the flyer in rehearsal and promptly decided that anyone with an AARP membership has no place being a cheerleader.
I feel like Charlie is my spirit animal.
With an overwhelming sense of dread for their impending cheer-doom, the queens returned to the werk room to prepare their outfits where Kimora planned to go panty-less for the performance – I would pay to see that, so no shade … but I’m not sure if that was simply because she didn’t know what bloomers were, rather than giving the audience what they wanted. She then worked to snatch the whining crown from Farrah, complaining about having to make her own outfit and tried to bribe Eureka with the promise of a buffet visit in exchange for her making her outfit.
Continuing to be the sweetest part of the episode Valentina prayed to her proxy-drag mother the Virgen de Guadalupe, before Peppermint shared a story about being bashed by the basketball team in High School and Trinity reached out to Cynthia, concerned about her cancer and thankfully helping Cynthia to win me back over.
By the time the cheertastic battle arrived, Valentina was full of spirit and slayed the competition, with Cynthia, Shea and Trinity all giving strong performances while poor Jaymes – once again – and Charlie struggled to keep up or be memorable.
While the queens were shady about it earlier Valentina’s prayers worked and she won the challenge, snatching a gallery of wigs. And thankfully for my golden girl Charlie, she slayed the white party realness runway and saved herself from the bottom two, while Jaymes and Kimora found themselves lipsyncing for their lives to Love Shack.
I assumed that Love Shack would be tailor made for Jaymes’ character, she spent the lip sync kinda just stalking Kimora around the stage and mimicked her – pretty lacklustre – moves, resulting in Kimora staying and Jaymes becoming the first queen sashaying away from the competition.
My dear friend Jaymes is a very talented queen, however the competition clearly got the best of her and she was unable to bring it like her fellow queens were. Thankfully I was able to bring a big batch of Jams Mansfield to dull her pain and that really helped cheer – no pun intended, surprisingly – her up.
Like poor Jaymes, my raspberry jam is super sweet and just makes you feel happy whenever it is around. I mean, I’ve been happy for weeks and assumed it was my new meds … but it turns out it was actually just having jam in the fridge!
Plus it is super simple to make, so there is no risk of overwhelming even the most out-of-their-depth queens cooks.
Enjoy!
Jams Mansfield
Makes: 1-2 cups.
Ingredients
500g raspberries
250g raw caster sugar
Method
Combine the berries and sugar in a saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for half an hour.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool for about ten minutes before decanting into sterilized jars and allowing to cool. Once cool, seal the jars and store in the fridge.
Or you know, just devour straight away on a fresh scone or something. Whatever.
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