We finally have all 14 of our RuPaul's Drag Race queens together, and RuPaul wastes no time in challenging their sense of style and tests their design skills. Who slayed the runway for the Mother of All Balls? Let’s look back at episode three and find out.
The second batch of queens return to the werk room after Plane Jane’s lip sync win. After a little small talk, the dolls from the premiere episode enter and everyone sizes each other up. Dawn calls Megami “the Eeyore of drag,” and Jane says she thinks Amanda Tori Meating’s drag is “hideous.” We also discover that Morphine Love Dion and Jane have the same drag mother, and we see the battle lines drawn between Plasma and Sapphira Cristal. The drama, already!
The next day, two boxes are greeting the queens in the werk room with the names of the two winning lip syncers on them – Plane Jane and Sapphira. Inside the boxes is a vial of “immunity potion” – resembling the youth potion from Death Becomes Her. Ru enters in a sharp gold suit and lets the winners know that they can save themselves – or another queen – from elimination, and Ru warns that there is an expiration date on the potion.
This week, the queens face their first design challenge, as they have to strut the runway in three looks for the Mother of All Balls. The three unique looks are: Mother Goose – inspired by classic nursery rhymes, Significant Mother – inspired by the queens’ favorite famous Mom and Call Me Mother/Father Eleganza – from scratch mother of the ball looks made from menswear. Q and Dawn knew this challenge was firmly in their wheelhouse, so I am anticipating good things from both of them.
Ru meets with the queens after they grab their fabrics and begin to design their dresses (Mirage’s is already a disaster by now). We find out that Mhiya Iman LePaige cannot sew and that Q’s grandmother was her fashion inspiration but, sadly, they no longer speak because she doesn’t accept her. Nymphia Wind tells Ru she wants to blow everyone away and Amanda is teased because she looks better without makeup on (she jokes that her inner saboteur created her purple alien face from the first runway.) Hershii LiqCour Jete is also worried about her skirt made solely from socks.
After Ru’s feedback, she tells the queens that they will once again be using the Rate-A-Queen system to not only pick the week’s tops but also the ones who could be facing elimination. The tops and bottoms will be the only ones whose looks will be critiqued by the judges (Michelle, Carson, and special guest Isaac Mizrahi…no pressure there, am I right?) Ru then presents the queens with the results of the first 2 Rate-A-Queens. For week one, Sapphira was number one, followed by Q, Dawn, Mirage, Morphine, Xunami Muse and Amanda. For week two, Jane was tops, followed by Geneva Karr, Nymphia, Plasma, Mhi’ya, Hershii and Megami.
As the queens keep working on their looks, there’s a lot going on. Mhi’ya is freaking out; Nymphia and Xunami tease Jane, which leads her to suspect that Nymphia knows how low Jane placed her in RAQ (Megami dubs Nymphia a “chaos goblin,” and it’s a perfect description of her antics – especially when she begins her duties as a “Spanish messenger pigeon” delivering naughty phrases and insults back and forth between the Spanish-speaking queens. This is the most fun I’ve seen in the werk room in a long time.
It's time for the ball and Ru is rocking an amazing wig. First up are the Mother Goose looks. Geneva is Little Miss Muffet with a huge, quilted skirt with a big spider on it as well as a too big hat that obscures her face. Dawn is Cushy Cow and all I could see was her hooved shoes (I’m thinking we shouldn’t sleep on Dawn.) Hershii’s Bernie Bee is yellow and black striped glamour and Mirage takes her Baa Baa Black Sheep to the mall (it’s a cute look.) Megami is a deconstructed Little Bo Peep, Amanda serves us Rhoda from The Bad Seed in a stuffed kitty look and Morphine wears a latex maid outfit (not sure what nursery rhyme that’s from).
Myi’ha is bedecked in feathers (that also kind of hide her face) as Mary’s Canary, Q is perfection as the Man in the Moon and Nymphia delivers an androgynous Little Boy Blue. Sapphira takes Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater to a new level with a detailed pumpkin-shaped gown, Jane is a Roaring 20s pussycat by the fire, Xunami comes out as Humpty Dumpty and reveals a fried egg mini dress and Plasma is Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum with the help of puppet magic. Faves this round are Q, Hershii, Nymphia and Sapphira.
Next is Significant Mother. Geneva tries to channel Salma Hayek (kind of unsuccessfully), Dawn puts her own spin on Audrey Hepburn’s iconic Breakfast at Tiffany’s look and Hershii wears an earth print mini dress to evoke Mother Nature.
Mirage is all hair and lots of skin as La Llorna, Megami pulls together some Lady Gaga references and Amanda gives us Michelle Visage pre- and post-explants. Morphine makes for a convincing Kris Jenner, Mhi’ya thinks she’s serving Lil’ Kim but looks more Missy Elliott, Q recreates one of Judy Garland’s concert gowns (beautifully) and Nymphia recruits her Taiwan family to decorate her recreation of Angelina Jolie’s wedding gown.
Sapphira dons glittery fig leaves to give us Eve, June bedazzles a hospital gown to play Octomom, Xunami pays tribute to her drag mom, Kandy Muse by serving her denim entrance look from her season and Plasma gives Ann Boleyn the royal treatment with a golden velvet gown. Faves in this category are Dawn and Q.
Lastly, we see the queens’ eleganza creations. There aren’t a lot of standouts, which is surprising with this group. Q gave us a Vivienne Westwood meets Dior look with hues of black, white and grey. Nymphia made an outfit accented with ties (reinforced so they looked like they were blowing in the wind…I don’t know how she did it, but the effect was magical.)
The only other real standout in my book was Plasma’s floor-length black pinstripe gown. The other looks were okay, but Hershii’s mint green pantsuit was the only real fail (and she later revealed she didn’t make the pants.)
The queens vote and choose Nymphia, Q and Sapphira as the tops and Geneva, Hershii and Myi’ah as the bottom three. After the judges’ critiques and )off-screen) deliberations, Ru declares Nymphia the winner and leaves Geneva and Hershii to face off in the lip sync to Ava Max’s song “Maybe You’re the Problem.” Hershii tries to channel a two-stepping church lady, but her enthusiasm is overshadowed by Geneva’s high-energy, high-kicking moves. So, we have to say goodbye to the sweet Hershii. See you next week!
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