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RuPaul’s Drag Race Recap: What to Expect When You’re Expecting

Boys and ladyboys, it’s our tenth episode: In an effort to extend the fabulousness of Season Four for another week (think of the ad revenue!), the show is bringing back a departed queen. And since this is not the first season they’re doing this, it’s only a matter of time before the mysterious holding place for our fallen ladies gets a sponsor.

Sooooo…. any last-minute guesses who is returning? Well, Dida would be too soon. Willam would interfere with them promoting the reunion show (we’ll learn she smuggled a phone or something equally anticlimactic soon enough). Jiggly? The judges would have sent her home sooner if they had gotten the chance. London, Paris, Milan? Eh/meh/nah.

It appears we’re going back to Episode Five (remember February?) to ressurect a little piece of Puerto Rico: Kenya Michaels!

Oh. Hooray?

I don’t really feel much about this. I’ll always remember Kenya as the queen who bombed as Beyoncé at Snatch Game—passing out from too many drugs! And gave the most confused performance of a prison guard in Drag Race’s extensive history.

So I must agree with the impromptu shirts our girls made before her arrival: Top Four and No Mo!

Alas, I’ll just grin and bear it.

Oh, awesome… that’s the perfect pun segue for the mini-challenge: decorating stuffed bears! Because, well, the producers blew their budget on that wet t-shirt contest and bedazzling a stuffed animal is clearly an appropriate test for America’s next drag superstar.

Well, at least the rules are easy to explain. See this pile crafts? See that bear? GO!

After the fur settles, Kenya is deemed the winner for no apparent reason. (You could have made a case for anyone) She even named her bear “La Transbear” (pronounced by her as “La Tranzzzz-Pear”), a name which I’m sure offended someone somewhere.

The main challenge is revealed: DILF, or Dads I’d Like to Frock, where our queens will transform their assigned partner into a sister queen. We’ve seen this before with older men (Season 2) and jocks (Season 3), but this is the year of the dad. Yup, actual dads. The five gentlemen introduce themselves and assertively state how many children they’ve fathered.

It’s as awkward as it sounds.

Kenya’s prize from the mini-challenge allows her to assign the DILFS. She takes cues from Phi Phi, doing her best to create difficult pairings, mostly just frustrating Sharon Needles by giving her the burliest one: “He’s too manly to be pretty!”

Coincidentally, I suffer from the exact same problem.

For the main challenge, our girls must dress up their DILFs in “baby-bump realness.” Yup, we’re due for a maternity challenge. And to add a random performance element, they also have to execute a burlesque routine—because pregnancy and stripping are like PB & J..

For this episode, there’s always one question that rarely gets answer: Why? Why do these (as described by Latrice) “burly, truck drivin’ men for real for real” sign up? Sharon’s DILF claims he wants to bring out his inner diva—and maybe that’s reason enough—but I’d still like to hear more justification for why someone would volunteer to have Phi Phi O’Hara boss them around for two days.

During burlesque rehearsal, all of the DILFs—cue surprised face!—struggle with their routines and walking in heels. Sharon’s partner has an especially tough time with the choreography, causing Needles to fall on the floor and moan, “I have created [a] routine that Helen Keller could do on the first try!” Kenya’s partner follows along well enough, but he just looks damn miserable.

When we make it to the runway, we meet our guest judges: Ghost Whisperer extraordinaire Jennifer Love Hewitt and Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

The strip teases are a disaster. I think? Or maybe they are brilliant? Tiny snippets of each routine are edited together to form this burlesque Frankenstein, so we don’t see anyone’s full act. But based on the given 2.3 seconds for each one, I’m pretty sure Phi Phi and Chad do well. The rest seem… well, maybe the editors were doing us a favor.

For the main stage, it’s a baby-bump parade, which is my new favorite kind of parade. Because instead of them throwing beads or candy, they’re throwing “carnival pregnancy realness.” Yup. You think you’ve been served every possible type of realness, and then Chad Michaels serves you carnival… pregnancy… realness.

Chad Michaels, never stop being Chad Michaels. That is all.

Latrice Royale and her partner look so mismatched that it seems intentional. Sharon… gets through it. Phi Phi and her DILF make teen pregnancy look like adorable, neon fun time. But the happiness is almost instantly stomped out when Kenya Michaels and her DILF serve the most unnecessarily sad runway in the history of runways. Is “pre-partum depression realness” in the Drag Race realness lexicon?

Because we just witnessed it.

During critiques, Phi Phi gets emotional when talking about working with her daddy mommy. They play the sad piano music, and there are tears and hugging, and I should be feeling emotions, too, and ohmygod why are you still talking?!

As much as I’d like to think my angry keystrokes have an impact, they didn’t stop Phi Phi from winning the challenge. Homegirl gets a trip Vegas. Woooo. Chad earns high marks (finishing second), and Sharon narrowly escapes the bottom two.

Sigh. Latrice Royale, you and Kenya Michaels are in the bottom once again. The song is “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin.

Is there a word for watching something that’s simultaneously beautiful and excruciating? Well, we need one for this lip-synch. Latrice sings to her baby bump, and it represents all that is perfect in the world.

Then there’s Kenya Michaels.

But I’m blaming Santino Rice and Michelle for this. You brought her back! You deemed her worthy of returning—and possibly winning—this show! And now, we have a queen doing the splits while wearing a maternity suit. When she tosses her wig, I can feel the pain on Jennifer Love Hewitt’s face. And it is such intense, pitying pain.

There’s no question about this one. Heck, there’s not even any interview commentary to lighten the mood. Kenya Michaels, sashay away. Again. Faster please. Thank you.

Queerty, what did y’all think of this week? Is Latrice in danger of not making it to the final three? How awkward was the fight between Chad and Sharon’s DILF?

Next week: it’s a canine couture. Sure. Great. Thanks. Just no more maternity ballet.

 

Jason Sweeten is worried about Latrice (twice in the bottom two!) and wants to know that it will all be okay.

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