In the last episode of Ru Paul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race, we saw Poppy Love continue her domination of the competition as she claimed her second win in two episodes! I personally, thoroughly enjoyed her performance of “Show Me How to Burlesque” from the iconic movie Burlesque where they showcase their incredible dance-based skills! On the other end of the completion was surprising Thirsty Von Trap and Electra Owl with the latter revealing herself to be the singer-songwriter, Taylor Dayne! In the first episode of this season, I was a bit disappointed in the fact that there was little to no theme that tied together each of the separate performances. There was some improvement last week when the idea of “dance” was used with the queens showing their own dance skills (specifically the aforementioned Poppy Love and Chic-Fi-Lay) but I did think that this theme was extremely broad with the queens all showing off a similar style of dance. I thought it would have been very interesting if the queens could have tried something a little different, as this would have really concreted the theme of the episode. This week’s theme was “Money” and if I was a part of this season then I think I would have chosen to perform “Big Spender” by Shirley Bassey as this is an iconic song that would fit the theme perfectly!
The two-time Secret Celebrity Drag Race episode Poppy Love opens the show this week with a fantastically fun performance of the iconic Dolly Parton Song “Nine to Five.” What is fantastic about Poppy is that despite being the controversial ‘straight casting’ this season, they have really dived into the deep end of drag in a respectful and honourable way. Not only have Poppy’s performances been of an extremely high standard but they are also respecting an art form which is incredible to see! It is very clear that the person behind Poppy is a professional performer (I would guess dancer) and she even managed to squeeze in a wonderful skirt reveal! Last week Millie Von Sunshine gave one of my favourite performances of the week with her wedding-inspired number to “Dancing on My Own” this week she did another excellent performance to “Work From Home” by Fifth Harmony which was again excellent! I do have to say it was very clear that she struggled with the ripping off of her robe but she was easily able to catch back up with her choreography which shows how much of a professional she truly is! Millie was my favourite last week but this week this award goes to Thirsty Von Trap who not only bounced back from being at the bottom last week, to deliver one of the best performances of the week! The number started with the queen looking absolutely stunning in a Marlyn Monroe-inspired outfit, with a wonderfully sparkly red sequin dress with beautifully big blonde hair. This was one of the best performances we have seen from her this season with a plethora of genius nods to other popular culture moments within her number! Chakra Seven was the most surprising queen this week as she went from radiating happiness and joy to being fierce in her performance of “MILF $” by Fergie. This was a very intense and in-your-face style song that Chakra had no problem getting fully immersed in from the moment she stepped onto the stage!
There was a video stream of the queens chatting between the judge’s decisions where Chic-Fi-Lay talked about protesting if Chakra did not get the top place this week. This is why I was very surprised when it was announced that Chic was the winner of this week and there was very little resistance as outlined in the werk room. However, Ru went on to announce that Chakra was also the winner this week marking the first ever co-winners of this season so far! I totally agree that Chakra should be the winner of this week’s episode, but if it was up to me then I would have had Chakra and Thirsty as the co-winners! In the bottom this week, however, was Jackie Would and Donna Bellissima with the latter giving a wonderfully camp performance in the loser’s lip-sync which led to her staying in the competition and the former being forced to reveal themselves to the world! Jackie then announced that behind all the make-up, hair and outfits was none other than the amazing Thom Felica that was an interior designer on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy alongside Secret Celebrity Drag Race judge Carson Kressley!
Overall, it is clear that the theme is becoming more and more important to the episode with different queens excelling at different challenges. There were some excellent performances this week, with some of the participants really getting involved in the art form which is really great to see! I do think that there need to be some more connections between this season and normal Drag Race as we were promised cameos from other queens which could easily be done at this point! I am also a bit uncertain about the purpose of the queen supremes and teams the queens have been allocated into!