Hey, kitty girls! Welcome back to another episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 4!
Last week, as a tribute to Judy Garland, each queen made over their Best Judy (i.e.. best friend) into a member of their drag family. They also performed a horrendous original song called “My Best Judy” dressed in Judy’s menswear look from Summer Stock. In the words of Willam:
I will make it rain on any hoe who tries to do that “My Best Judy” song at a club. I’ve heard less catchy car insurance jingles.
— Willam (@willam) February 2, 2019
Let’s also get some things, er, straight:
- Yes, Judy Garland’s funeral happened shortly before the Stonewall riots. The show implied that Judy’s funeral was the direct reason the riots happened, which was more a myth than anything else.
- Judy did not represent friendship, despite the show’s laboured efforts to make it seem so. Judy represented vulnerability and the power to rise above immeasurable personal trauma and tragedy. That was why she became a gay icon.
- Congratulations to Naomi Smalls on her very first win this season! She had been consistently safe and had some outstanding moments so it was good to finally see her in the bottom two. And she won a trip to Iceland!
- Monet was giving classic Judy during her lipsync to “Come Rain or Come Shine” against Naomi Smalls, who was giving camp and a performance that, yes, was everything, but was perhaps too much. It was akin to Bebe and Bendela’s lipsync to “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here” — Ben embodied the song and Bebe gave a histrionic Madama Butterfly performance that had nothing to do with the song. A lot of people claimed that Bebe gave the better performance, and sure, it was easy to live for it, but it was not the right approach. At least Naomi didn’t take her wig off.
At the end of it all, Naomi Smalls sent home Manila Luzon, who landed in the bottom two for the first time this season alongside her close friend (Best Judy, perhaps?) and All Stars 1 teammate, Latrice Royale. (This was a very produced episode and I kind of didn’t mind it.) Props to Naomi for playing the game how she wanted to play it and eliminate the stronger competitor of the two bottom queens. We’ll see which lipsync Monet picked.
This week, the queens star in (ugh) a scripted acting challenge called Sex and the Kitty Girl, based on the show Sex and the City, which is a pretty tired cultural reference at this point. It also gives one uncomfortable flashbacks to the My Best Squirrelfriends’ Wedding skit from All Stars 3. Let’s pray that these queens don’t have to fart “Here Comes the Bride” on national television.
As per usual, this thread is for discussing the episode both as it airs and afterwards, so exercise judgment when it comes to using spoiler tags. Especially spoilery details are advised to be placed in spoiler tags.
In the words of Tatianna, thank yew, and enjoy tonight’s episode!