RECAP: Drag Race U.K. Season 7, Episode 3
Sorry, no recap for Episode 2, because frankly I didn’t have much to say about it. And that vibe is going to carry over into this recap, because now that we are roughly 1/3 of the way through this season, I think it’s safe to say that “Drag Race U.K.” Series 7 is not measuring up to the previous two seasons. It’s not a BAD season — it’s better than Series 3, so far. But it’s also not nearly as good as Series 6, Series 5, or Series 2.
And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what’s going wrong here. I think the cast is overall likable — but I also haven’t fallen in love with any of them, as I have by this point in seasons past. There’s no Kate Butch, no Lill, no Tia Kofi to delight me even if they weren’t taking home badges. The Series 7 girls have sharper edges, and seem to be deliberately playing things up for TV drama. There’s a place for that on a reality competition, to be sure, but none of it feels authentic or even earned.
The challenges have also not been great. I applaud the show for trying something new with the premiere format. I even think the “introduce yourself with an over-the-top runway look and a cheeky question-and-answer bit” probably sounded like a good idea in the production office. But very few of the queens fully delivered on both parts. The sewing challenge in Episode 2 just felt lazy, and the results were…fine. But again, nothing compared to some of the workroom designs we’ve seen in season past.
And frankly, all of it seems a bit too referential to the past, without giving us much of anything new and exciting. That’s the only explanation I can think of for why the judges are pushing Catrin Feelings as hard as they are. She’s the reheated nacho version of Lawrence Chaney — I’m calling her Lawrence Meh-ny — just as Paige Three feels highly A’whora coded, Sally TM feels like a more successful version of Sister Sister, etc. I know we’re not supposed to compare new queens to queens from previous seasons, and I even get how that’s offensive and demoralizing to these artists. But the show itself seems to pushing those comparisons this season, especially when it comes to Catrin, and I simply don’t think this crop has given us anything that measures up to their predecessors. And that includes the songs from this week’s girl-group challenge, which were, in my opinion, total flops.
Read on for (more of) my thoughts on “Drag Race U.K. 7” Episode 3, “Battle of the Brats.”
RELATED CONTENT
Top 10 “Drag Race” Season 17 Promo Looks
Top 10 “Drag Race” Seasons of 2024
“Drag Race” Season 17 Premiere Bingo Cards
Best “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Snatch Game Performance
Best “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Runway Look (S7-S12)
Following last week’s elimination of Pasty — which was a huge bummer, because I think she was one of the most lovable queens on the cast — Viola shared how devastated it was for her to not only be in the bottom on a design challenge (fully deserved), but also to be painted as unlikable by her cast members. I feel for Viola. I think they brought her in as a frontrunner and have since been railroading her pretty brutally. It was the same arc her fellow “Queen of the Universe” contestant Leona Winter got on “Drag Race France” Season 3; I didn’t like it then, and I like it even less here. Do I think Viola is young and full of herself? Totally. But I absolutely hate it when “Drag Race” engages in the televised bullying of a theater kid, and that’s what this felt like.
Speaking of school trauma, for the girl group maxi challenge, last week’s challenge winner — Sally TM (also deserved, that was by far the best look at the stage) — and last week’s lipsynch survivor, Viola, got to pick teams via schoolyard rules. As there were an uneven number of queens due to the ultimately pointless Lucky Cow twist, the last person chosen — Catrin Feelings — got to choose whichever team she wanted to be on. She chose Team Viola, which was surprising, as those two have been verbally slapping at each other the entire time.
The teams ultimately ended up being F@llen Ang3lz (terrible), which included Viola, Paige Three (the de facto team leader, since this is what she does weekly in SoHo), Tayris Mongardi (quite good!), Bonnie Anne Clyde (consistently forgettable, although usually well dressed), the previously discussed Catrin, and Nyongbella. Hotline X was made up of Sally TM, Bones (also de facto team leader, for the same reason as Paige), Silllexa Diction (I can’t explain it, but there’s something about this queen that I just cannot connect with, but there is obviously talent and craft there), Elle Vosque (I’m warming up to her), and Chai T. Grande (like Silllexa, I can see the talent there, but she’s just not pushing through the screen).
Here are the two versions:
If you held a gun to my head and said, “Which team did better?” I would probably say Hotline X. But truthfully, the answer is, neither of them. I did not care for the song at all, a rare miss for Leland, who was channeling Charli XCX’s BRAT album. I’m deathly bored of bored-sounding pop music. My kingdom for a song with a fucking pulse and performers who act like they want to be on stage. There were very few lyrics that I found interesting or witty or clever. But I do think Hotline X had the better presentation. Still, going back to my thesis on this season, these tracks pale in comparison to “UK Hun,” “Break Up Bye-Bye,” “Don’t Ick My Yum,” “Come Alive,” or even last season’s Halloween banger, “Dead or Alive.” I do not expect to come back for second helpings of “She Ate That.”
At judging, RuPaul said that the queens were making it hard, because they were all so good. Was “good” in the room with us? I thought most of them were forgettable in the challenge, and I thought that “Cuddly-Wuddly” runway was a confusing mess. Chai, Elle, and Bonnie looked good, but I have no idea what the fuck some of the others were going for, especially Sally (she kept saying it was a stuffed bear — it did not read at all), Bones (Michelle Visage can call it “fashion” all she wants, but sis was out there looking like a tardigrade mainlining Ozempic), and Viola were thinking. Really bad, folks. The runways this season in general have been pretty tragic.
But the worst, without question, was Viola, who showed up in full Five Nights at Freddy’s cosplay. I agreed with Ru’s take — this barely qualified as drag. I don’t even know if Ru knows the reference. This was a full-on copy paste of a character from a video game/movie; it would no different from showing up on the runway dressed as Donald Duck. Is that drag? I don’t see how. Viola executed her vision well — it looked like the character! — but it didn’t fit the category, nor did it play to the judges. I think it’s this kind of entitled hubris is precisely what put Ru off of Viola, and Ru wasn’t even attempting to hide her disdain.
The same could be said of Ru and her patience with Nyongbella. To be honest, I’ve also struggled there. I think Nyongbella seems sweet and she can be charming in her talking heads — I bet she’s beloved by Gen Z, and could care less if older generations get what she’s trying to do. As one of those ancient beings, I’m just mystified. We’re three episodes in and I’m unclear on Nyongbella’s strengths. She’s beautiful, sure. She looks great naked, which seems to be her primary selling point. But that’s not particularly compelling television, and to be blunt, we’ve seen many, many, MANY other queens do both of those things better. I find the whole vibe super performative and quite grating. I suspect Ru does as well.
Because the Bottom 2 for the episode were Viola and Nyongbella, and I don’t think they were the worst in this challenge. In fact, Viola’s vocals were easily the best singing in the group, and Nyongbella had one of the more interesting verses. So many of the queens were forgettable or indistinguishable, and that is, to me, a far worse sin than whatever these two were critiqued for by the judges. Michelle gave the note that when it wasn’t their verse, she didn’t keep her focus on them — that’s…kind of the point of a girl-group challenge. And I’m certain we’ve seen queens get dinged in the past for stealing the spotlight during another queen’s Moment.
To me, this Bottom 2 reeked of, We have decided that you two queens WILL be the next to go, and so we are just going to make this happen. Of the three episodes, these two have each lipsynched twice already. The only other queen to lipsynch was the only girl eliminated thus far. So Viola and Nyongbella lipsynched to “Sound of the Underground” by Girls Aloud, and it was not good. Nyongbella is not a good lipsyncher. She doesn’t connect with the music, oftentimes looks awkward on stage, and I swear there were moments that she clearly did not know the lyrics. She stripped, again, and did some by-now very cliched moves. Viola as hampered by her bulky, unsexy costume, but I also think she had resigned herself to her fate. And indeed, it was Viola’s time to get plucked.
I truly feel bad for this queen. I think she has tons of talent, and some very big ambitions. I’m sure she went on this show hoping for a La Voix-like run and instead got one of the more brutal edits I’ve ever seen on this series. She seemed broken by the end of it, and I can’t blame her. At a certain point, you just acknowledge that something isn’t working, even if you want it to work. I hope she got that glass of wine. Wishing her the best, honestly.
Next: it’s an acting challenge, and I’m real nervous about this cast’s ability to be deliberately funny. And we have a showmance. Which doesn’t feel forced AT ALL, you guys. NOT AT ALL!
What do you think of the season so far? What UK 7 queens are you rooting for? Let us know in the comments.
