RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE S13E8 “Social Media: The Unverified Rusical”: No Eliminations? In This Economy?

Eight weeks into the latest season of RuPaul’s Drag Race and, just like this pandemic, it feels neverending. In this particular scenario, I don’t really think that it’s a bad thing because hey, Drag Race is life, but when the bottom two ends up being Kandy Muse, season 13’s prime source of entertainment, and Symone, the queen most likely to win the entire season, what RuPaul decided, in the end, wasn’t all that shocking. For the fourth time this season, nobody was eliminated, and with that came a lot of groaning from fans who may not know that there will 16 episodes this season. We’re now at the halfway point and there’s an actual shift in the spotlight, with queens who’ve been relegated to the background FINALLY coming front and center. The tree is getting shaken up and…

Your Ass Can Be Grass At Any Moment, Honey

At the top of the episode, we get the first taste of the bottom duo when Kandy talks about how, since LaLa was the first “Winner Circle” queen to sashay away, that the curse is broken. It then cuts to Symone in her confessional talking about how easy it is to end up eliminated: “It doesn’t matter if you’re winning or losing. Like, your ass can be grass at any moment, honey.” Cue the dramatic music. It’s suddenly the next day and RuPaul wastes no time in telling the contestants their maxi challenge for the week – it’s the Rusical! And this challenge is Rosé’s for the taking. Not only is Rosé an incredible singer (definitely one of the best that has competed on the show) but she’s also a member of the drag singing group Stephanie’s Child with season 12’s own Jan… a queen who was infamously declared safe throughout the entirety of her season and lost the season 12 Rusical despite being a shoo-in. Production wouldn’t pull the pageant just because Rosé is associated with Jan, would they?

Signs point to no, but to distract the audience from thinking about it, the queens sit down to figure out their parts and there’s some contention. Titled “Social Media: The Unverified Rusical”, the performance is all about singing, dancing, and acting as personifications of different social media sites and internet-related people. Everyone has to duke it out for a role and Utica Queen, who played it way too nice last week, sticks her guns and insists on the role of Lady Tweets; this causes a direct showdown between Denali and Rosé. Rosé wants the role of Foxy, a sex-positive woman on the internet who just wants to post freely but Denali wants either Lady Tweets or Foxy, and since Utica is not backing down, the workroom turns into a mini-adaptation of A Chorus Line after Elliott With 2 Ts suggests that they audition for the part of Foxy, to which Denali gives the perfect “Kubrick Stare” right into the camera. It is juicy to see the queens so hungry for some drama and that scene helps cement the episode as one of the best of this season.

Denali does a surprisingly good job at singing Foxy’s Funny Girl-inspired big number but it is really no contest; Rosé knocks it out of the park and gets the vote from all of the queens except Tina Burner, who says in her confessional that she picked Denali to mess with Rosé. Foxy goes to Rosé and Denali is paired up with Gottmik as the Russian Bots. The full cast list is:

• Rosé as Foxy
• Denali as Nikita the Russian Bot
• Gottmik as Natasha the Russian Bot
• Utica as Lady Tweets
• Elliott as Miss TokTik
• Kandy as Reverend Dr. Lady Linked In
• Olivia as Markie Tuckenberg
• Symone as Miss InstaGlam
• Tina, as Emshee, a Cabaret-inspired social media site from long, long ago

As everyone prepares their lines, an alarm rings out and they must all line up in front of the TV for a surprise video call-in from none other than Academy Award-winner, Anne Hathaway(!) Usually when there’s a celebrity who calls in, drops into, or is mentioned in the workroom, it’s easy to obvious that not everyone knows who they are. Not this time. Everyone goes wild for their guest, as they should. What’s fabulous about Ms. Hathaway is that she offers some real musical acting advice to everyone: she gives Tina pointers on how to properly die on stage and she reveals that she was the ninth choice for Andy in The Devil Wears Prada, something that fully inspires Denali after losing the role of Foxy: “Dig deep, find your funny, and make sure that you’re the one that they remember.” 

After the Zoom meeting with Anne, the queens must record their vocals with Drag Race judge and singer, Michelle Visage. The entire sequence is a classic rehearsal filled with misdirections and struggles, especially by Symone who just can’t pronounce “ogle” and Utica who just cannot keep up with the pace her lyrics require. There are even more struggles when the queens move on to learning their choreography with this week’s guest judge Jamal Sims and again, Symone and Utica are not doing well. Later on, Symone talks about how nervous she is in her vocals and dancing, and for the first time in a long time, this is not a misdirect. Sadly, what you see here is what you’re gonna get with Symone’s Rusical performance.

As everyone gets into drag, they begin to talk about what it’s like to be on the receiving end of hateful vitriol on the internet. Kandy, whose drag mother Aja was super controversial during her season, received and is still receiving a lot of hate online because of her association with Aja. Kandy talks about there being a silver lining to the negative attention she’s been dealt as she talks about a meme she went viral for which actually became a song with Alaska, another Drag Race alumna.

The conversation then turns to Tina and her early-2000s relationship with famous British presenter and host Graham Norton, who is currently a judge for RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. Their relationship was highly publicized due to Norton‘s fame and Tina talks about how crazy the paparazzi were to them. And to keep things light, everyone talks about their celebrity crushes, to which Denali brings up the animated Disney hunks like Hercules and Aladdin. Everyone laughs but they’re all just saving face for the cameras. Everyone had animated crushes when they were growing up, right? Right?

#WhyYouGottaActLikeSuchANastyTrollOnlineBitch

The Rusical begins and, everyone does a pretty good job. Not as good as the Madonna Rusical from last season but still a good one; Tina as the bitter Emshee (who turns out to be the long-dead site Friendster) shines even though her bedazzled cane is comically too short for her and she stops lip-syncing her song at one point. Olivia slays as a drag amalgamation of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Utica pulls through and nails her lip sync and choreo as Lady Tweets, and Elliott serves Billie Eilish/Gen Z realness as Miss TokTik – she even does the dance move that helped Gigi Goode win the Rusical challenge in season 12! But, just like last week, it’s pretty obvious who is at the top and who’s in the bottom.

As Miss InstaGlam, Symone does her signature strut but her movements are lazy and hollow like her vocals while Kandy Muse as Reverend Dr. (a reference to Silky Nutmeg Ganache from season 11) Lady Linked In gets sloppy in her dance moves and her choice of wig, which mostly covers up her face as she writhes on the stage. Things really pick up when the tops show up: not only is Rosé phenomenal as Foxy in her Barbra Streisand number but Denali and Gottmik fully steal the show as the Russian Bots.

Appealing to the lowest common denominator of American knowledge of international affairs, the Russian Bots are decked out in all red, with Hammer & Sickles to spare as they play electric guitar and key-tar and sing about spreading disinformation throughout American social media sites. The imagery is lazy and inaccurate to modern Russia but it is the most direct and dragged-up way to showcase “scary Russian interference” to the audience and the two do such an exhilarating job. The show closes with Foxy leading a parody of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” about returning to a time when the internet wasn’t all about lies and conspiracy. It’s naïve and optimistic but a great way to end a great Rusical.

Next is the runway and the category is “YELLOW, Gorgeous!” that’s all about the color yellow. Most of the looks are super fun and conceptual, with two taxi-inspired looks, a crash-test dummy, an homage to Jim Carrey in The Mask, and even the snake from Britney Spears‘ 2001 MTV Video Music Awards performance. Elliott, Olivia, and Utica are declared safe and the critiques allow the two perpetually safe queens – Rosé and Denali – to finally get some tangible moments with the judges and Ru. Michelle clocks the shade of yellow in Rosé’s outfit but thankfully it doesn’t take away from her performance, and RuPaul declares her the winner of this week’s challenge. Yes, finally! It looked like it was going to be a double-win for the Russian Bots but it turned out that Ru was saving double for the lip sync for your life.

After Denali, Gottmik, and Tina are declared safe it’s Symone and Kandy who must lip sync to “BO$$” by Fifth Harmony. While Kandy rolls around on the ground and high kicks in her enormous dress, Symone mostly park-and-barks the song while still looking cool and collected. The lip-sync performance has its moments but it’s overall not very technically impressive. Nonetheless, Symone is the one who’s told to stay, and Kandy is told that she must sashay away. The moment is filled with a lot of emotion and Kandy gives a heartfelt speech to RuPaul and the judges before she exits the stage. The music swells, the judges clap, and the queens cheer her on as Kandy cries. But right before she can give her final exit tagline, everything stops and RuPaul yells at Kandy to stop and then says that she’s not ready for Kandy to go, not yet. Kandy is declared safe! There’s no elimination and everyone is overcome with joy and celebration. It’s a nice, strategic way to end the week’s episode.

Conclusion: “Social Media: The Unverified Rusical”

As mentioned before, RuPaul‘s decision to keep Kandy and Symone is not all that surprising. Sending Symone home at this point is honestly, not an option, and sending Kandy home before anything’s been resolved between her and Elliott? Are you kidding me? There’s absolutely no way. Kandy is great TV and we are only HALFWAY through this season – there is still so much storyline that Kandy can help instigate before she eventually sashays away. As for who could possibly be the next queen to go home, it’ll actually be two weeks before we find out; next week will be a special filler episode about the global pandemic. According to the synopsis: “In the face of a global pandemic that shutdown film and TV production around the world, the resilience of the season 13 queens made her-story as this Emmy-Award winning series was one of the very first productions to be shot in the age of COVID-19.”

The thing is, right now on BBC One, the second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK is airing each week and there was a similar episode a couple of weeks ago, but for UK it made sense as they had to halt production because of lockdown and then return seven months later. But for season 13 of OG Drag Race, it seems like they just needed to fill the network’s enormous episode order which may also be a factor for why there was no elimination this week. Either way, I’m glad that this episode was entertaining and juicy enough to keep me sustained until March.

What did you think of Social Media: The Unverified Rusical? Did Kandy deserve to stay or to go home? Let us know in the comments below!

A new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 13 can be seen every Friday at 8/7c on VH1.

 

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