RuPaul's Drag Race Season 16 Review: Episode 5
Another week in the werk room starts with drama, as Plane Jane makes even more enemies, this time with Q. As she complains about being in the top but not winning, Plane Jane chimes in, proving once more that she’s the shady queen of the season.
In this episode, the queens are doing the girl group challenge and are choosing their fellow girl group members, leaving Plane Jane and Megami to get chosen last. Megami gets emotional about this, shedding a few tears. The team she’s in seems to be the weakest one, with Nymphia struggling to even put together lyrics. However, in another team, Plane Jane and Amanda need to work together, and the tension between them is strong. Was it a good choice to put them together?
Amanda is confident that she will do great in this challenge as this is what she’s good at - dancing and performing. The other girls agree so far. Compared to that, Q gets put in her place as she moves ‘like a robot’ as the other queens call it.
Nymphia takes over teaching her other teammates the choreography, which she has experience in. The other queens see this as a kind of game she is playing, as she ‘hid her talent,’ but maybe she’s just humble? Quite a shady assumption for them to make.
The performances are entertaining, but the only catchy song is ASMR Lover, as the other two are a bit slow for a girls group challenge. ASMR lover, which is done by the team who came across as the weakest: Nymphia, Megami, Geneva, and Mhi’ya ends up being the best performance. They really got an underdog storyline with this one! Another unexpected turn is Amanda not being seen as doing well in the challenge. She moves well but gets bad critiques for her outfit and wig choices. The runway theme in this episode is ‘pussycat wig,’ and Amanda’s runway is again what lets her end up in the bottom two. The concept for the look, which is a bird's nest with her head in a pussycat wig being one of 3 eggs, but the execution is not completely thought out. The other queen in the bottom 2 is Q, whose robot dancing skills were what got to her, even though she had a stunning runway, which she made herself.
Both queens lip-sync to Icona Pop’s 'Emergency,' which is an odd song choice as it’s not well known and has an obnoxious beat. Why did they not use ‘I Love It’ ft Charli XCX? What a missed chance.
Q is losing the lip sync, as Amanda performs way better, but she ends up going home. It looks like production wants to keep Q because she’s been doing well so far, but if they are not using the lip-sync rules to determine who’s going home in this episode, why didn’t they let Mirage stay too? She has more potential than Geneva, but she didn’t know the words. Amanda won the lip sync as she performed way better than Q, but they sent her home. Make it make sense, Mama Ru. Next episode, the queens are supposed to design their own dolls, which looks like a fun challenge but an interesting idea as that doesn’t really have much to do with drag. We will see how that will turn out!
RuPaul’s Drag Race S16 is streaming exclusively on WOW Presents Plus in the UK every Saturday. Subscribe to WOW Presents Plus via https://uk.wowpresentsplus.com/