RuPaul's Drag Race Season 14 Episode 4 Review
Heading into this week’s episode, I was curious to see whether any drama was going to start brewing as the first three episodes have been pretty tame so far. To my satisfaction, episode four contained all the drama, the looks and the acting! This was definitely a nice change of pace from the hectic mega-ball that we witnessed last week, and honey I was here for the almost all the JLO looks. The dolls came and conquered this episode, so let’s dive in!
The episode started with Maddy Morphosis wiping June Jumbalya’s mirror message and highlighting just how bad it feels to send a fellow contestant home. After so many seasons, it’s interesting to still be hearing this sentiment, not that I think it gets any easier, but the queens should very well be prepared and expect to send a few divas home if they need to. Kornbread shared this idea and emphasised that it’s simply the ‘name of the game’. So true! All in all, it was a sweet moment, which provided the much needed calm before the Kornbread vs Jasmine storm.
When the girls are kiki-ing after June’s elimination, Jasmine makes it evident that she expected to do better than she did in the ball. She delivers what felt like a rather dramatic monologue as to why she was safe, which is definitely picked up by Kornbread and the other girls. This lead Kornbread to address Jasmine’s chatty tendencies with the queen herself, commenting on her lack of listening skills. Interestingly, she explained the difference between simply talking and having a conversation and, in my opinion, remained very polite whilst doing so. Jasmine accepted Kornbread’s constructive feedback and ironically cut her off many times, which lead to a constant back and forth between the pair of them. The competitive atmosphere of the show creates a lot of built-up emotions and I think Kornbread was very mature for bringing up her issues with Jasmine, rather than letting it fester and explode at a later time.
Moving on to the main challenge, the queens were tasked to make a season 14 super teaser trailer, which I found to be a very unique concept! It’s great to see new challenges being introduced, especially with so many episodes of Drag Race coming out. The contestants were split into two, with Willow Pill and Maddy Morphosis being the team captains. In classic Drag Race fashion, the queens are asked to line up and the captains got to pick their team mates. Unsurprisingly, Jasmine Kennedy is the last queen standing and chooses to go to the team with Kornbread in it. Was this tactical? Perhaps, but she wanted to prove to her fellow sisters that she can work well in a team and take on constructive criticism.
At the start, it seemed like Kornbread and Jasmine simply couldn’t work together. Much like water and oil, they were at constant odds with each other, which was also picked up by others in the team. As stated by Bosco, Kornbread was annoyed by pretty much anything that Jasmine did. At this point, I’m sympathising with Miss Kennedy, who doesn’t seem to speak with any malice. Perhaps this is the work of the edit at play!
As the episode progresses, the tension between Kornbread and Jasmine seemed to die down, which gave the audience a chance to appreciate the art of camp acting that was showcased. Honestly I’m here for it every time the dolls are down to get silly, ugly and funny. I thought both teams did very well. Although I enjoyed Willow Pill’s team dynamics more, I thought that Angeria and Deja did exceptionally well too! This was reflected by the fact that both Willow and Angeria were tops this week, and the bottom two consisted of one contestant from each team. Overall, the stand-out star this week was Angeria Paris VanMichaels. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing this a lot throughout this season!
Now for my favourite part of every episode, the runway! This week featured the ‘Night of 1000 JLO’s’ and I was thoroughly impressed.
Coming in at first place this week for me is the truly impeccable Kerri Colby. Firstly, her paint and hair was undeniably JLO, truly unmatched. I think this runway worked wonders for her as she got the chance to go for a more natural paint, something that she feels comfortable doing. However, the true star of the show was the original green Versace dress worn by JLO herself. I have no idea how Kerri got her hands on it, but it was just unbelievable to see her exude JLO whilst wearing what she once wore. Now that Kerri has cemented herself as the queen of the natural look, I am curious to see whether she is going to exaggerate her persona even more and show us some camp and comedy!
My second favourite look came from Angeria, who served Met Gala 2019 JLO. Not only did Angeria look stunning and polished, but the look epitomised what a drag recreation should be. It looked eerily similar to JLO’s outfit with just a few differences here and there. Angeria presented a flawless look which was only beaten by the fact that Kerri came out in a Versace x JLO original.
The honourable mentions this week go to Willow Pill, Orion Story, Lady Camden, Daya and Deja. I know.... a lot of queens listed but only because I was impressed with so many of them. Willow came out in an unexpected look and kept to her niche on the runway – cute and kinda ugly, in the best way possible. Orion presented my favourite look that I’ve seen her in so far, the dress was strikingly similar to the one that JLO wore and she added the vein details herself, such a talented queen! I adored Lady Camden’s outfit, again, my favourite one that I’ve seen her in. However, the colours didn’t quite match which put me off just a tad. Daya and Deja both served amazing looks in their own right, I enjoyed their silhouettes a lot!
For me, the middle of the pack on the runway included Alyssa Hunter and Bosco. I wish I liked Alyssa’s look more, but I couldn’t quite get behind the boxy corset paired with the white trousers. As a whole the look was so striking, but it wasn’t to my liking...and that’s okay! Fashion is subjective, and you can appreciate the clothes without necessarily liking them. Bosco had such a great look tonight and the reason why she’s so low in my list this week is because the more I looked at it, the less I liked it. When she first came out, she had my favourite outfit, however, the dress looked like an attempt at JLO rather than a fully realised concept. The way that Bosco had two balls as breasts really had me giggling, I still can’t quite figure out if I absolutely loved that or despised it!
Unfortunately, Maddy, Jorgous and Kornbread delivered the weakest looks in my opinion. Maddy’s was far too basic for the occasion, which appears to be a running theme so far. I understood the angle she was going for and I must give her credit for coming out in an unexpected look, but the look itself was so basic! Perhaps it was due to the white upon white fabric, but she just seemed swamped in a sea of snow! Jorgeous stepped on the runway wearing a cat-suit that resembled one that she revealed into in the second episode. I want her to start stepping outside her comfort zone and present other shapes and silhouettes. Lastly, Kornbread did produce a good garment but I felt it didn’t encapsulate the essence of JLO that she was tryin g to give off. I had a major problem with the hair, as it felt very much like a shake-and-go wig with a bit of styling gel thrown on top. Overall, I don’t hate these any of the looks presented, but these three definitely felt less powerful than the rest.
In terms of judging, I thought it was very fair and justified. Angeria ended up with her second win of the season, which is fantastic. She is definitely building up momentum in this competition. The bottom two queens were Alyssa Hunter and Kerri Colby, which to me felt slightly misjudged. I 100% agreed with Alyssa’s placement, but I felt I felt as though Kerri’s runway should have saved her from lip-syncing. Kornbread didn’t quite execute the challenge or the runway to the best of her ability, and for that she should have faced a lip-sync.
The two queens lip-synced to ‘Play’ by JLO and... well...I honestly believed that Alyssa won that battle. Kerri looked stunning, but her hesitation to move in the outfit really hindered her performance ability and unfortunately her stage presence. On the other hand, Alyssa gave us movement and a well nuanced performance. Despite her fumble with the money gun, Alyssa deserved to stay after that performance. In saying this, I also didn’t agree with Kerri lip-syncing at all so it’s a lose-lose situation for me! In the end, Kerri shantayed and Alyssa, who didn’t have the golden chocolate bar, had to sashay away. This is really unfortunate as I was very much enjoying Alyssa’s run on this season. I truly think she had so many more runways to show! Please check out her fashion and more on Instagram - @thealyssahunter.
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