RuPaul's Drag Race Season 14 Episode 9 Review
Welcome back gays, theys, guys and girlies to another review of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 14. We’re on the 9th episode now, wow! Time has gone by so quickly, it felt like just yesterday I was reviewing the mega ball episode and look how far we’ve come...There’s still so many queens in the competition! The heat is definitely on!
After Kerri’s elimination last week, the girls are really feeling the competition. Jasmine is determined not to touch the bottom again and expresses how deeply she cared for Kerri. You can really tell that she absolutely didn’t want to send her home. Over on the sofa, Daya reinforces just how competitive she is, soaking in her win and making sure that the other queens know about it!
This week’s mini-challenge is so camp! I love it when the queens have to pose and get photo-shopped into an image! I really enjoyed Willow’s acrobatics and Jasmine’s make-up, they were really serving up the fantasy. Willow wins the mini-challenege and the queens are told that this week’s episode will see them in two groups, producing a Dragcon panel of their own. Miss Pill is allowed to pick her team and she goes for Lady Camden, Bosco and Angeria. A very strong team indeed! The other team is made up of Deja, Daya, Jasmine and Jorgeous. At first, it’s clear which team has more syngery and chemistry... cough Willow’s cough...but I thought both teams had plenty of material to work on. The theme of discussion was ‘men’ which can be taken in so many directions. I’m glad that both teams decided to go deeper than just romantic/sexual relationships with men and really focused on their relationships with their fathers. I think this challenge is actually one of the more important and meaningful ones, where the contestants are encouraged to open up and allow the viewer to learn more about them.
Overall, I think that Willow’s team had the stronger delivery, with Bosco absolutely smashing it as a moderator. However, Deja did considerably well in her team and managed to keep the conversation on track. I think the girls who struggled were Jasmine, Jorgeous and...Angeria! This might sound controversial but I didn’t think she opened up as much as she could have, and it felt like she was more spectating a conversation than actively forming part of it.
For the runway, I felt there was only a few girls who really met the brief this week, which was shoulder pads.
My two favourite looks came from Deja and Willow! Deja checked the brief in every sense of the word, she came out in a dragged up Coco Chanel inspired set and I absolutely adored it. I want it so badly, the drama of it all works so well with such an iconic set! Willow served my favourite aesthetic of the night, but the shoulder pads that she went with were far too small! She looked incredible and I wish she would have dragged up the shoulders to really push her look into the next level!
The honourable mentions this week go to Daya and Jasmien. Firstly, I love that Daya came out in something that represents her style and her drag persona. She really has such a unique, punk and edgy vibe which I am absolutely here for. The way in which she incorporated spikes as shoulder pads was just genius! Jasmine came out in my favourite look that she has presented so far. Maybe it’s because I’m not the biggest fan of classic pageant drag, but her fashion forward take on shoulder pads with the shocking green catsuit was everything!
The middle of the pack looks were from Lady Camden and Bosco. Camden had an absolutely gorgeous gown but I wasn’t really feeling the nut cracker fantasy! Nothing was wrong with the outfit, but compared to the other higher placing queens, it just wasn’t my cup of tea! Bosco slightly disappointed me this week because I actually really liked her raincoat, but the under garments felt pedestrian to me. I think she could have definitely elevated the look and pushed herself further.
Jorgeous and Angeria had the worst looks in my opinion. Once again, Jorgeous is categorically stunning in every sense of the word. However, she did not have shoulder pads...period. At least Willow did actually incorporate shoulder pads in her look, albeit small. Jorgeous featured puffy sleeves with her Selena inspired outfit, so she did not meet the brief. Angeria did feature shoulder pads, but the look itself was very strange to me. I didn’t think the pattern clashing was very effective and I really felt like the outfit was wearing her! An unfortunate runway delivered by an uber-talented queen!
The win this week went to Bosco, which I thought was justified. The bottom two queens were Jasmine and Jorgeous, which I also thought was fair! The two lipsynced to ‘Something’s Got A Hold On Me’ by the iconic Etta James. I absolutely loved this lipsync and so did Mama Ru as their performance resulted in a double shantay. I think it was a close call but Jorgeous really captivated me and had the slightly better performance. It’s great that the girls get another week to showcase their talents but come on! I want the heat to rise and the competition to get more serious! Queens need to get chopped!
Catch RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 14 exclusively in the UK via the streamer of all things drag, WOW Presents Plus every Saturday, subscribe now here!
