Drag U–A Star is Born Again

So this week’s episode marks the end of the first season of Drag U.  I would tear up, but my mascara would run and we all know that crying is a big no-no in the Drag world.  I want to thank everyone (Hi, Juddfan!!) who watched/read/commented on my first recap series involving drag queens.  Your comments and insights have kept this so much more interesting for me and I feel like I’ve learned a lot.  I’ve also never felt more manly, but that’s my problem.

Okay, with all that out of the way, let’s dive right in, shall we?  We start as we always do with RP addressing his faculty about the incoming students for this session of Drag U.  He tells them this time, they’ll be taking three legendary (hmph) TV stars who are past their prime time and turning them around.  For this task, he selects Raven (yahoo!), Jujubee and Pandora Boxx.  Oh, Raven, can you please be on another show I watch, like “Deadliest Catch”??

Girl, please

And now he introduces our students.  First up is Charlene Tilton, who played Lucy Ewing in the hit show “Dallas”.  For those of you too young to remember (or maybe too cool to care, hell I don’t know…), “Dallas” was kind of a kick-ass show which ran from 1978-1991.  I was too young to watch it, but everybody around me liked it and for some jacked up reason I thought it was cool to wear a button that said “Who shot JR?”.  The character Lucy Ewing was kind of a ho on that show (I think).

Show ho then

Show ho now

Next up is 72 year old, Dawn Wells!  She played Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island” which ran for 3 seasons, starting in 1964.  General consensus is that she was much hotter than the slutty Ginger and I’m pretty sure Mary Ann was always banging the Professor, which is why he could never get them off the island.  He was p-whipped, exhausted and sore, poor guy.  Now this show could be awesome if you were high, drunk or both, but all I had was after school Oreos, which just didn’t cut it.  The show is moronic.  But Dawn Wells seems like a nice enough person.

Banging Days

One more Ginger snap joke and I WILL lose my shit

The last student is somebody named Erin Murphy.  Oh, okay–she was Tabitha Stevens on the show “Bewitched”.  You remember that show, with the interchangeable Dicks?  (York, Sargent).  Yikes—that’s really her claim to fame?  She was about 4 years old.  That show ran from 1966-1972.  Inexplicably, she does look a lot like show Mom Samantha.

Hey, this is a family recap!

Here is Erin

Grew from witch to bitch, but more on that later.

And so, RP comes out to greet his students and goes through the orientation with him.  He explains what will happen over the next 48 years.  He adds that with all the Snookies and The Situations and the Real Housewives in the world, show biz is a different beast and it’s time to bring back the gold and glitz of Hollywood.  Poor Dawn/Mary Ann looks flat out confused.

I had a Snookie once, but I had it scraped off.

RP patted her hat and continued.  He explains the DPA, which is Drag Transformation, Performance and Attitude adjustment.  The student with the highest DPA will graduate with top honors.  You can already see the evil glint in Erin’s eyes as she tries to scrunch up her nose and turn her competition into frogs.

She would have known what to do.

And with that, it’s off to the Drag Lab!  RP tells the ladies it is the gayest place on earth and LOL, hell yes–there is something called “giggle beads”.  What are those?  But forget all that, the most important thing in the Drag Lab is the knowledge these ladyboys have buried under their wigs.

Behold the fountains of knowledge.  Feel smarter yet?

RP assigns the students to their mentors and it goes like this:  Jujubee will be working with Charlene.  Juju tells us she is excited because Charlene is a little ball of energy and that the best things come in small packages.

Wow…if that’s small, I need more cotton balls

Lucky Dawn will be working with Raven who immediately tells us, “Now, I’m the professor to Mary Ann.”  Yikes, Raven, I would watch your back.  Under those age spots are the lusty veins of a steamy vixen.

You should see what I can do with coconuts and palm fronds!

And that leaves Pandora to work with witch Erin.  Pandora tells us she thinks Erin is adorable.

I will cut you with giggle beads if I don’t win

*Gulp*

And now it’s time for the Entrance Exam.  This is the part of the show where the professors ask for intimate details of their students’ lives in order to get a better feel for their drag transformation.  Or whatever.  Charlene tells Juju she’s stuck in the 80′s and she needs to be updated to the present.  The ever-wise Juju tells her to forget about the present and focus on the future.  Pandora asks Erin where the weirdest place she’s ever been naughty is.  Erin says, “I’ll bet you won’t be asking Mary Ann that question!!”  Cue editors to Raven asking Dawn that same question.  Sadly, Dawn did not say “an island” while 5 other people watched.  Instead, she said an avacado field.

Market price just went down

Pandora asks Eriin if she were an animal, what kind would she be?  Erin responds a horse, “so people could ride me.”  Then she totally touches Pandora’s breast and tells her she wants to make out with her.  OMG–these queens do NOT get paid enough.  To be pawed by Z-list celebrities.

Years ago, I wanted to be a My Pretty Pony

And it’s time for the Dragulator!  RP shows off his equipment (oh my) and starts the drag transformation.  Dawn is first up and she will now be Chickadee.

A fine feathered drag girl

Erin’s new personality, to fit in with the several hundred she already has in her head, will be Aurora Borealis.  She’s nodding and smiling and Pandora tells us that means she hates it.

I’ll kill her and take over her mind.  It’s all good.

Charlene’s new look is Lisa Mercedes and we can see her fine acting chops haven’t changed much because we can tell instantly she hates it.  She tells us she’s not happy and even her drag look is stuck in the 80′s.

White Diamonds…These have always brought me luck

And with two thirds of the students already bitchy, it’s time to head off to Performance 101 with Frank Gatson Jr for rehearsals.  The song they’ll have to lip synch (Erin:  “Lip synch?  Lip sing?”) is RP’s theme song for the show, the ever catchy “Drag U”.  Pandora does an awesome product placement piece, telling us we can now download this song from Itunes.  LOL, Billy Mays-Boxx.  Dawn does pretty darned good in the rehearsals.  Sidenote:  I watched “Dancing with the Stars” the same night I watched this and I had scary dreams of Carol brady and Mary Ann dirty dancing on an island while a butcher cut meat in the background.  *shiver*.  Erin, on the other hand, is a total mess.  She can’t take simple direction and she’s messing with everyone’s mojo.  She is a reasonless Diva.  There is no challenge this week, so we head straight back tot he Drag Lab to work on their looks.

Dawn starts in on Raven telling her she wants feathers.  Raven tries to appease her, but Dawn’s getting more adament and adament about the damned feathers.  She wants feathers, Raven!!

Ah, feathers would be awesome–I’m freezing!

Crisis averted as she finds theh feathers she wants for her Chicadee outfit.  Meanwhile, witch Erin is really hating her look and making a big scene about it.  She just wants to start from scratch.  Pandora’s freaking out, saying there just isn’t much time left.  Erin doesn’t think her look will get her husband excited enough.  There is all kinds of crazy shit going on in the Lab this week.  Charlene shrieks about her skin tone, even though Juju even yanks her own wig off for her to try.  Juju:  “Don’t school me, bitch.”  HA!  Finally, Charlene tells her she wants to be a charred Char.  Meaning, she wants to be black.  Now, that is a drag transformation of epic proportions and I gotta tell you, I was kind of excited to see the end result.

To be Young (not), Gifted (notsomuch) and Black (well, okay)

Pandora has decided duct tape is the answer for Erin.  Yay, finally!  Unfortunately, Pandora is nicer than most of us and uses the duct tape to create more of an hourglass figure for the little witch.  And Juju is making her new African American Diva Charlene a new ass like her own which is all made, “out of RuPaul’s furniture”.  Awesome

Doesn’t sitting on a couch for hours create your own butt cushion?

Instead of RP coming in to check on the progress, Lady Bunny hops on in.  She wants to do a run through for the performance.  Turns out, the ladies all kind of suck at the lyrics.  Hmph.  They must not be loyal fans of the show.  C’mon, Dawn.  We ALL know the words to your shitty show’s theme song.

“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…um…watermelon, watermelon…”

Lady Bunny tells them all how to fake it with the lip synching and just like that she’s all, “Peace Out!”.

Highlights from teh students’ visits to RP’s office:

Am I getting another season of this?

Blow the producer and the professor–it helps.

Why are you pissing off my queens?

Will this help?

Um, no

So, who the hell did shoot JR?

Why can’t people treat me like I’m current!!

And it’s off to Draguation.  Our guest judge tonight is Chaka, Chaka, Chaka Khan.  Yeah, I’m sure she never gets tired of that.

Real fucking original

Before we bring out the newly transformed girls, RP tells us previous draguates are here!

Help–we’ve been kidnapped.  Call our families!

First out is Charlene as the new Lisa Mercedes:

Chaka, Chaka, Chaka, Charlene…

Next out is Dawn as Chickadee.

Suck it Ginger.  You probably screwed Gilligan, dumbass

And last is psycho Erin as Aurora Borealis:

There are dead puppies in my wig.  tak!

And it’s time for the oral examination.  This is the part when RP asks the ladies about their drag transformation and the attitude adjustment they received while at Drag U.  He starts with Lisa Mercedes (Charlene) and tells her she’s come a long way from Dallas.  She tells us this came at just the right time.  When is there not a good time to be shacked up with a bunch of drag queens?  tsk.  She goes on to kiss Chaka’s ass, like any good pageant contestant.  She tells Chaka she was the inspiration for her look.  Chaka is like, “um, thanks?”

Next up is Dawn as Chickadee who says Ginger can eat her heart out.  Then she goes on to kiss RP’s ass by saying Raven is a genius and RP has surrounded himself by wonderful people here.  She’s actually pretty cute and rings sincere.  And then…Aurora Borealis (Erin).  “What are you taking from here?”  Besides the light fixtures and anything that’s not tied down, she’s taking away the entire transformation and she feels like a queen now.  Her husband:

Like Queen Witch is a new thing…

First set of grades.  Lisa Mercedes is up first:  A, A and A+.  DPA:  4.1.  Chicadee’s scores:  A, A, and A.  DPA:  4.0.  And last up is Erin (Aurora):  A+, A- and A+.  DPA:  4.1.  So there is a two way tie for first!  I’m on the edge of my recliner.  Looks like all that kissing up really paid off.  A lesson to be learned, no matter what.

And now it’s time for the performance.  The performance counts as one half of their total grade so it is important that they really nail it here.  Or not.  They can just all go back to their VH1 “Where are they now?” lives, but with more make-up and clothes!!  Back to the show:

And without the Professor, Mary Ann seems a touch lost…

But I just realized, the camera pans to Erin’s husband (eerily named Darren) and Charlene’s daughter (drag named Cherish) but there is no one there rooting for Dawn.  Awww…I’m rooting for you Chickadee…And time for the final scores:

Chickadee:  A, A, and A.  Well done!  Lisa Mercedes:  A+, A+ and A+.  This could be an upset…Personally, I wouldn’t want to make Erin mad, but hey, it is for valuable prizes.  And last is Aurora Borealis:  A-, A and A.  And it’s a win for Charlene!

This will make me current, right????

And that’s it for the first season of Drag U!  I thought it was a pretty entertaining show.  I think there are some kinks (no pun intended) to be worked out.  For example, I’d like RP to keep it a little lighter–some of the not so latent issues a few of these women brought with them were a little heavy for what should be a light show.  Also–I’ve heard that Drag Race is a better show, so I’ll have to check it out!

Thank you and Everybody Say Love!