RuPaul’s Drag Race: Ball of Shame

Cootchie cootchie kook

Here we go again.

First of all, I was raised to beleive that talent should be rewarded and failure was something you learned from, not the other way around. That is why this episode made me question the judging even more than last week. Not that the gal I’m referring to here didn’t help to sabotage herself, because she sure as hell did. I almost titled this recap “How to stab yourself in the back in one easy lesson,” by a certain severely fed-up queen, but we’ll save that for later.

Usually, at the beginning of each episode, we hear one of the girls (Bebe, most of the time) lament the loss of whoever was eliminated the previous week. They must still be in shock or something because no one mentions Baby Ong’s absence. Instead, Caca says that she’s happy to be one of the final four and doesn’t know if any of the other girls are mad at her, then she says one of the few genuine things to come out of her mouth, “Oh fuck it. None of the girls like me.” Really? The only thing that could make it more obvious would have been for the three remaining queens with talent to take out a full page ad in the New York Times. Oh wait, Caca beat them to it.

She took out a personal ad.

The Caca/showgirl love fest is still on the menu this week, no surprise there. It’s the tuna casserole that keeps on giving and giving, long after your mom shoved it down your throat. Shannel says, AGAIN, that she can see through Caca’s innocent act right to the fake bitch heart that beats beneath all the cosmetics. It’s still true and isn’t it funny that the girl that shades the most is also the shadiest? Blech, I can hardly stand to look at her anymore, she exudes negativity. She is the archetypal two-faced kid in middle school. The one that kisses the teacher’s ass and only shows her true colors when no one in power is around to see them. Also, it’s a staple of reality TV shows with eliminations. It gives you someone to root against. And boy, are we rooting for her to leave so it’s definitely working.

SheMail references Paris is Burning and we head straight into our mini-challenge. If you’ve seen the documentary then you know that we are in for some Vogueing. For those of you who haven’t, it’s a stylized form of dance that includes freeze-frame posing and queens would hold balls where the competition was as fierce and wild as Kirsty Alley tearing through a bag of double fudge oreos.

Ru takes the girls out of the workroom and onto the runway for our Vogue-off, Bebe is first and she says that she is not familiar with the movie and her moves back it up. She’s sloppy, crouch-walks like a chicken on crack and flails her arms and hands around so fast that this is the least blurry screen grab I could capture. This is some straight-up Matrix shit.

I think Bebe took the red pill.

Caca does the same chicken walk and pretends to apply makeup while gazing in a pretend mirror.

I could’ve sworn I saw it break.

Nina is much better, does the rubbery arm moves, knows how to pop a pose and purses her lips, looking fierce the whole time. Our showgirl does a goofy boobie squish move and a sloppy cartwheel, but she too can pop a look which is something you really need to do if you are actually Vogueing and not just giving looks. You have to freeze the pose at the right moment during the music.

Caca must have slipped a few extra blow job coupons into Ru’s trousers because she and Nina are picked as the two best. At least she doesn’t win. She does make a rude comment, though. Something about Nina being much older and having been in the clubs when Vogueing started. Wow. If that’s true than she looks damn good for being a queen in her late forties. Hell, I wasn’t even around for that and I’m, um, 29. That’s right, I was a very mature five years old when I moved to New York with $200 in my pocket. It was very “Olivia Twist.” I should write a book someday. I’ll call it ‘Child Labor Laws; Who Needs ‘Em,’ or maybe ‘Twunty finds herself crushed under the weight of lying about her age yet again.’

Anyhoo, the big challenge this week is a runway House Ball sponsered by Absolut vodka. They have to complete three different looks based on four different fruit flavors of Absolut. The catagories are swimwear: tucking, tucking and more tucking, executive realness: it’s the Oprah challenge all over again, and evening gown extravaganza. Sounds simple enough, right? Only it’s not. The only outfit that they can use their own clothes for is the business woman one. Excuse me, how many queens do you know that do power woman drag? They have acres of over-the-top looks with them but nobody here tries to pass in everyday life, and why should they? They are queens, not cross dressers. (In case you couldn’t tell, I am not loving this idea. I would prefer that it were treated like a real pageant with a talent portion. Is that too much to ask? Oopsy. My bad. That wouldn’t happen because Caca would be out in a heartbeat, unless she figured out some way to blow the women judges too.)

Jeffrey Moran from Absolut gives some stupid spiel about their fruit flavors being simple and natural and blah blah blah. These four remaining fruits are the farthest thing from simple and natural and I’m not going to rewrite the damn commercial for them. Not after all the times I’ve had to look at a mango in a womb.

Better keep that away from Octomom.

Nina gets to assign the fruits as her reward for winning the Vogueing competition. She chooses Mango for herself, gives Bebe raspberry (she treats us to another eff you face), Shannel gets mandarin and that leaves Caca with citron. As they get to work, Bebe sits there as pathetic as can be. She looks like Phil Mickelson after he was told that Tiger Woods would be playing golf again. Or my boyfriend after I tell him that there are no tee times available for Saturday.

Amy Winehouse is moving to Cameroon! Just kidding, don’t you feel better now?

Nina comes over and buhbuhbuhs her lips like you would a baby, which is cute. These two seem to have bonded and Nina helps her by grabbing a piece of paper and showing her how to make a halter for her swimsuit. Or is she………

Here’s where you grab Caca in a chokehold, I’ll have the acid ready and Shannel can shove one of her headdresses up her ass…

Caca sits at her table, all by herself and spews in interviews that she is confident for this challenge since she can sew. Shannel can’t, and all I can say is drape, baby, drape, which is exactly what she does, thank God. You can always use a chain stitch and tack everything else down later. I still think that she’s in trouble and then we catch Caca sneaking around the work shelves. Shannel can’t find her pen and I realize that it’s trivial but that stinking weasel totally took it. Our showgirl is wasting time looking all over the place for it and the trifling bitch is totally hiding something in her hand.

Maybe she needs to write a letter to her probation officer.

Theif! I cannot wait for this to get addressed at the reunion. Right after the still above, she looks directly at the camera, something she NEVER does. Just like shoving the wig on Tempele’s head last week, in addition to all her other rudeness to the poor girl, Ru is not around to see it.

Anyway, Caca tells Shannel just to use an eye pencil, which is ridiculous. You’d have to sharpen it every two seconds and it would get all over your hand while you were writing but what does Caca care? She said herself that the last thing on her mind was the other three girls.

Ru Gunn finally arrives and Shannel tell him that she is stressing over the challenge. She is going to try something simpler but execution is the hard part. He tells her that he believes in her and we get a close-up of our showgirl’s measurements.

Yeah, that would be super easy to write with an eye pencil.

Now it’s time for Ru to talk to shifty LaCaca and she acts all coy about what she has planned, no doubt because she has no idea and doesn’t want Ru to find that out. Ru finds something, though, when he asks her how she’s going to accomplish her tuck with all that sheer fabric that will pretty much show everything. What is it, what could it be?

She stole one of Merle’s mini pads.

She once again lied right to Ru’s face when she said that she hadn’t really thought it out since there is about half a roll of tape on the damn thing. Am I wrong? It was difficult to see because it was over so fast but that’s what it looked like to me.

Let’s move on to someone else now. Bebe is bemoaning the fact that there isn’t enough fabric for her six foot frame and Ru tells her that life isn’t fair. True, and Bebe does whine a lot. It’s her way of playing the game. She acts like she is faced with insurmountable odds so that when she succeeds, it is all the more amazing. Yeah, I got your number, Bebes. You don’t think I’ve pulled that crap a few times myself? Only I wasn’t vying to become America’s next drag superstar, I was trying to get a raise at Spencer’s Gifts when I was seventeen. Not all that different, actually, except women were buying the feather boas and dildoes.

Ru Gunn moves on to Nina who explains that she can only sew when she has a pattern to work from so she has cut up one of her shirts to use. She explains that her inspiration for the executive challenge comes from her mother. She was a secretary and Nina’s best friend and she died five years ago. Sadness. There is a cute graduation picture of a Menudo era Nina with his mami. He looks a little bit like Ricky Martin.

And just as straight.

It’s still tense in the workroom so Ru announces that they are going to have a cocktail party! And, yay! The pit crew is back, wheeling in a tray full of delicious vodka and fruit. As if that weren’t enough, the hostess of our little soiree is none other than Charo herself, famous for her goofy joke infused Laugh-In style schtick. She shows them some of her signature moves, one of which involves spooning. Which leads to forking. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

I don’t think that you have to worry about that here, sweetie.

I personally think that Charo looks great. Sure, she has probably had plastic surgery on her boobies and her nose, and she wakes up every morning and thanks the good lord for whoever invented Spanx, but she is still spunky and animated.

She gives them a lesson in attitude and Bebe says that she is the perfect example of how to have confidence and be the biggest bitch in the room without being mean. Gee, I wonder who she is referring too? They get together in a Conga line and I notice that Shannel managed to sandwich herself between the two hunks from the pit crew. My jealousy turns to rage when I spot Caca eyeing one of them. If I ever catch her with my future ex husband it’s gonna be war.

I will win the cage match, Caca. I have way more muscles in my arms, though you do have me beat in the jaw department.

Before we get back to work, we have yet another twist. This one isn’t too bad, they just have to incorporate the real fruit into their outfits. Once more, Bebe complains. This time it’s because the raspberries are so small and squishy. Oy. Just act like the baboon that Snootchy called you out for being and throw them at the judges. Solved.

The next morning Shannel confesses that she is running on empty and only got two hours sleep. She doesn’t know how much more of herself she can give since whatever she does is never good enough. Agreed. I think that they are taking this “let’s take Shannel down a peg” thing waaay too far. The queen cannot survive without her subjects’ worship. I’ll help you out, your highness. I will kneel at your feet if you let me borrow that Medusa costume for Halloween. I am not joking here.

Nina looks so weird in her undergarments, like a mannequin come to life in the husky gender illusionist section of the boy’s department.

Where’d my penis go? Better go check Caca’s sewing kit.

This week on the runway Ru is wearing a lemon yellow sheath with a blonde afro, gorgeous as usual. I don’t know what her wardrobe allowance is for this show but I bet it’s more than I’ve made in the last decade. We are reintroduced to Jeffrey Moran from Absolut and our special guest judge is Maria Conchita Alonso.

I think that I was right about them getting paid in botox.

She’s an actress and a former Miss Venezuela. Now she spends her time getting eye surgery and cheek implants, and drinking the blood of little children in East L.A. That’s what happens to you after you make a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Just ask Sharon Stone.

First up for executive realness is Bebe. She does a good job with her outfit and pulls out her cell phone.

Hello, Mohammed? About that hit I was wanting you to do…

Ru asks her why she should be the next drag superstar and her answer isn’t bad. She says she can bring pride and dignity to it, and that dressing up doesn’t make you any less of a man. Okay.

Nina is up next and I must say that she looks really cute in her two tone wig and glasses. The outfit is a little too granny for me, but the judges love it, so whatevs.

She answers Ru’s question by saying that she’s been doing drag for fifteen years and wants to use her experience to inspire others. This is sounding more and more like a beauty pageant, no?

Shannel is super fabulous. Once again, she knocked it out of the park, looking like Nicolette Sheridan circa 1988, and then she opens her mouth.

She says that she loves who she is and it’s as if she were giving herself her own pep talk since no one else will. It’s so formal that she even ends it with “thank you ladies and gentlemen and have a good night.” What? She wasn’t planning on coming out for the rest of the evening? It makes no sense and she wonders why the judges have a problem getting to know the real Shannel. It would have gone a long way if she had spoke conversationally and from the heart, or loosened up with some of that Absolut backstage.

Caca comes out last. I like the pinstriped pantsuit but I hate the shredded blouse. It is completely impractical for the workplace (not that Shannel’s off the shoulder number was much better).

And why should she be the next RuPaul? Because she wants it, that’s why. Me, me, me, me, me. At this point she makes our showgirl seem humble in comparison.

For the swimsuit part, they all wear sashes with ‘Miss Raspberry’ or ‘Mandarin’ on them and have to hold a pose before reciting who they are, just like in a swimsuit competition in a real pageant. Everyone excels at this part, everyone is properly tucked but I have to hand it to Shannel again because of the little bows on her bikini and ankles, the big hat and the Hannibal Lector tongue move at the end.

I thought it was hilarious and showed a sense of humor but the judges look like she just ate their liver with some fava beans. Once again, the fix is in, Gasmii. Oh, and did I say that Caca’s walk is still stiff and her one-piece bathing suit was boooooring.

By the way, has Project Runway ever made a single designer make three outfits in one day? Three pieces maybe, but not three ensembles. This is not easy, folks.

Bebe is a hot pink mermaid and Ru calls her Diana Rossberry. Love it, and she put the berries in her hair, problem solved! I still wish that she had thrown them at the judges along with her poo.

Nina used mango skins in her collar and belt, which was inventive, but she still looks like an old lady to me. Is it because she feels she needs to cover up her tattoos? She reminds me of my great aunt in Florida who covers her entire body in ninety degree heat because she’s allergic to the sun. I love the Ivana Trump hair, though. She can look so feminine without the Nina Hagen Mohawk wig, it’s amazing.

Shannel is perfect. I know she’s annoying but she turns it out like no one else. Her one shoulder gown, and high black hair with a feather in it makes her look like she should be in the wild west leaning on a piano singing a raunchy torch song. Diamond Lil indeed.

It’s a hard act to follow and Caca comes out in this hatchet job yellow nightmare that is received with “ooo’s” and “ahhh’s.” Are you kidding me? She’s taped butterflies to her hair and earlobes and walks the catwalk like she is stoned out of her mind. She is playing the shy dreamy princess who stares at the stars and dreams of a day when hiding people’s pens and sneaking into judge’s rooms at night is rewarded with twenty grand and a crown. Unfortunately, she may get exactly what she wants.

Did you see that hem? I’m not bragging but I noticed it way before Santino gave her hell for it. It looks like the hem I made on my first Barbie doll gown. I tried to even it out over and over until it was one big whack job. He also hates the front of it since it is reading like corn stalks.

All in all, the judges love Nina and Bebe and Santino gives Shannel more shit for not feeling any connection to who she is. What they don’t realize is that they have taken an amazingly beautiful girl who is a credit to drag and frustrated her into being a shell of her former self. At this point she doesn’t know what is up and what is down.

Caca is the first one asked who should be eliminated and she wins more friends by asking if she only gets to pick one. Nice job, bitch. She hems and haws about how some of the girls have peaked already while she deserves a chance to grow. Ru forces her to pick somebody and she says Shannel. Why? Because she’s annoying at times. Really? You would know. Ru asks who Bebe and Nina want to send home and they both agree that it should be Caca. Nina says it’s because she lacks dignity and respect and Bebe says that she is on a lower level than the rest of them. Now it’s Shannel’s turn. She tells the judges that she is glad she was asked. I am waiting with bated breath for a fabulous tirade about how she keeps getting shoved under the rug in favor of losers like Caca, but no. She nominates herself.

And I nominate this as one of the stupidest moves in reality show history.

Ugh. She says that she doesn’t want to be there anymore after being underappreciated week after week. I hate to quote Ayn Rand here but what she said rings true in this case. It’s like throwing pearls before swine and not getting even a pork chop in return. Ru tells her that she is beautiful and that she wants her to stay but Shannel is unwavering.

I loved Merle’s face when Shannel said that she wanted to leave.

What? You mean my decisions have consequences beyond my control?

It is what it is and I have to give Shannel credit for throwing a wrench into their plans.

I watched the behind the scenes part of the bonus materials on Logo and it looked like Bebe talked her into staying for the lip synch. She gave her the affirmation that she needed whether what Shannel did was a part of strategy or not. I know that some of the judges think that but I am not convinced. I think that she finally showed her emotions and didn’t want to stay in a situation where she was not appreciated.

Well, when it comes down to it, bebe wins and she gets a custom made gown from Miami Elite Designs. I think that they do some of the dresses on Toddlers and Tiaras but I’ll have to ask Dear Crabby. They are going to need a lot more fabric if that’s the case.

Nina is safe because she was feminine without resorting to overt sexuality, yet another thing that my Great Aunt has going for her and Caca and our showgirl are in the bottom two.

They have to lip synch to “Shackles” by Mary Mary and guess who gets blown away for the umpteenth time? Caca. God, she sucks. They send Shannel home and here’s the thing: we’ve been served up potluck judging for six weeks now and I have to make another food analogy in regards to how they pick the person they eliminate. This time it was like they went to a decent restaurant and because they didn’t know what filet mignon was, they ordered the turkey burger instead.

The good news is that they got served up something off the menu.

Suck on that for a while, bitches.

In her exit interview Shannel said that she felt like she had already won and I hope she honestly feels that way. I am now rooting for Nina but I have to wonder, if it wasn’t for her tirade, would Shannel still be here and would we finally be rid of the dreaded Caca? I know what the final challenge is and it’s not going to be easy for anyone. I’ve known it from the very beginning, thanks to a slip of Ru’s tongue when I interviewed her. It’s one that you cannot skate by on, you really have to have some talent to do it so I’m thankful for that.

How are you all feeling? I’m sorry the recap is so late, I was a tad bit under the weather and still am. Maybe it was something I ate.

Love and Kisses,

Twunty McSlore