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RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K. Recap: Comedy and Errors

Season 4 Episode 9 Editor’s Rating2 stars **

Photo: Courtesy of World of Wonder There was a moment in the final lip sync when Pixie Polite stumbled. She either tripped over her massive(ly unflattering) dress or just her heels, but it was really a metaphor for what happened this entire episode: Pixie tripped. Actually, she choked. One of the favorites out of the gate, she couldn’t win a comedy challenge, which was her strong suit, and got the bedazzled boot right before the finale, which doesn’t seem very fair to me.

When the episode starts in the workroom, JB says to everyone, “We did the Rusical. We did the improv challenge, now the acting challenge, what’s next?” Well, it’s the roast. We all figured that out by process of elimination and because Drag Race hasn’t come up with a new challenge since Michelle Visage was a virgin. (That was my attempt at roasting. Sorry.) This time the roast is called the General Erection, which is funny, but why are we even bothering to theme the roast? They don’t theme Snatch Game. Don’t try to, as Danny Beard said about Starlet, roll this turd around in rhinestones.

Since both JB and BP (which is either British Petroleum or Black Peppa) won the lip sync last week, they get to put the queens in order. After some kibitzing from the peanut gallery, they put Cheddar last when she asked to go first. An actual fight and screaming match ensues, which is exactly why the producers chose this method to get the girls to figure out the lineup. They’re falling right into their trap. Eventually, in the classic British pass-ag way, Cheddar says she’s fine. Danny says when someone says they are “fine” they are “Feeling Insecure Needy, and Emotional,” which is very cute. I would say that she is feeling PISSED, or Pretty Irate Sister Since Everyone is Dumb.

All the queens get a chance to work with Aisling Bea, who is a hilarious stand-up comedian — whose show, This Way Up, is on Hulu — and definitely worth your time. There’s only 12 episodes. You can finish it before Carson Kressley finishes stoning a blazer. You can tell just from Danny’s entrance that he is going to slay the challenge. When Aisling asks if he’s from Liverpool, he says, “What gave me away? The stolen clothes.” Then when she asks to be read by him, he says, “No you don’t. Not with them boots.”

Mx. Bea is actually a great coach and gives all the ladies confidence and actual concrete help with building a stand-up set. Cheddar especially needs it. She says that she has good character and structure, she just needs help with the jokes. Um, that’s kind of like saying that you made a great chili, you just need some help getting the meat. Girl, all you got is some runny beans. That’s not chili. Anyway, Aisling is even giving Peppa some good advice, getting her to give more, speak louder, and deliver a punch line. After the rehearsal, it seems like the only one who is really in danger is Peppa, who is convinced that she’s not funny. She says she can take this in any direction she wants though, because there are no expectations on her.

Speaking of expectations, Danny gets up first and absolutely slays, not only roasting the final queens and the judging panel but also the eliminated queens (minus Baby) who came back just for the roast. How did no one go harder on Dakota Schiffer? This is the first time she ever looked bad with what looked like a bunch of film canisters on her head. Oh, sorry, kids. Film canisters are the things pictures came in before Jesus and Steve Jobs invented the telephone. My favorite joke of hers was the first one, when she says that they found a drug den behind the Liverpool public library: “I was just as shocked as the rest of you … that we had a library.” Solid work.

JB is next, and I wasn’t expecting much, but she gave us the persona of a drunk politician, and I think she slayed like St. George facing the dragon or Kelis doing absolutely anything. “I’m so Northern Irish, my gender reveal was a bomb scare,” she says. Great gag. I hated when she was making jokes about a job center and Ru yells out, “What’s a job center?” Girl, if you’re going to do a show in the U.K. at least learn the lingo! And, yes, a job center is basically an unemployment office with a much better title.

So everyone is smashing it, and I’m feeling good rolling into Black Peppa’s set and then, well, I fell harder than Aja on top of a box. When no one is laughing at her jokes about traffic, she tells them, “Just laugh,” and that is really the only laugh she gets. Good thing she’s so pretty.

Pixie takes the stage looking like Margaret Thatcher brought back from the grave and giving a bad makeup tutorial. We all think she’s going to slay, especially since Aisling was praising her material, but it stinks worse than Cheddar’s look from last week. Oh, sorry. I meant a rotting cabbage. It’s something about her delivery. She’s somewhat tentative? She ruins her joke about Alan’s teeth looking like Stonehenge. She makes a joke about Ru being a 9,000-year-old skeleton, which should be funny but just comes across as mean. It’s not about material, it’s about delivery, and like an Amazon driver who drops a brick of ketamine on your front porch, the delivery was criminal.

Last up is Cheddar, whose best joke is to call the returning queens the “bareback benchers,” which no one gets. (A “back bencher” in British politics is a member of Parliament who has no political appointments. Think Marjorie Taylor Greene, but with a brain.) She is pretending like she is an alien overlord come to snatch everyone’s babies, which is a good framing device but ultimately a failure. If Danny and JB are in the top, and Pixie and BP are in the bottom, then Cheddar is vers, I guess. We can call her a power vers.

On the runway, the category is Pretty in Punk, and everyone really delivers, including best-of-season looks for Danny, JB, and Cheddar. The judges especially love Danny’s yellow plaid Vivienne Westwood (and The Vivienne) inspired look with a giant Joan Jett wig. I was a big fan of JB’s enormous safety pin in a sheer body-stocking dress. Cheddar’s look was so authentically punk, with its studs, leather, fishnets, boots, and green spiked hairpieces, that she could be in a museum.

The only one who really stunk up the runway was Pixie, who looked like she was wearing a Holiday Inn Express’ curtains wrapped around her body. Yes, it seemed a little punk, but it fit worse than a vegan at a steakhouse. All of it was bunched together in her FUPA, making her look like the orb and scepter of the queen that she threw into the audience.

The judging goes just like you would expect with Danny taking the punk crown and JB getting a commendation and sent to the back of the stage. Power Vers Cheddar is safe, and Black Peppa and Pixie have to lip-sync against each other. I like Peppa, but at this point she’s been in the bottom so many times that she just needs to get the ax. After she and JB were in the bottom last week, why couldn’t they just pull the trigger and send her home? Oh, because they have to find ten episodes of content, that’s why.

When it comes to the lip sync, Peppa was leaping and twisting and delivering all over the stage. Pixie doffed her dress immediately, but it cockblocked her from going anywhere on the stage. Eventually, after her trip, it seems like she just gave up, standing stunned in the middle of the stage and half-assedly mocking all of Peppa’s moves in an attempt at comedy. It was another stumble for our Pixie and one that sends her right home, snatched from the final that she so deserved to be a part of.

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