Drag Race season 10 episode 3 recap: ‘I’m not crying, tears are just sashaying out my face’ A newbie’s hot take

This week the Drag Race formula, which previously fizzed and popped beyond my comprehension, began to settle and take shape – although not without some fresh surprises.

While last week’s episode focused on the feud between Miz Cracker and Aquaria, this week it was Aquaria and The Vixen. Things got so heated over a wig that Aquaria ditched the shade and asked The Vixen if she could “shut the fuck up”.

It didn’t quite work though. As Monique Heart noted, “The Vixen handed Aquaria her ass wrapped, in a gift bag.”

Related: What time-space continuum are Drag Race contestants on?

While this backbiting is becoming a predictable feature of the show, something then happened that cut through all the usual drama.

As some of the queens began to talk about their religious upbringings, Dusty Ray Bottoms revealed a moment that had changed her life.

It began when Dusty’s parents “found something” on her computer. God-fearing and bigoted, they took her to church to be exorcised. After this, she was put into gay conversion therapy.

Dusty Ray Bottoms (VH1)

She soon left home and cut off her family, who don’t know what she does, or even that she’s on Drag Race.

She was told she’d never find success in a homosexual relationship or love.

Yet as the show pointed out, she’s now on Drag Race and engaged to a beautiful man called Mark. Photos of them smiling come up on the screen and no, I’m not crying. Tears are just sashaying out of my face.


Going back to the rest of the show, the maxi challenge didn’t disappoint.

Each of the three teams was given a new dating app to sell. There was Fibstr for catfishers, End of Days for last-chance doomsday daters, and Madame Buttrface for women with a “Baywatch body, but the face of a hurricane”.

Miz Cracker (VH1)

Related: Is Drag Race usually this intense? 

The teams got off to a rocky start, but by the end, the adverts they produced were much more polished than we were originally led to believe.

Asia O’Hara’s neanderthal make-up for the Buttrface app was easily the funniest part of the show. Combined with her Tweety Pie dress, it wasn’t surprising when she won.

Meanwhile, Yuhua’s bit for Buttrface was painfully unfunny. Not only did she refuse to make herself look ugly like everyone else, but her ball-rolling routine had nothing at all to do with the app.

The penultimate nail in Yuhua’s coffin came when she admitted to writing all her own terrible dialogue to the judges, yet refused to accept any blame for it.

She then continued to hammer the lid shut while lip-syncing for her life against Mayhem Miller.

With Courtney Love appearing as this week’s special guest, the song was Hole’s “Celebrity Skin”. While Mayhem pulled it out of the bag, for some reason she played air guitar like a hyperactive teenage boy.

As RuPaul might say: Yuhua got to be kidding me.