Drag Race season 10 episode 10 review: Turning social media stars into queens with a big straight twist
RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10, episode 10 (VH1)
The unofficial theme of this week’s Drag Race is definitely “mixing it up.” After all, it is the 10th episode, so a little variety goes a long way. (How many more episodes are there?)
This week the biggest twist comes in the form of a makeover challenge. The contestants are each paired with social media “kings,” who they must transform into queens. Or as Ru says, it’s time to “put the glam in the Instagram, and some glitter on the Twitter.”
Although that’s not the only bit of entertainment that subverts the already subversive spectacle of Drag Race. For the mini challenge the six remaining girls have to become “manly men” for a body spray advert. They have to present themselves as hunky, gravel-voiced lumberjacks with axes, high-vis jackets and big boots.
In a hilariously crowded field, Eureka wins after working it as a Danny McBride lookalike, replete with a scraggly mullet and deep southern drawl. This means she gets to choose who is paired off with which social media star.
After Ru’s dressing down of Aquaria for not being scheming enough last week (she allowed everyone to choose their own roles for “Breastworld”), Eureka turns into Miss Machiavelli. “I paired them up based on who would be their demise!” she cackles to the camera.
Although the extent of how evil Eureka can be is limited. Really, the most scheming thing she does (or thinks she does) is pair Aquaria up with the YouTuber Kingsley because he’s black. We find out later that Aquaria actually has experience doing make-up for people of colour, so the joke is really on Eureka. Although there’s a question mark over whether the actual consequences of her pairings matter. If they increase her chances of winning then fine, but it’s clear Ru just wants to see her being a bad bitch, as it shows she wants to win.
Drag Race’s Eureka and Frankie Grande (VH1)
The social media stars are a relatively diverse mix of men. There’s the very sincere YouTuber Tyler Oakley, Ariana Grande’s brother Frankie (who was on Big Brother), as well as Chester See, Kingsley, Anthony Padilla and Raymond Braun (look them up?). What they do is slightly beyond me, but I think it involves talking to a camera and lots of people liking and subscribing. How hard can it be?
The best part of the social media guys being paired with the queens is the shocking revelation that – wait for it, are you ready? – some of them are straight. When Chester tells Miz Cracker, he hasn’t seen the show but his ex-girlfriend loves it, Miz Cracker does a double take and has to ask if he’s hetero . When he says “yes,” the show literally plays “duh duh duhh” music as if it’s just been revealed he’s Miss Vanjie in disguise. Miz Cracker quickly gets her composure back however. “It’s OK, I accept your lifestyle,” she tells him, completely deadpan.
Miz Cracker isn’t the only queen stuck in a straight rut. Kameron Michaels is very unhappy at first with his woman-sexing makeover buddy, despite his whopping 2.6 million YouTube subscribers. What makes it worse for Kameron however is that she was bullied by straight people at school, so having to interact with him makes her apprehensive.
This episode lacks a proper skit section with funny dialogue, and the main challenge revolves mostly around the runway. It’s followed by a slightly strange section where the queens and their proteges – who are meant to look like they’re part of the same family – dance and pose in front of a camera for “RuTube.”
Drag Race made over some social media kings (VH1)
The clear winners of the night are Eureka and Frankie Grande, who create a funny mother-daughter duo. Although they’re matched by Miz Cracker and Chester See, who becomes “Miz Cookie.” In fact, Chester’s transformation is definitely the best out of everyone’s, and despite a nervous start he embraces it all, which is great to see. As Ru says earlier in the episode, when he first embraced femininity he realised “life is a banquet and those suckers [men who don’t embrace it] are starving to death” – and Chester looks like he’s finally got a seat at the table.
Meanwhile, Kameron’s “look” is more one of surprise that she’s made it this far than anything else. Both her and Monét X Change disappoints the judges after failing to pull off a convincing family act. They’re eventually put up for elimination, although in my humble opinion it should have been Aquaria instead of Monét.
Monét and Kameron lip sync to Lizzo’s verified banger “Good as Hell” as the singer watches from the judge’s panel. Going into the battle, all the money seems to be on Monét, but my god does Kameron pull it out the bag. Monét on the other hand definitely short changes herself.
It’s really all over the moment Kameron does a backward cartwheel, although she kills it throughout. You can see the panic in Monét’s eyes as soon as Kameron flips. She tries to pull it back by walking off the stage, before running down the runway into a sliding splits, but it doesn’t really work out.
So Monét gets eliminated. And it’s actually sad! She is so good, and was one of my favourites. She wipes her face with a sponge (a great reference to her infamous episode one outfit) and sashays away.
