35 thoughts I had watching Drag Race season 16, episode 12: ‘That’s what we call a set-up’

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16, episode 12 is here; Q is pressed, our two frontrunners get another win each and we finally have our top five.

Following last week’s drag seminar challenge, which saw Q edge ever closer to a nuclear-level meltdown because she didn’t win, the remaining queens are tasked with the weirdest Drag Race challenge yet; design and present their own bathrooms. I’m not saying this season was filmed during a Writers’ Strike, but…

We also get a juicy werk room ‘discussion’ between Mother Sapphira and Q, a moment of vulnerability from Plane, some incredibly hot men in some very small pants and a lip sync song so rigged you’d think it was a pirate ship.

Here are 35 thoughts I had while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, season 16, episode 12.

• I will kick this recap off by saying this: I have never seen a queen be such a sore loser as that lady in the alphabet after P. Q is standing there with the stoniest face you have ever seen because Sapphira snatched the win last ep over her. It’s never that deep, diva!
  
• Sapphira says “I love you” to Q and she SNIFFS back. I’d fight.
  
• I do feel like this top six was the top six that was decided 12 episodes ago. And the top four – in my mind – is just as obvious.
  
• The next day Q tells Sapphira that her win “wasn’t deserved”. That is unhinged! Get over it!
  
• “If it wasn’t deserved, why do you think it happened?” Sapphira is so c*nty.
  
• Dawn trying to run in seven different directions at once during this mini challenge is so funny.
  
• After a mini challenge that is entirely unremarkable apart from how hot the pit crew look, the queens are given the weirdest Drag Race challenge yet for episode 12. In pairs, the queens have to design a model powder room.
  
• Club 96, they will never be you.
  
• The pairs are Sapphira and Plane, Nymphia and Dawn, and Q and Morphine – and Morphine is very rightfully stressed that Q’s bitter routine is going to get in the way of the challenge.
  
• Q saying she moves on very quickly and didn’t let her emotions show last week is crazy. Girl, Jan was better at hiding her emotions.

• I would want to be on Plane and Sapphira’s team, that’s my top two – but Plane is getting stressed that Sapphira will overshadow her when the pair go down an ‘opera’ route for their bathroom, which is a fair concern.
  
• I can’t believe I enjoy Plane Jane now, after she was, and I say this with my chest, a c**t for the first half of the season. That is a smart queen, because she’s not only good at drag, she’s good at Drag Race.
  
• This is when Drag Race gets so weird; why are these drag queens doing a Bobby Berk Queer Eye cosplay and designing rooms?
  
• Omg the girls are having a paint fight and painting each other’s rooms! Funny.
  
• Plane and Sapphira’s room looks like a grandma’s house.
  
• Morphine just said: “I have a really fierce metabolism”. I love gay people.
  
• Dawn’s mid makeup face is wild. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage drag king Dusk.
  
• Morphine is taking me out this episode! Why is she telling a story about shitting herself?! MISS “INCONTINENTAL”, oh my god.
  
• Sapphira mothers these girls so hard. Even when she’s putting Q in her place, it’s with dignity and respect! And dare I say, Q didn’t deserve dignity or respect with how she acted.
  
• Plane having a humanising moment in the mirror after being the villain all season? That’s a girl who’s good at Drag Race.

• The runway category is chains, and please don’t persecute me for saying this, but Morphine is giving Melinda Verga’s promo look from CDR season four.
  
• Sapphira’s runway is insane! BDSM Snoopy? I’m obsessed with her.
  
• The first bathroom is Q and Morphine in a hell-inspired setting. It’s cute! It’s fun. I just do not understand how any of these queens are meant to do ‘worse’ or ‘better’ than anyone else like… what is the criteria?
  
• I am not paying attention to a single thing either of these divas is saying because there is a pit crew man in skimpy speedos with a massive bulge strapped to the wall being tickled? Clearly it’s not cold in that bathroom. He’s my winner.
  
• Morphine flubs one (1) line, so she’s in the bottom.
  
• Dawn and Nymphia are doing an art-themed bathroom, and again, criteria is unclear. Michelle and Carson are on toilets on wheels being flung around the room? As Jasmine Masters once said, RuPaul’s Drag Race done f**ked up drag.
  
• Onto the winning team Sapphira and Jane’s room, who are doing a ‘Bootylicker Speakeasy’ situation and the hot Pit Crew guy is back. Lord forgive me for these thoughts.
  
• Ok, I understand how you’re meant to win this challenge; do what Sapphira and Plane do.

• Morphine and Q don’t get fantastic critiques, but Morphine gets the ‘fade into the background’ kiss of death comment; as does Dawn with Nymphia.
  
• Plane and Sapphira get glowing critiques, unsuprisingly.
  
• Q can’t stand to see another queen get good feedback! Every time Sapphira gets a compliment, Q looks so cracked?
  
• TL;DR – Dawn and Morphine got lost in the sauce and Nymphia didn’t let the room breathe.
  
• Sapphira and Plane win, and to be honest I could have called that from the moment the pairs were read out.
  
• Dawn and Morphine lip sync to ‘Body’ by Megan Thee Stallion – and that, my friends, is what we call a setup. Like that is so evil to pit that woodland elf against the self-professed BBL queen of Miami to this song? Ru wanted her gone.
  
• Sophie Ellis Bextor wrote the song ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ about this lipsync because Dawn has been well and truly dispatched. God, Morphine’s a good performer.

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16 continues on Friday on MTV in the US and on Saturday on WOW Presents Plus internationally. You can read last week’s recap here.

• Nov 29 2023

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