S12 E09: Choices 2020

I imagine the broccoli thing is just Ru doing a bit of a kindness for some contestants and giving each of them SOMETHING to work with even if they haven't been on that long. It must be astonishingly hard otherwise to get anything out of the show if you go out first.
 
Sherry Pie is indeed disgusting. Nina West was similar, but likeable.
 
It’s like the judges have seen as little of Sherry as we have and now they suddenly discovered that she’s been doing the same look and the same personna since episode 1.
 
Jaida is really my #2 of this seaon now. Heidi and Crystal as joint #3 for being adorable.
 
Penelope said:
I imagine the broccoli thing is just Ru doing a bit of a kindness for some contestants and giving each of them SOMETHING to work with even if they haven't been on that long. It must be astonishingly hard otherwise to get anything out of the show if you go out first.
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As if Ru gives two fucks about any of these girls, let alone one that was her for two minutes!
 
Dark Carnival said:
As if Ru gives two fucks about any of these girls, let alone one that was her for two minutes!
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It's all for the better for her franchise in the end!

I have a half-baked theory that it's actually the reason why so many of the recent All Stars seasons (particularly 3!) have ended up with multiple queens who could each have a stake to being the 'rightful' winner - more profile, more fans, higher fees, and ultimately more pulling power for stuff like DragCon.
 
This series seems to have settled into a good episode / bad episode cycle. This was a bad one.

The good: Raven, Jackie's lipsync, Jackie's runway, Heidi Nina Closet, Jaida :disco:, Goldblum

The bad: The entire main challenge, the broccoli, the Lorraine Kelly judge

The ugly: The entire mini challenge

Gigi is well and truly slipping down the ranks now and there's nothing beyond a catwalk queen parading in her Mum's outfits. Shame. If a personality doesn't burst forth very soon, I struggle to see her winning.

An overdue and welcome ta ra to Widow, who not only delivered a boring challenge and a flop runway, backchatted Ru on the stage and then an launched into an extended sobbing exit. No MA'AM.

Werking it for the week:

1. Jaida
2. Heidi Nina Closet
3. Jackie Brown
4. Gigi
5. Crystal
6. Grotty old Sherry
7. Widow
 
Fuck you Katy Perry for that hideous shouty song that has been stuck in my head all day.
 
I liked this episode personally. Thought the debate was sharp... and I too loved Jaida's 'look over there'. It was clever because I don't think she is very political so she did what she could with the limited knowledge she has and actually made a good satirical point.

It was like Aiden's 'I don't know anything' in the Snatch Game, but done smartly and with humour.

I also liked the sheer ridiculousness of Widow's Hokey Cokey. :D

I also enjoyed Jeff. So sue me. I thought he was a nice change from the usual guests and his humour is so different to the usual judges, drier and less extravagant and made for a nice change-up.

Jaida has risen right to the top of the pack for me, from almost nowhere.

And no fucking way should Jackie have been bottom 2. Everything she did this week was stronger than Gigi - I think that's 3 weeks in a row where Ru has rated Gigi higher than I thought she deserved... and two weeks in a row I feel she should have been bottom 2 and got away with it. Is she a shit lipsyncer and they're trying to protect her? Having said that, those 'slip of the tongue' Canada/America gags were really painful. Those never ever work in comedy. They just come across as so fake and shit.
 
Jackie was obviously put in the bottom 2 because they wanted a lip sync to a modern US pop classic featuring a drag queen in a Stars & Stripes hibjab.

I mean it worked, don't get me wrong. But they could just as easily have edited that performance to justify putting her in the top.
 
She really was nowhere near good enough for the top on the basis of what we saw. Her jokes didn't land one little bit. If she'd been in a 2nd or 3rd position from the challenge I imagine they'd have loved to give her a win this week wearing the hijab (incidentally I loved that - one of my favourite outfits of the season), but she just wasn't there. It reminds me a little bit of Miz Cracker where she struggles to be funny when she tries to be too clever.
 
I thought Jackie had the most fully-realised character and did not deserve to be bottom 2. It was a good task idea but poorly executed but pushing the queens to take the piss, when really what was inside of them was that they take the political climate right now very seriously. I loved Jackie’s runway and just for that alone I thought she should have won
 
I thought Jeff Goldblum’s question about Islam was awkward and came off as very ignorant, but was saved by Jackie’s answers as others have said.

The Cats mini-challenge and runway were fun, but the main challenge was a MESS.

Raven was a total MVP. I’ve been watching the season with my mum, who got into Drag Race through the UK series and isn’t familiar with any of the previous US queens, and she was CACKLING AWAY at Raven’s contributions.
 
I think pretty much any of them could have been edited to be on top/at the bottom of that episode. Nobody excelled and nobody was terrible.
 
But Jackie's Ertha Kitt performance and her hijab were the best things about this week, so really she should have won. Although Jaida and Widow looked great too.
 
I don't think Goldblum's approach was out of synch with what a significant number of viewers would have thought at all. And as the way Jackie dealt with it was admirable, as an entire production, I think it was pretty well judged.
 
Chlammy said:
I think pretty much any of them could have been edited to be on top/at the bottom of that episode. Nobody excelled and nobody was terrible.
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A few people have said this... but how do any of you know that? You're literally WATCHING an edited version so you don't know that at all...
 
cwej said:
A few people have said this... but how do any of you know that? You're literally WATCHING an edited version so you don't know that at all...
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The music choices and the cuts to the hosts looking at each other in confusion versus them trying not to laugh. They could have switched the awkward silences to Jaida's bits and had the grinning on Jackie's Canada references and I don't think most people would have batted an eyelid.
 
I didn't see anything wrong with Goldblum's question. It's a discussion we don't wanna be sweeping under the rug just because it's awkward. I just don't think it belongs on the main stage of a reality TV show. Wrong place, wrong time.

Rachel Bloom was lots of fun.
 
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VoR said:
How many times have we had Christian imagery on the stage without that question being raised though?
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why raise a question about something you presumably know a lot about?
 
VoR said:
How many times have we had Christian imagery on the stage without that question being raised though?
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Because in most probably 100% of these times they were used in either a comic way or as a fashion accessory.

For a westerner, Jackie’s outfit would be associated with religion (Islam) even if it isn’t necessarily to do with religion. His question was misjudged but I don’t think it had anything malicious behind it.
 
VoR said:
How many times have we had Christian imagery on the stage without that question being raised though?
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Christianity as already been questioned and scrutinized in the West though. To suddenly start asking questions about it in 2020 on a reality TV show would kinda be child's play and somewhat of a cliche.

Islam hasn't gone through that process fully yet. It hasn't been deconstructed in the same way. People in the West, especially white people, still know so little about it. So I understand Goldblum's question. It was just a question that deserved a more appropriate platform.
 
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I thought LITERALLY EVERYBODY misunderstood the challenge tbh - it was essentially Snatch Game: Politics edition.
It would have been much more successful all round if they had all based their character on an existing politician - although some of the cast didn’t seem to be very AWARE of basic politics :D

Anyway, weird episode. Don’t really care who wins as Heidi obvs isn’t going to, and I really like the broccoli :D it’s so stupid
 
VoR said:
How many times have we had Christian imagery on the stage without that question being raised though?
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Whilst Christianity has a bad history of homophobia, in the current world it is only countries that have Muslim jurisdictions that offer the death penalty for homosexuality. There is a massive difference and I think it's a fair conversation to have. Jackie's response was perfect but I don't have an issue with Jeff asking it either - we should be discussing it.
 
The problem is that the framing and thinking behind those questions is lazy. It's as if only ignorant white people and their need to be educated matter and not the kids who are constantly having it reinforced to them that their religious background is different, is other.
 
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