After Marcia Marcia Marcia’s elimination and Anetra’s outstanding lip sync against her, Anetra is ready for another win since she has only won once at the premiere. On the other hand, Salina has placed safe or in the bottom the whole competition and in her head she doesn’t need to have wins under her belt to win. Delusion runs high this season.
Surprisingly, there’s no drama when the girls enter the Werk Room the next day and RuPaul announces the maxi challenge, Wigloose: The Rusical. This challenge, which isn’t really a musical because it’s all lip syncing, is based off of the movie Footloose but instead it is about a small town where drag has been outlawed.
Then I noticed I spoke too soon. When the queens are deciding who will play which role, the claws come out when Luxx and Loosey both want the role of Heaven Bacon. Both queens say they want the role because they relate to Heaven the most since he’s a bubbly kid. But Mistress and Luxx call out Loosey for not being genuine about her reasoning for wanting the role. They know she just wants the lead since she’s Miss Pick-Me of the season. When Mistress interjects to say that Luxx’s personality fits Heaven better, Loosey continuously tries to interrupt her so she can plead her own case. Luxx then says, “Keeping it 100, it’s the lead, you want to do the lead.” Mistress stirs the pot with the largest ladle of all time saying, “I’m not even cutting up, I just feel like you’re not being real.” This sets off Loosey who yells back, “You think I’m not being real right now?” Loosey then gets emotional because she feels like she’s being singled out while they imply that she’s a liar. Loosey then settles on the role of Tuck, but then Luxx gives Loosey the role of Heaven because she doesn’t need to be the lead to shine.
Outside of all that drama, Mistress chooses the villain, Preacher Teacher; Anetra got Mama Bacon; Salina took the role of Tuck durring Luxx and Loosey’s fight; Luxx decided to pick Christian; and Sasha chose Carl, who is the submissive, nerdy husband married to the villain.
RuPaul shows up again for the walkthroughs and Sasha shares that this challenge hits close to home. When she went to church growing up, her family said her sins are worse than everyone else’s sins. But when Sasha came out as transgender to her mom, she was told: “Well I just know you’re not going to be in heaven with us,” and it was a surprise that her mom could let her child go so easily.
During Ru’s conversation with Sasha, Loosey expresses her feelings to resident therapist, Dr. Salina Estiddies, on how she always feels judged when she speaks even when she was younger and proceeds to cry. Anetra then shares to Ru that drag saved her life when her mom’s family kicked her out, but when she went to DragCon, she felt normal and in the right place. Salina feels confident after RuPaul tells her to breathe and shine like she has been doing this whole competition, which has led her to the top six.
In my opinion, the most boring part of challenges like these are the rehearsal scenes. To sum it up and save everyone some time: Loosey dances like a white girl; Anetra supposedly struggles with the choreography; when Luxx throws her jacket to the girls, Mistress calls her out for having a security tag on it; Salina does a great job; Mistress didn’t do the choreography but instead talks the whole time; and the editors forgot to include Sasha.
While painting their faces, the girls talk about how realistic the Rusical is. This season was filmed during the summer of 2022 when people in government in the mid-west and the south were already proposing bills to ban drag. Mistress shares that she has to be on guard and that it’s scary at times when she goes out in drag in Texas. Sasha explains that the people who want to ban drag also want to hurt queer people, and while queer people like her want to express themselves, they have to hide who they are sometimes for safety.
Loosey then brings up Drag Queen Story Hour, where drag artists go to schools and read childrens books for kids. Unfortunataly, there are usually protestors who become violent at these events but they are the ones who say that drag artists need to be stopped. Luxx thinks that queer people continuously going out in the world and showing resilience will be the driving force for change. Sasha adds that conservatives say queer people and artists try to push their agenda on straight people, but it’s conservatives who are pushing their agenda on queer people.
With guest judge Orville Peck, the queens perform the lip sync challenge live. Heaven Bacon sets up the Rusical by introducing himself with Mama Heaven as his drag mom. During his first day at a new school, Preacher Teacher creates an anti-drag setting in her classroom as Heaven greets his classmates. Confused as to why they’re banning drag since Heaven came from a big city, Christian and Tuck inform Heaven after class about a local barn that used to host drag shows. After some singing and dancing, Christian and Tuck tell Heaven about a board meeting that will officially ban drag in their town. At the board meeting, Carl tries to persuade Preacher Teacher to change her mind about the ban, but fails.
Mama Heaven then hosts a drag ball with the students but of course Preacher Teacher interrupts it. Mama Heaven then performes a heartwarming ballad about the power of drag. Then Carl shows up in drag to steal the show giving a Patti LaBelle inspired performance. Preacher Teacher then takes off her trench coat to reveal a red bodysuit and rips up the anti-drag bill, and they live happily ever after.
Finally, the best part of every episode is the runway and the category is “Everybody Say Glove!”
- First up, Loosey is in a green Creature from the Black Lagoon inspired look with webbed hand gloves, but the cut near the crotch looks like granny panties and it doesn’t fit well.
- Anetra strutts in a blue shiny fabric glove, bra and panty combination with a black mesh catsuit underneath covering her whole body as green rave lasers shoot from her palms.
- Mistress models in a monochromatic yellow dress with beaded patterns and exaggerated huge Pepper LaBeija-like sleeves but she wore the same wig from last week.
- Luxx is clever enough to wear arm casts for her gloves along with the same bowl cut wig that was on Mistress’s Kelly Rowland puppet from a couple weeks ago and a pair of baggy black pants with red ribbons and zippers giving Hot Topic couture. Unfortunately, she is wearing red platform flats.
- Salina walks backwards to, thankfully, limit the amount of time we need to see the front of her catsuit. She moves her massive red gloves that are the size of her toso to expose a cartoon face in tones of yellow, coral, and beige with eyes on her breats and a mouth on her lady part.
- Last but certainly not least, Sasha comes in to save the day in a gloves, bra, and mini-skirt look made entirely out of baseball gloves. The lacey-Timberland inspired thigh high boots and pigtails top if all off.
Ross begins the critiquing process by saying that tonight’s Rusical was the best he’s seen on the show and Michelle added that it was Broadway level good. Ru asks Luxx about the change of roles debate with Loosey and Luxx admitts she gave Loosey the role of Heaven, and Loosey looks like she’s sucking on lemons.
RuPaul then asks the question we’ve been waiting for all season: “Who should go home tonight, and why?” Loosey and Anetra choose Salina; Mistress chooses Sasha because she’s “tired of being at the Sasha Colby meet and greet, and that’s [her] biggest competition.” Then Luxx goes down the line complementing each queen until she gets to Loosey where she says “Loosey’s drag, I would have to say for a lack of a better word, is a little more on the generic side.” At this point, Loosey is chugging lemonade with no added sugar. Salina calls out the girls who chose her to say they’re fake, so she chooses Loosey. Then Sasha goes with Loosey or Luxx because they both have two wins.
Loosey and Salina end up in the bottom. Loosey only did well when she performed as a boy in the challenge but not in drag and Salina’s look is the only possible reason why she ended up in the bottom two. Mistress was deemed safe and Sasha was close to a fourth win, but this was Anetra’s week. Anetra is now one of three girls who have two challenge wins in the competition.
Loosey and Salina lip sync to “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush. This could have been a case for a double elimination because neither of them did a good job. Loosey had a little bit of emotional versatiity and that was enough to save her. After four times in the bottom two, Salina is sent home. At this point in the competition, the frontrunner keeps changing with queens other than Sasha finally winning challenges, but I think everyones eyes are still on Sasha.