Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the ninth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – “The Crystal Ball: Episode 200,” a ball with a Crystalized Eleganza design challenge that nods to Kennedy Davenports iconic “I had crystallized” runway for the “Death Becomes Her” theme.
This episode is a celebration of all things Drag Race, which is really no different than any other episode of Drag Race. Ever since that “Lip Sync Extravaganza Eleganza” spoken word lip sync challenge back on Season 5 (10 years ago this month!), the Drag Race juggernaut has become increasingly self-referential. The show is constantly high on its own supply, which only works because it has featured so many incredible drag artists over the past 14 years and 199 prior episodes.
However, it’s that weight of history that makes it increasingly hard for each season to stand up to all that came before. It’s not like every American Idol contestant has to occasionally sing in the style of a past contestant. Do Project Runway contestants occasionally have to remake the garments of past competitors? Do housemates on Big Brother speak exclusively in quotes from past housemates?
I don’t know, because in the realm of reality TV these days I mostly only watch British shows about painting that are borderline meditative.
My point is that the more you self-reference, the more reductive and insular you get. It’s the reality-TV version of inbreeding. You want more “walk that fucking ducks” and fewer repeats of “proportionizing” and “Miss Vanjie.” Those things were hilarious to the audience the first time around, but they produce less and less positive nostalgia from every hit.
At the same time I don’t want the show to encourage repeats of past bits, I also want it (and, in particular, Michelle) to drop the “We’ve seen it before” critique for things that aren’t deliberate copies. In 199 episodes just of this main franchise we have seen a lot of concepts and gags. For every innovative plunging dress with a crystal spine like Anetra’s this episode, we’ve seen a dozen beauty pageant looks and people coughing up things on the runway.
I think that kind of repetitiveness is fine. Let’s judge these queens on the originality of their total package of drag without harping on them for imitating one little design element or runway beat of a past queen. I think that’s just another function of this show’s self-obsession.
If that sounds like a lot of complaining, perhaps it’s because I’m worn out on these hyper-speed episodes and I didn’t like many of the looks in this ball. Oh, and that was a terrible lip sync to one of my favorite Lil Nas X songs!
That lead to some minor shuffling in the ranks compared to last week’s rank of the Lalaparuza, but it’s still the same four queens in line for the finale and the same few queens wrestling over who will be the next out. The only real surprise is the one queen who seems to be improbably floating in the middle of those two groups at the moment.
Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 9 – “The Crystal Ball: Episode 200” & Crystalized Eleganza design challenge Review & Power Ranking
