Spilling the tea on season 14, episode five

*Warning* The following article contains spoilers for RuPaul’s Drag Race season 14, episode five.

It is official, Alyssa Hunter has sashayed away. After Kerri Colby won the lipsync, the queens reentered the werkroom to de-drag. Kerri is determined to redeem herself after her poor performance last week. Both Bosco and Lady Camden expressed they are both hungry for a win.

We also receive some absolutely devastating news. During last week’s acting challenge, Kornbread “The Snack” Jeté rolled her ankle and after seeing a doctor has been told to stay off her ankle for six to eight weeks. This means that Kornbread will officially be leaving season 14 of Drag Race.

I was devastated after hearing the news about Kornbread. She has been a queen that I have been rooting for to go to the end since she walked into the werkroom. Her charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent had me captivated since she first opened her mouth. It’s going to be really hard not seeing her in the competition, especially after her critiques last week. I was ready to see Kornbread open up and show us her vulnerable side.

This week the queens are making public service announcements for Save a Queen. Save a Queen is dedicated to representing the first queens eliminated from their season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. This week RuPaul found a fun and creative way for the queens to choose their teams. Each queen picks a balloon and, with the help of the Pit Crew, have to bump and grind to pop the balloons. Each balloon is filled with a colored confetti to represent each team.

This week queens on the orange team are DeJa Skye, Kerri Colby, Angeria Paris VanMichaels and Jorgeous. The queens on the purple team are Maddy Morphosis, Willow Pill, Jasmine Kennedie and Orion Story. Finally, the queens on the green team are Bosco, Lady Camden and Daya Betty. As an added surprise, the queens are joined by some porkchops themselves, Tempest DuJour from season 7, Jaymes Mansfield from season 9 and Kahmora Hall from season 13.

Maxi Challenge

Going into the challenge I was excited for the green team. I think Bosco, Lady Camden and Daya Betty with Kahmora are a fun team pairing. I think that these three have been doing really well in the competition but haven’t managed to get into the top. Like all acting challenges, we only get to see parts of the PSA and it seemed like that team’s went the smoothest. The other two teams had a lot more questionable moments, so I think it might be green team’s week this week.

This week’s runway category is…Spring Has Sprung. For this runway the queens took a variety of interpretations from more classic spring looks to more conceptual looks. This week my top three runway looks are from Kerri Colby, Maddy Morphosis and Daya Betty. These three had more conceptual spring looks. My least favorite look this week was DeJa. Her runway looks always seem to be lacking something or are ill fitting. Unfortunately, there isn’t a runway video for this week’s episode, so I’ll include photos of my top and bottom looks.

After getting to see every team’s official PSAs I still think that the green team’s PSA was the best. Bosco, Lady Camden and Daya all worked really well together and highlighted Kamora really well in their PSA. Every one of them was able to get really great jokes into the PSA without breaking character. Every queen centered around something different, so nothing felt overdone.

The other two team’s PSAs were good but lacked the polish I got from Bosco, Lady Camden, and Daya. I thought the orange team’s biggest downfall was they only made age jokes about Tempest, so by the end of the PSA the joke felt so over-done and wasn’t funny. There was also a lack of dedication to the character from Jorgeous on this team.

The purple team’s PSA fell in the middle for me. There were some funny jokes and a variety to those jokes. For me the main issue for this team was characterization. Jasmine felt really stiff, and I understand that was the character, but it felt more comfortable than a stiff character. There were also some character problems with Orion this week as well.

To see all the Save a Queen PSA’s go to the RuPaul’s Drag Race YouTube page.

Top Queens

This week the girls worked as teams but were judged as individuals. The top queens this week are Angeria, Lady Camden and Bosco.

Angeria is on a role, she has been in the top or has won since she walked in the door. However, I think this week was the worst week she had. I felt her struggling this week in the PSA, but the final cut worked out for her. She had really funny moments, but it just didn’t feel as natural this week. She also had some runway issues this week with the fit of her outfit. The bottom floral detailed looked incredible, but the top was really ill-fitting. After what I have seen from her on the runway, I was surprised by that. Overall, I think that Angeria had a good week, but I don’t think she is winning this week.

Lady Camden had the week she was hoping for this week. In the PSA she was really funny and had great characterization. I don’t know what it is but a queen with a British accent can say the worst insult to you and somehow make it sound like a compliment. She was able to finally show us the side of Lady Camden we just haven’t been able to see yet. Her runway was also a fun British spring interpretation dressing as a tea table with a teacup head piece, and she brought her own tea. It was a really fun runway interpretation and also did a great job of showing who Lady Camden is.

Finally, I think that Bosco has this week in the bag. I think this challenge was right up her alley. Bosco comes from a burlesque/performance background and was able to bring this into the challenge. Her lines were comedic but also brought a stand-up poetry element to it. Like Michelle said, she was the only one that really went that route and I think that is what the judges were expecting from the queens. Her runway was also well-executed. Her outfit started out as storm cloud and then revealed to be a bright yellow sun-inspired dress. I personally think that both the pre- and post-reveal could have been better, but together it worked. While her runway wasn’t my favorite her performance this week was killer.

Bottom Queens

This week the queens in the bottom are Jorgeous, Jasmine Kennedie and Orion Story.

This week I think that Jorgeous had the worst overall performance. She has really struggled with the acting challenges. She said that she doesn’t feel comfortable in situations where she needs to talk and that worries me. So far, I’m getting the impression that Jorgeous relies too much on her snatched body and pretty face. It takes so much mor than that to not only win this competition but to be successful at it. These are just the beginning acting challenges, how is she going to approach a challenge like snatch game. Her runways are great, but that isn’t going to be enough to save her.

Category for the bottom queens is lack of characterization. This was true for all the queens in the bottom this week. Throughout her performance Jasmine wasn’t able to break from her monotone, robotic like citation. Michelle said that she sounded like the Count from Sesame Street. Compared to some other queens on her team she felt lifeless, like there was no life in her eyes. Jasmine got stuck in her head this week and wasn’t able to leave her brain and be in the moment. Her look on the runway was great, it showed what springtime would look like on the Las Vegas strip. But, much like Jorgeous, I don’t think it will be enough to save her.  

Finally, we have Orion. Orion has not been able to get off her hamster wheel since coming back into the competition. The first episode where she was eliminated, we got to see the funny, loose and unpolished Orion from her talent show performance. But since coming back she been very reserved, not letting that fun and expressive side show. I was really happy to see Orion get a chance to come back into the competition, but she hasn’t been able to show the judges and the audience who she is.

The Lipsync

After deliberating with the judges RuPaul gives this week’s win to Bosco. Bosco definitely deserved to win this week, she had a great performance that creatively outshined, get it because her dress was supposed to be a ray of sun, the other queens. This week’s prize is a cash tip of $5,000.

Our bottom two queens lipsyncing for their lives are Orion and Jorgeous. I think these two were the obvious bottom two this week. Even though Jasmine didn’t give a great performance, she did have some quality material written, which I think is what saved her from the bottom.

This week’s Lipsync for Your Life is to “My Head and My Heart” by this week’s guest judge Ava Max. I love this song, so I was very excited to see what kind of performance these girls would bring. Going into the lipsync I’m nervous for Orion. We have gotten to see Jorgeous lipsync during her talent show performance which put her in the top that week.

It is so hard to take your eyes off Jorgeous when she performs. She is the kind of performer that you can see it in their eyes how committed they are. Orion did her best, but there was no way she was coming out on top of Jorgeous. All the personality and fire that she has been missing in the challenges came out on that stage. Jorgeous was born to be a drag queen and this performance was just another indication of that. 

Orion did her best and brought a good performance, it was just nothing compared to Jorgeous’s excellent performance. Jorgeous gave great face, dance moves and stunts. It was extremely entertaining to watch. It wasn’t a surprise when Mama Ru said she was the winner. I just hope that she is able to bring that fire into her challenge performances.

As with the new twist this season Orion still has a chance to stay. If she has the gold chocolate bar, she’ll be safe to slay another week. Unfortunately, all she had was a plain chocolate bar. This means Orion Story’s time on season 14 has officially come to an end.

To see Jorgeous and Orion’s lipsync head over to the RuPaul’s Drag Race YouTube page.